Android App "CONNECTION ERROR"

Emoncms Mobile
1

I’ve been investigating this issue; and so far I have found the following;

  1. Every time I see the connection error pop up, at the same time the Apache error log shows:
    [Sat May 07 08:08:12.438067 2016] [:error] [pid 17667] [client 192.168.11.5:45158] PHP Warning: Division by zero in /var/www/emoncms/Modules/feed/feed_model.php on line 461

  2. Investigating the feed_model.php the line in question is:
    $time = floor($bufferdata[$z][0]/$outintervalms)*$outintervalms;

$outintervalms is generated from this line (a few lines up in the code)
$outintervalms = $outinterval * 1000;

So the variable that is actually a problem is $outinterval
$outinterval is not checked, so its value could in theory be set to anything, after some poking about I was able to determine that the variable is being set to “0”, and this is causing the divide by zero error.

  1. Using TCP dump - I was able to capture the following hits against the Apache web server from the mobile app:

GET /emoncms/feed/data.json?id=6&start=1462608366000&end=1462608470655&interval=0&skipmissing=1&limitinterval=1&apikey=aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa HTTP/1.1

I suspect that this is the root of the issue, what isn’t totally clear is if the mobile app sets the “interval” variable or if this is passed form the server in the first place, while I can handle a bunch of coding, android apps seem to be beyond me still…

In true Star Wars fashion… help me @JumpMaster, you’re my only hope… :slight_smile:

1 Like
2

I can confirm similar errors in my server log too;

[Sat May 07 09:34:40.991690 2016] [:error] [pid 6647] [client 162.158.152.47:14429] PHP Warning: Division by zero in /var/www/emoncms/Modules/feed/feed_model.php on line 461 [Sat May 07 09:34:40.991951 2016] [:error] [pid 6647] [client 162.158.152.47:14429] PHP Warning: Division by zero in /var/www/emoncms/Modules/feed/feed_model.php on line 461 [Sat May 07 09:34:40.992408 2016] [:error] [pid 6647] [client 162.158.152.47:14429] PHP Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /var/www/emoncms/Modules/feed/feed_model.php:461) in /var/www/emoncms/index.php on line 186

3

After digging through the app source, here is the issue;

Starting line 339 of app/src/main/java/org/emoncms/myapps/MyElectricMainFragment.java

int npoints = 1500;
final int graph_interval = Math.round(((endTime - startTime) / npoints) / 1000);

graph_interval is the variable that we see getting set to 0 in the requests made by the app, using the information from the URL I posted earlier we get:

(((1462608470655 - 1462608366000) / 1500 ) / 1000 ) = 0.06977 and when this is rounded, it makes 0

I’d suggest we spring another variable for the “interval” as used in the URL, and create some basic math around that, so that any value less than 1 is rounded up to 1, that should solve the Connection Error messages without messing up the rest of the app.

I’m happy to write some proof of concept code for that and create a pull request if that helps.

The one thing I am not totally sold on, is who’s problem this actually is, while the app is making a sane request all be it with a non sane value of zero, the back end should be checking the variables too in order to stop divide by zero from happening, and it doesn’t yet.

The server side should output some sort of error when you make the request with a zero value. I guess thats another discussion :slight_smile:

4

If that is the root of the issue, can it just not round up to the next whole second? ie use ceil not round? eg

final int graph_interval = Math.ceil(((endTime - startTime) / npoints) / 1000);
5

I’ve just grabbed the logs so you can see the three requests.

mDaysofWeekRunner:https://emoncms.emoncms.org/feed/data.json?apikey=MYAPIKEY&id=3&start=1462057200000&end=1462575600000&interval=86400&skipmissing=1&limitinterval=1
mGetPowerHistoryRunner:https://emoncms.emoncms.org/feed/data.json?id=2&start=1462591884453&end=1462613484453&interval=14&skipmissing=1&limitinterval=1&apikey=MYAPIKEY
mGetFeedsRunner:https://emoncms.emoncms.org/feed/list.json?apikey=MYAPIKEY

6

Thanks for picking up on this issue, I noticed the connection issue get worse after updating my emonPi to use a Pi3. Anyone else noticed this?

