SDRTrunk hanging

[AvidSurvivalist]

SDRTrunk is hanging to a point where it isn't processing anything. The messages tab stop, then scrolls very fast back up to the current time. Group call grants show up in the event tab, but just ~0.3 second calls, none are being processed and played. It's also going back and forth between teardown and fade. CPU doesn't seem like it's being stressed at all though. This issue suddenly started happening.

[Dean Sauer]

On Monday, August 17, 2020 at 11:45:48 PM UTC-4, AvidSurvivalist wrote:

SDRTrunk is hanging to a point where it isn't processing anything. The messages tab stop, then scrolls very fast back up to the current time. Group call grants show up in the event tab, but just ~0.3 second calls, none are being processed and played. It's also going back and forth between teardown and fade. CPU doesn't seem like it's being stressed at all though. This issue suddenly started happening.

Basic triage data:

Working setup till this occurred?

Antenna setup? Outside? Coax, etc. details....

PC specs, RAM, CPU, distro used etc..

SDR type(s), numbers? USB Hubs? Direct to MB Ports, or Case ports? (Yes it matters)

Did you SHUT DOWN SDRT and restart? Did the issue resume? Or clear? Resume after time? How long?

IF you have NOT SHUT DOWN AND RESTARTED.....read on FIRST, please.

Any errors in the console?

Do you leave spectrum and waterfall active?

If so, disable it? Resolve the issues?

Also with it disabled if you mouse over the spectrum/waterfall area with the messages tab in view, does the message data slow or stop? I've seen that mousing over the spectrum/waterfall areas with it active or not has some impact on some thread that deals with that in the GUI and with the messages tab data running it can stop or slows down considerably. Not sure the issues there...

Now on another note... I am going to ask for some info in re your spectrumgraph...the spike around 774.250 do you have that spike continuously? Come and go? Same signal level at all times, spike up and down?

Can you advise what the actual frequency is and who is assigned that in your area? (FCC ULS Links only, please, or just the name of the agency and frequency, please, and I will look up in ULS.) This info would be a tremendous help in another situation. The one with the big red arrow is the prime interest, although the one on the other side is similar.  Do you have activity for FirstNet aka 700Mhz Block D active in your area? Check for 760-767.500 for a huge swath of RF.

Thanks in advance for any info on the info above.

[AvidSurvivalist]

I don't know how or why, but it is no longer doing it for now. It's mostly fine. The working theory is it was something running in the background. Windows might have been installing updates in the background. Seems like this issue is related to high disk usage, when Trunking Recorder is doing an import with heavy hard drive usage, I get similar activity.

I have an amplified RCA TV antenna (I don't need it for this system, just over a mile from the site, but I do require it for ICORRS and SIRN.) The amp has 3 ports, 1 input and 2 coax out. 1 port goes to my SDR. It's a 20 ft run of RG6 to my SDR from the amp in the other room. The other port is connected to an analog scanner downstairs. I need to get a better amp and antenna, this one might be the source of the noise in the 40 MHz band, but that's a project for another day.

Using a Dell Inspiron N5110 with i3-2350m, 4 GB RAM. Windows 10, latest updates. It was an old spare laptop collecting dust, decided to give it a purpose. I have 1 RTL-SDRv3 plugged into the rear USB 3.0 port. It's a daughterboard (10793-1, DQ15 NEC IO, 48.4IE14.011) connected to the motherboard. The same board also has the mPCIe wifi card, audio jacks, Ethernet, and another USB 2 port. I have used the SDR on other ports with no changes/issues.

Waterfall is active, doesn't make a difference if it's enabled or disabled. No slowdown effect when I mouse over it.

I did give an ArrayOutOfBounds error when the control channel suddenly went idle. Error info here: https://pastebin.com/SwbGEqdB

That spike in the center at 774.00599 is always there, I think it's something with my SDR. The spike is always at the center frequency. I've listened to it in NFM and it sounds like open mic noise. The spikes around the control channel, 770.250, are only there when the gain is turned up above 36.

I have activity in SMA blocks A/B/C/D. I am just over a mile away from 3 cell towers, 2 west, 1 east plus the P25 site. East tower has Verizon, West has Verizon/US Cellular, and the other west tower with AT&T/FirstNet. AT&T has 12/14/17, US Cellular has B12, and VZN with B13.

WPTZ805 is the system license. This is the link to the FCC letter for the license and frequencies used.

[Dean Sauer]

On Tuesday, August 18, 2020 at 3:50:34 PM UTC-4, AvidSurvivalist wrote:

I don't know how or why, but it is no longer doing it for now. It's mostly fine. The working theory is it was something running in the background. Windows might have been installing updates in the background. Seems like this issue is related to high disk usage, when Trunking Recorder is doing an import with heavy hard drive usage, I get similar activity.

I am going to be lazy, but is the disk an actual spinng device? or SSD? An SSD might resolve that ??? I will admit I have not been a SSD fan.. till I was sort of stuck with it in a new laptop... Which even putting these in a clunker it makes things a good bit faster.

 

I did give an ArrayOutOfBounds error when the control channel suddenly went idle. Error info here: https://pastebin.com/SwbGEqdB

That spike in the center at 774.00599 is always there, I think it's something with my SDR. The spike is always at the center frequency. I've listened to it in NFM and it sounds like open mic noise. The spikes around the control channel, 770.250, are only there when the gain is turned up above 36.

Thats the DC spike, its there as part of the way these work. Some chips do things to deal with that, some programs deal with it, some designs don't have to.. Thats why rtl_fm as a -E dc spike option. Some like OP25 use an offset to move things away.. I am not going to guess what SDRT does or doesn't do.... above my pay grade. ) ;)

The spikes near 774.250 is what I am after. This matches with something else I am working on...   see the update image...

