Miniserver Update Failure

[Scott F]

I have been building my own system for some time now as part of a complete refurbishment of house I bought and it was going just fine until recently. I never considered home audio until they released the new Audioserver and the size and ease of integration swung me. I installed the hardware recently but never got around to integrating it in the programming as I was too busy trying to keep to schedules for other renovation work and now I finally have a free moment to do it but have run in to an issue. My actual job is at sea which is where I am right now and I had not used my desktop I keep at work for doing an programming on the system for a while and while i was at home the only thing I did was upgrade the Miniserver V2 to firmware version 11.1.9.14 to be compatible with the Audioserver. Now that I am working remotely however my software version was older than this so I had to update but of course the automatic update takes me to version 12.1.7.16 which is then not compatible with the older version on the Miniserver. When I try to update the Miniserver however it continually fails to update and not in a usual manner I might expect. First it runs the check for files and then uploads the web interface which usually always uploads (if the same day it only uploads the once but on a new day it will upload  a fresh copy) but sometimes the progress bar will just reset and it starts again but I see no other error messages. After uploading the web interface it then tries to upload the Miniserver software but at this point it always fails. I can see the progress bar going up but at some point it always fails and resets, progressively getting worse progress until it just hangs but I get no messages for a failed upload attempt. I tried restarting the Miniserver and also connecting via my own VPN connection to emulate being in the local network instead of connecting remotely with the Loxone DNS service but it makes no difference. I had thought maybe the connection was unstable and dropping out but if that was the case then my VPN connection would have dropped out and if i dropped it manually then i get the actual error message that the update attempt had failed due to a lost connection. Has anyone else experienced this kind of issue before when trying to update remotely?

[Techdoctor]

What satellite system are you using to connect to the internet when at sea. I used to work at sea and we had a Norsat system. It was kind of cool as this meant the ship  had 4 UK telephone numbers, and of course reasonably quick  internet. 

We used to get what looked like dropouts, even though there was still a connection on the control panel.  We would get a loss of data speed, so all of a sudden somethings would crap out while some connections would remain, and our internet speed would be slower than the worst dialup ever. So when you have 10 things trying to connect at the same time some would just give up. Eventually we worked it out that on a certain ships heading the crane, when in use caused a slight shadow on the raydome. So effectively cutting the dish size. 
So I am just wondering if something similar is going on, which would possibly explain why your vpn doesn't disconnect, as it would still have a connection all be it a very slow one.

[Scott F]

Hi,

I have dual Seatel 6012 VSAT dishes routed through the latest Plexus Unity modem/router which acts as the arbitrator so there is no possibility of getting any blockage as they are programmed to switch long before one comes into a blockage zone and am on a 40/10 16/4 MIR/CIR contract with Omni Access. I also have dual 4G sims in a Pepwave Max HD2 dome with sim injector to supplement that. I tried using both the VSAT and 4G for routing of the connection by setting a dedicated link in my Kerio firewall but still had the same results. I know the data rate can be variable but even on a slower connection I would have though it would keep the connection alive. I am not sure what protocol the software use to transfer the update but i would have thought FTP or SFTP; is there a method to do an update with an FTP client where I would have control over the timeout setting? It seems odd that I can see the progress going up steadily and can see it tick up then right after just reset but i would have though that if it disconnected then the system would have reported a failed attempt instead of resetting the upload. I had wondered if there was something in the transfer protocol that looked at ping response time and perhaps reset if the response was too slow or if there was any packet loss.

[Jan De Bock]

Maybe it has nothing to do with the remote connection. Recently I encountered the same. My Loxone Partner told me to try with a new SD card. I tested the current one first, and must say that it did not generate any error; But still, I tried with a new SD card and it was indeed solved.   So maybe something to try ?

[Scott F]

I would need to try that when back home as im currently about 1700 miles away for the next couple of months and then would need to wait 2 more months to test if it was an issue with using a VSAT connection. I do have a spare SD card at least, although that is in the bottom of my rack 1700 miles away too.