@Andy_Taylor I’ll try the fix PR out over the weekend.

7

I would bet it is this request causing the issue. It updates the live power graph.

https://emoncms.org/feed/data.json?id=2&start=1462613486000&end=1462613494839&interval=0&skipmissing=1&limitinterval=1&apikey=MYAPIKEY

The start and end timestamps are only 10 seconds apart after the first larger request.

8

@JumpMaster - Yes I believe that is where the issue is, its the “interval=0” that is the problem.

  1. I don’t believe the interval should ever be 0
  2. The back end should either give you an error on receiving the 0 value - or it should handle / ignore it.

I’ve not read any of the details of the API at this point, so I can’t tell you which is at fault - but both ends of the software should be able to handle a zero value (I would assume).

@glyn.hudson - the PR I made is only one possible solution, its not a good way to deal with the issue at hand - consider it the last resort and more of a pointer to where the issue may lay for someone who knows emoncms better than I do.

9

Just tested without interval=0 and the API only returns false instead of the last data points.

Expected output:

[
[
1462619210000,
382
],
[
1462619220000,
385
]
]

Also to note the HTTP API (Volley) is doing a JsonArrayRequest so is only successful if the response is json. So CONNECTION ERROR can be caused by connection issues or an unrecognized response. I may have to look at doing a different type of request and converting it to a JSON array if successful. I could then give more useful error messages.

10

Try the same but force the interval value to be 1

See if it still works, and see if the server side error goes away, that will confirm if this is the variable at fault.

11

Still works for me with interval=1. Let me know if it resolves the issue for you.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18412241/emoncms.apk

12

Yup, cheers Andy I saw the comment in the pr. I won’t merge it until we have a consensus.

@TrystanLea is best man to speak to regarding the api.

13

@JumpMaster - Yes thats it alright, loaded the app onto my phone, tcpdump shows the “interval” variable set to 1, and without my fix in place I have no errors in the apache log.

So that is definitely the variable in question.

The variable as passed to the back end has to be something greater than zero or you get a divide by zero error, the question is what side is correct. If the maths in the app is correct and zero is the correct figure, then we need to fix the back end to deal with that (or ignore it in the case of a zero value etc).

Thats an open question to those of you who know emoncms better than I do.

14

Pushed this fix to the beta channel in version 1.2.1 along with automatic feed configuration when the feeds are called use and use_kwh.

15

What is the fix, have you set ‘interval=1’ or is it something else.

Paul

16

Yep I’ve set interval to a minimum of 1. The return vales are the same for me whether it’s 0 or 1 but it seems on the pi image 0 fails. Might be due to the version of php?

17

I’m on the beta channel, and got a prompt to update a few minutes ago, but the disconnections still persist as before.
Apache log shows;
[Sun May 08 23:07:20.732615 2016] [:error] [pid 18150] [client 162.158.152.47:30870] PHP Warning: Division by zero in /var/www/emoncms/Modules/feed/feed_model.php on line 461 [Sun May 08 23:07:20.732946 2016] [:error] [pid 18150] [client 162.158.152.47:30870] PHP Warning: Division by zero in /var/www/emoncms/Modules/feed/feed_model.php on line 461 [Sun May 08 23:07:20.733343 2016] [:error] [pid 18150] [client 162.158.152.47:30870] PHP Warning: Division by zero in /var/www/emoncms/Modules/feed/feed_model.php on line 461

Is there anywhere in the app where you can display the installed version/build number?

Paul

EDIT - Just deleted the app & re-installed, still the same.

18

I’ve just tested @Andy_Taylor PR:

This seems to have fixed the Android app connection issues, and the ‘divide by zero’ errors filling up the apache log. I have asked @TrystanLea to look over it, he knows Emoncms processing better than I do.

19

That’s strange, I haven’t tried the PR myself, but I thought that @JumpMaster had set the interval to 1 instead of 0 in his recent app update (which duplicates what this PR does), and which doesn’t appear to fix the problem for me.

I look forward to @TrystanLea 's input to this issue.

Paul

20

After last update I receive connection error on my android 6