Debugging unreliable emonHub with RFM69

I have a self-built Pi 3B with the latest RFM69 board and emonHub software. It acts as the RF I/f for my home setup. Originally, it had the old version of the RFM69 but I upgraded to the new protocol when the old board failed. That was back in January and it’s been solid until now.

Several times now, the RFM69 board has appeared to stop receiving frames from the emonTH nodes. The problem does coincide with the installation of the emonTX5, which required changes to the emonhub.conf file; so I can’t exclude that. However, it’s OK for most of the time.

I have logging set to DEBUG but even so, there’s very little to help me. The following is the log from early this morning until I rebooted at 08:06

2025-06-28 06:05:58,066 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/emonth6/rssi -50
2025-06-28 06:05:58,068 INFO     MQTT       Publishing 'node' formatted msg
2025-06-28 06:05:58,069 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emonhub/rx/24/values 24.6,21.1,58.7,2.8000000000000003,1,-50
2025-06-28 06:06:02,741 DEBUG    emoncmsorg Buffer size: 5
2025-06-28 06:10:57,963 WARNING  SPI        No radio packets received in last 300 seconds, restarting radio
2025-06-28 06:10:57,964 INFO     SPI        Connecting to RFM69
2025-06-28 06:10:58,570 INFO     SPI        Radio setup complete
2025-06-28 06:11:08,393 INFO     SPI        Packet received 46 bytes
2025-06-28 06:11:08,394 DEBUG    SPI        20256 NEW FRAME : 
2025-06-28 06:11:08,398 DEBUG    SPI        20256 Timestamp : 1751087468.394459
2025-06-28 06:11:08,399 DEBUG    SPI        20256 From Node : 28
2025-06-28 06:11:08,401 DEBUG    SPI        20256    Values : [41913, 241.43, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 5, -29, -3, -14, -10, -12, 0, 32329, 77.13358623815999]
2025-06-28 06:11:08,402 DEBUG    SPI        20256      RSSI : -71
2025-06-28 06:11:08,403 DEBUG    SPI        20256 Sent to channel(start)' : ToEmonCMS
2025-06-28 06:11:08,405 DEBUG    SPI        20256 Sent to channel(end)' : ToEmonCMS
2025-06-28 06:11:08,487 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/emon_DB_6CT_1phase/MSG 41913
2025-06-28 06:11:08,489 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/emon_DB_6CT_1phase/V1 241.43
2025-06-28 06:11:08,491 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/emon_DB_6CT_1phase/P1 0
2025-06-28 06:11:08,493 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/emon_DB_6CT_1phase/P2 0
2025-06-28 06:11:08,495 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/emon_DB_6CT_1phase/P3 0
2025-06-28 06:11:08,498 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/emon_DB_6CT_1phase/P4 0
2025-06-28 06:11:08,500 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/emon_DB_6CT_1phase/P5 0
2025-06-28 06:11:08,502 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/emon_DB_6CT_1phase/P6 0
2025-06-28 06:11:08,504 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/emon_DB_6CT_1phase/E1 5
2025-06-28 06:11:08,506 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/emon_DB_6CT_1phase/E2 -29
2025-06-28 06:11:08,509 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/emon_DB_6CT_1phase/E3 -3
2025-06-28 06:11:08,511 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/emon_DB_6CT_1phase/E4 -14
2025-06-28 06:11:08,513 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/emon_DB_6CT_1phase/E5 -10
2025-06-28 06:11:08,515 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/emon_DB_6CT_1phase/E6 -12
2025-06-28 06:11:08,517 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/emon_DB_6CT_1phase/pulse 0
2025-06-28 06:11:08,519 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/emon_DB_6CT_1phase/missed 32329
2025-06-28 06:11:08,521 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/emon_DB_6CT_1phase/missedprc 77.13358623815999
2025-06-28 06:11:08,523 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/emon_DB_6CT_1phase/rssi -71
2025-06-28 06:11:08,525 INFO     MQTT       Publishing 'node' formatted msg
2025-06-28 06:11:08,526 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emonhub/rx/28/values 41913,241.43,0,0,0,0,0,0,5,-29,-3,-14,-10,-12,0,32329,77.13358623815999,-71
2025-06-28 06:11:08,536 DEBUG    emoncmsorg Buffer size: 1
2025-06-28 06:16:08,493 WARNING  SPI        No radio packets received in last 300 seconds, restarting radio
2025-06-28 06:16:08,494 INFO     SPI        Connecting to RFM69
2025-06-28 06:16:09,099 INFO     SPI        Radio setup complete
2025-06-28 08:06:09,358 DEBUG    MainThread Signal 15 received.
2025-06-28 08:06:09,395 INFO     MainThread Exiting hub...
2025-06-28 08:06:09,652 INFO     MainThread Exit completed

You can see some frames from the emonTX on Node 28, but then nothing.

After the reboot, there’s nothing until I intervened again this afternoon. In desperation, I did a dist-upgrade and rebooted. It’s running OK right now; but for how long? I seeing loads of the following messages

2025-06-28 15:34:53,762 WARNING  SPI        No radio packets received in last 300 seconds, restarting radio
2025-06-28 15:34:53,763 INFO     SPI        Connecting to RFM69
2025-06-28 15:34:54,370 INFO     SPI        Radio setup complete

Is temperature a factor? The Met Office is reporting ~ 28 °C where you live this afternoon.

Thanks, @Robert.Wall . I should have thought of that. The Pi is on a south facing windowsill :frowning: I’ll try and move it without it losing RF connectivity.