 

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I have activity in SMA blocks A/B/C/D. I am just over a mile away from 3 cell towers, 2 west, 1 east plus the P25 site. East tower has Verizon, West has Verizon/US Cellular, and the other west tower with AT&T/FirstNet. AT&T has 700Mhz  US Cellular has 700Mhz, and VZN with 700Mhz C Block

The C & D blocks are the big problems, since they butt up against the 700Mz PS LMR Band. the GB from 768 to 769, is fine for $3000 radios etc, mostly, but the 8bit SDR's RTL V3, the generic asian stuff, HackRF1 are susceptible to RFI from the A-D blocks, especially the FirstNet garbage (no I am not a fan.)

The Airspy (iRadioSDR) are 12bits????? And the MSI ones the aka SDRPlay  are 12+ and have filters in them like the older actual radios did... That was a thing in the past especially for HF rigs to keep a set of filters to swap out. The Icom and Yeasu then had electronics which pretty much did away with that.. with either a preset for AM, FM, CW, SSB, RTTY, and adjustable for other situations.

But anyway that spike near 774.250, if you turn up the gain is there? Does it move or change frequencies? More of them show up? With Motorola as the vendor fo FIRST it would make sense.

WPTZ805 is the system license. This is the link to the FCC letter for the license and frequencies used.

Is the spike near 774.250 part of the state block. This was the stupidest move of many the FCC did in re this versus traditional licensing...   Nobody knows where crap is and the RFI to others piles up. In my area the Region Planner took over from the state and while its still geo based we know what channels to check... Each area mostly should have this.. some thought don't and are doing this intentionally to hide or obfuscate things..  I am really surprised Garrett Co MD would go this route in that area.. but hey WV went to UHF 460 so.... Its fine if you PUT THE $$$ into the towers... Some early adopters in PA learned this the HARD WAY with LOD and CITIZEN DEATHS.. as did PA State, err commonwealth of via their fiasco with StarNet and having to now roll back to VHF like the should have to start... anyway....

I looked at the Region 20 Plan and unlike mine it doesn't spell out the MD channels other than for the counties, and the WAGIN area counties I am guessing are giving their allocations back to FIRST for that area ..None of which are near the 774.250,,,since they joined FIRST to replace their old systems.

[AvidSurvivalist]

It's an old fashion SATA III 5400 RPM spinny drive. Thinking about the SSD upgrade and maxing out the RAM to 16 GB. It could still be a pretty good machine.

Here in Garrett Co., we have pretty good FiRST coverage. There are some areas that drop out that I have experienced: Bear Creek, Bowman Hill, Herrington Manor. The first two might just be the antenna I was using, just the ones that came with the SDR. The table rock tower might help with Herrington Manor. I heard there were some issues with portable coverage out there with the deputies, but MSP had no issues and neither did Fire/EMS. The deputies seem to like FiRST. From what I heard, they seem to be impressed with it. They actually had some piece of mind knowing that when they talked on the radio, someone would hear them, unlike the old VHF system. NRP has some issues in New Germany, they switch back to the old multicast system when they're out there.

I would like to get an iRadioSDR or the MSI.SDR some day. The MSI SDRs can be around $40-$80. $60 on Amazon. I might get one once SDRTrunk has RSP1 support. The RSP1 would cover all of FiRST on the site I monitor.

If I max out the gain, I get peaks all over the place. That's probably just the dongle getting overloaded. Usually there are 2 on either side of the control channel and the voice channels, if the gain is too high. They don't seem to move.

[AvidSurvivalist]

It's happening again for no reason this time. I can't really see what cause it could be. I took a video of the issue this time. https://youtu.be/-m-VvkhMo98 

[wemana...@gmail.com]

On Thursday, September 10, 2020 at 6:10:24 PM UTC-4 AvidSurvivalist wrote:

It's happening again for no reason this time. I can't really see what cause it could be. I took a video of the issue this time. https://youtu.be/-m-VvkhMo98

I am afraid I can't tell much from the video... if you can install Simple Screen Recorder (sudo apt-get install simplescreenrecorder) which will allow to record the screen and audio directly and then split the screen to get the main screen, console for the java log etc. into it so its all recorded.

Describe when this occur what leads up to it? Outline what happens before leading up to it, things tried to restore it etc..

Just the ONE V3 SDR????

WHich SDRT? 050alpha? If its NOT alpha 1 can you put alpha 1 in a directory and run it v. 2 or 3... There seems to be issues in the 050a2/3 that I don't see in alpha 1...

You are not getting any errors in the console when this occurs? Related to any thing like time, reliably will occur after 2-3 hours of run time???? Any thing in the OS running in the background that might sap resources like baloo indexer????? Or something else thats getting run? Being used for other task????

Outline the use case for your setup , ie: how you run things for operation, and that might lead to something that causes it..

[Jeff Thompson]

I've been using SDRTrunk quite a bit for the last few weeks with no issue. Because of that, wasn't really keeping an eye on error messages or other diagnostics. 

Unfortunately, just ran into a situation where the audio output stopped, and the User Preferences and Playlist Editor windows were hung. They were completely white, even while the main window was working, and recordings and other logging info continued to be collected. 

This also happened while I was out of the room for a hour or so, so I don't have any input there. 

Running 2 Airspys, 8-core Ryzen, 32G Ram, NVME storage only. CPU is normally around 14-17%. Windows OS - clean install with no extra junk. I've run SDRTrunk for hours (6+) on end previously to this issue. I did design this machine to run 24x7. 

Just a datapoint. Running Alpha 3. 

If it happens again, all be all-in on instrumenting everything as needed.