RB5 Drone not detected by computer

Chad Sweet

Has the drone been used at all? It is definitely fully flight tested, etc before shipment. When you type lsusb what do you see?

alfa budiman

This is what I see when I enter lsusb. Note that I am using a virtual machine for linux and ROS. The output of lsusb is the same whether I have the drone plugged in or not.

I was able to detect and work with the VOXL flight on my virtual machine with adb. I was also able to detect and work with my personal cellphone via adb on the virtual machine.

I had to go to the USB settings on my virtual machine and add the devices on the USB Device Filter on oracle VM VirtualBox. Normally, the device automatically appears on the list to add to Device filter when plugged in. It appeared for VOXL flight, as well as my phone and other usb sticks. But that wasn't the case for the RB5 Drone.

Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 8087:0026 Intel Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 1038:1122 SteelSeries ApS SteelSeries KLC
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0bda:0129 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTS5129 Card Reader Controller
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 80ee:0021 VirtualBox USB Tablet
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

The RB5 drone hasn't been used.

tom

@alfa-budiman Looks like it isn't being detected at all in your VM which leads me to believe the USB device isn't being passed to the VM correctly.

alfa budiman

@tom said in RB5 Drone not detected by computer:

@alfa-budiman Looks like it isn't being detected at all in your VM which leads me to believe the USB device isn't being passed to the VM correctly.

I don't think that is exactly the issue. The RB5 drone is also not detected by the host machine either. For reference, I downloaded adb on my host machine, and it was able to detect VOXL Flight (on host machine). I also downloaded adb on the VM as per the documentation and VOXL was detected on the VM via adb.

However, adb on host machine does not detect the RB5 drone.

My VM is also able to detect other devices plugged into usb.

alfa budiman

I tried it again on a different computer and the same thing happens. The other computer is able to detect the VOXL flight board, on both its host machine and VM. The other computer is able to detect all other devices plugged into its usb ports on both its host and machine and VM. But the other computer cannot detect the RB5 drone.

tom

@alfa-budiman what do you see with lsusb or dmesg on the host machine

alfa budiman

The host machine (both of them) run windows so lsusb and dmesg don't work. However, I found the equivalent command on windows (https://www.shellhacks.com/windows-lsusb-equivalent-powershell/)
and ran the command on powershell. The output of that command is the same whether the drone is plugged in or not. Furthermore, I had device manager open when plugging the drone on the host machines and nothing appeared.

tom

@alfa-budiman If possible I would recommend running Ubuntu 18.04 natively on your machine as we don't have nearly as much experience with Windows around here.

How are you powering your drone?

Chad Sweet

Another clue might be is the drone's access point appearing on a wifi scanner?

The drone cannot power through USB-C, are you plugging the wall supply into the power port?

alfa budiman

@tom said in RB5 Drone not detected by computer:

@alfa-budiman If possible I would recommend running Ubuntu 18.04 natively on your machine as we don't have nearly as much experience with Windows around here.

How are you powering your drone?

I'll see if I can get Ubuntu 18.04 running natively on the machine or if I can get a machine that already natively runs Ubuntu 18.04. Tho this might a take a while. Are there other possible fixes that can be attempted?

The drone is connected to an external power supply set to 12V. I don't think this is an issue, the drone makes the same beeping sound as on the video and the lights on the drone are visible, and stay on in every attempt I've made to work with it.

alfa budiman

@Chad-Sweet
I tried using a wifi scanner and I don't think its access point is appearing. Tho I'm not really familiar with them. I used this one (https://lizardsystems.com/wi-fi-scanner/) and didn't see the drone.

tom

@alfa-budiman We usually ship our drones without WiFi configured in access point mode so unless you've configured it before I wouldn't expect it to be broadcasting a network.

I will try to think of other steps forward, but I think the best way forward is to get your hands on a machine running Ubuntu 18.04 natively.

alfa budiman

@tom
Regarding having a computer to run ubuntu 18.04 natively, I'd need to get another computer for that. I'm currently working at a robotics lab at a university and need to contact my IT department to get another computer for the purposes of working with this drone.

In the interim however, we do have several raspberry pi 4s. Would it be possible to work with the drone by connecting it to a raspberry pi with Ubuntu 18.04?

Another solution would be starting my laptop off of a boot disk with ubuntu.

Would either of these solutions be equivalent to running a machine that natively runs Ubuntu 18.04? This is meant as a temporary solution until the IT department gets me another computer.

tom

@alfa-budiman We haven't tested running Ubuntu 18.04 on an RPi. You could partition your laptop's hard drive and dual boot both Windows and Ubuntu:
https://itsfoss.com/install-ubuntu-1404-dual-boot-mode-windows-8-81-uefi/

alfa budiman

I managed to get another computer and it natively runs ubuntu 18.04.

The drone is still not detected on this 3rd computer.
To recap:
computer 1 = personal computer with windows host and ubuntu 20.04 virtual machine

computer 2 = school computer with windows host and ubuntu 20.04

computer 3 = spare computer that natively runs ubuntu 18.04.

The drone is not detected in any of those computers at all. I try lsusb and adb shell, nothing is detected. The drone is powered on and connected to an external power supply, the lights on it are on and it made the beeping sound when powered up. The usb to usb c cable connecting the drone to the computer(s) is fine, I tested it with my personal cellphone and it was detected by all 3 computers (on both host and geust os in computers 1 and 2).

Again, your VOXL flight boards have been detected fine from computers 1 and 2, I didn't test with computer 3.

I also tried the raspberry pi (ubuntu 20.04) and it also didnt' detect the rb5 drone.

tom

@alfa-budiman It sounds like the best course of action is to get an RMA inspection going so our team can inspect the drone: https://www.modalai.com/pages/rma

We fully test / fly all of our drones before shipping so this is definitely an uncommon issue.

alfa budiman

Here's another issue though. My research lab has 4 of these RB5 drones. None of them are detected by were of the computers. I have a hard time believing we received 4 faulty drones (since you fully test / fly them before shipping), and I still believe the problem maybe how I'm setting them up, or something with the computers I'm using.

Is it possible to schedule a video call with a technician or customer service rep to troubleshoot?

Is there something I should be doing before plugging the drone to a power supply and connecting it to my computer?

tom

@alfa-budiman Hmm okay the fact that 4 of the drones are all exhibiting the same behavior makes me think it's not the drone either.

Some random thoughts:

What max current do you have your power supply set to? If you crank it up higher does that change the outcome?

What kind of USB-C cable are you using and what kind of port are you plugging it into?
We've seen odd issues in the past where customer's PC's weren't able to see the RB5 when using a USB-C to USB-C cable. A solution for one customer was to plug in his USB-C to USB-A cable to a USB2.0 slot instead of USB3.0.

alfa budiman

1 - I'm using an external power supply set to 12V and connected to a power outlet on the wall. It is a BK precision power supply, the max current is 3 A and it is not engaging the current limiter when testing the drone.

2 - I'm using a USB-C to USB-A cable. This cable works fine, I tested it with my cellphone on all 3 computers.

3 - The computer that natively runs linux has both USB 1.0 and USB 2.0 ports and we tested the drones on all the ports on this computer.

tom

@alfa-budiman On the pc that runs linux natively, can you capture the output of dmesg -wH while plugging in the powered RB5? That way we can see if it is recognizing anything being plugged in at all.