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voxl communications completely locking up

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    benjamin linne
    Contributor
    wrote on last edited by
    #1

    Hi,

    I'm trying to run ros2 on the voxl and it appears to use more data that ros1 and when launching several nodes, sometimes after a while the voxl completely locks up and prevents adb, wifi, or microhard from communicating. My theory is the ipv4 buffer is getting overflown and stops all ip connections. This could make sense since adb also runs on ip.

    Is there any way to verify this is the problem and not something else? Is there another way to shell into the voxl without using adb or ip so I can perform and soft-reboot? I've run tests on the power input and that all seems good. Also the flight controller still works when the voxl is locked up. The only fix for now is a hard-reboot

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    • B benjamin linne

      Hi,

      I'm trying to run ros2 on the voxl and it appears to use more data that ros1 and when launching several nodes, sometimes after a while the voxl completely locks up and prevents adb, wifi, or microhard from communicating. My theory is the ipv4 buffer is getting overflown and stops all ip connections. This could make sense since adb also runs on ip.

      Is there any way to verify this is the problem and not something else? Is there another way to shell into the voxl without using adb or ip so I can perform and soft-reboot? I've run tests on the power input and that all seems good. Also the flight controller still works when the voxl is locked up. The only fix for now is a hard-reboot

      B Offline
      B Offline
      benjamin linne
      Contributor
      wrote on last edited by
      #2

      Edit, it appears after waiting some time the adb and wifi interfaces resume working, but the microhard interface refuses to work. The lights on the microhard indicate it's still connected, but I can't ping the voxl and the voxl can't ping the base station microhard

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      • Chad SweetC Offline
        Chad SweetC Offline
        Chad Sweet
        ModalAI Team
        wrote on last edited by
        #3

        You can connect to ADB via USB, is that what you mean?

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        • B Offline
          B Offline
          benjamin linne
          Contributor
          wrote on last edited by
          #4

          Yes via USB, however I think that still uses the ip protocol

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          • Chad SweetC Offline
            Chad SweetC Offline
            Chad Sweet
            ModalAI Team
            wrote on last edited by
            #5

            I guess I don't know for sure, but I didn't think ADB used IP unless it was ADB over WiFi.

            Can you run voxl-cpu-monitor? You might simply be overloading the CPU.

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            • B Offline
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              benjamin linne
              Contributor
              wrote on last edited by
              #6

              voxl-cpu-monitor doesn't appear to output anything other than "Init complete, entering main loop"

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              • Chad SweetC Offline
                Chad SweetC Offline
                Chad Sweet
                ModalAI Team
                wrote on last edited by
                #7

                Maybe you're on an older release. voxl-perfmon is the older version of cpu-monitor

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                • B Offline
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                  benjamin linne
                  Contributor
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #8

                  I wasn't able to run voxl-cpu-monitor but I made a simple bash script that blinks the voxl led every second and it stops blinking once the voxl stops responding. Also I tried tweaking the settings mentioned here https://docs.ros.org/en/ros2_documentation/dashing/Guides/DDS-tuning.html#cross-vendor-tuning, but that didn't help

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                  • B Offline
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                    benjamin linne
                    Contributor
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #9

                    @Chad-Sweet how do you recommend debugging this? Is there a system log I can view or any way to identify what is causing the lockup? Also what "release" has voxl-cpu-monitor? I don't think it's included in the latest image.

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                    • Chad SweetC Offline
                      Chad SweetC Offline
                      Chad Sweet
                      ModalAI Team
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #10

                      voxl-perfmon is here https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/utilities/voxl-utils/-/blob/master/bin/voxl-perfmon

                      it will let you know if CPU is maxing out which is the most likely scenario. Do you have a fan on the Snapdragon? that will help maximize CPU performance

                      If you're launching too much stuff at the same time, can you manually launch incrementally until you get it figured out?

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                      • B Offline
                        B Offline
                        benjamin linne
                        Contributor
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #11

                        Hi @Chad-Sweet We have a fan and the cpu doesn't appear to be overloaded. Is there any system log capabilities to help identify why the system is locking up and requiring a hard reboot?

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                        • Eric KatzfeyE Online
                          Eric KatzfeyE Online
                          Eric Katzfey
                          ModalAI Team
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #12

                          If you run dmesg -wH in a terminal it will show you all kernel messages and will continually update so you can see any last messages.

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                          • B Offline
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                            benjamin linne
                            Contributor
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #13

                            @Eric-Katzfey We're having trouble identifying the errors in dmesg. Is there a watchdog timer that could automatically restart the voxl? This will help debugging uas in a remote location without needing a hard reset.

                            Eric KatzfeyE 1 Reply Last reply
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                            • B benjamin linne

                              @Eric-Katzfey We're having trouble identifying the errors in dmesg. Is there a watchdog timer that could automatically restart the voxl? This will help debugging uas in a remote location without needing a hard reset.

                              Eric KatzfeyE Online
                              Eric KatzfeyE Online
                              Eric Katzfey
                              ModalAI Team
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #14

                              @benjamin-linne I'm not sure what you mean by a watchdog timer. Usually a watchdog requires a check-in from the threads / processes it is monitoring and will automatically reset the board if the check-in does not happen. You could certainly implement something like that on your own.

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                              • Eric KatzfeyE Eric Katzfey

                                @benjamin-linne I'm not sure what you mean by a watchdog timer. Usually a watchdog requires a check-in from the threads / processes it is monitoring and will automatically reset the board if the check-in does not happen. You could certainly implement something like that on your own.

                                B Offline
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                                benjamin linne
                                Contributor
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #15

                                @Eric-Katzfey Could you point me to how I can setup watchdog timers on the voxl?

                                Eric KatzfeyE 1 Reply Last reply
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                                • B benjamin linne

                                  @Eric-Katzfey Could you point me to how I can setup watchdog timers on the voxl?

                                  Eric KatzfeyE Online
                                  Eric KatzfeyE Online
                                  Eric Katzfey
                                  ModalAI Team
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #16

                                  @benjamin-linne I'm sorry, but I'm really not sure what you are looking for. There are no generic watchdog timers that I am aware of. You would need to make something custom.

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                                  • B Offline
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                                    benjamin linne
                                    Contributor
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #17

                                    @Eric-Katzfey I'm looking for documentation on the hardware watchdog timers onboard the voxl's snapdragon microcontroller

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                                    • Eric KatzfeyE Online
                                      Eric KatzfeyE Online
                                      Eric Katzfey
                                      ModalAI Team
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #18

                                      Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any such documentation.

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                                      • B Offline
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                                        benjamin linne
                                        Contributor
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #19

                                        @Eric-Katzfey I was referring to the documentation for the specific registers that would need to be modified to enable and configure it since I'm familiar with embedded systems that allow that functionality. Another possibility is to add the /dev/watchdog kernel module, however that would require an update to the operating system. If this is possible, it would greatly improve the robustness since we are encountering many cpu lockups that require human intervention to perform hard reboots. For remote applications this is potentially a critical feature

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                                        • Eric KatzfeyE Online
                                          Eric KatzfeyE Online
                                          Eric Katzfey
                                          ModalAI Team
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #20

                                          The kernel build is posted at https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/system-image-build/voxl-build

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