emonTx/Base stops updating

Getting Started
1

I’ve had an emonTx & emonBase for a couple of weeks trying things out/becoming familiar before it gets installed in a large ground mount solar PV system.

Checked emoncms today and discovered that it hadn’t updated for 26 hours! However the emonTx radio was flashing.and the Base RPi was running but I didn’t see the radio module flashing.

Did an Update via Administration and things started updating again.

I checked the csv’s for a period during the 26 hours …

The records for use and import were blank (not even a date /time)

The records for use_kwh and import_kwh had a date/time but the values stayed constant.

Not having data for extended periods once emonTX/Base are ‘in service’ monitoring the solar PV will be a major shortcoming.

Question 1 –
Is there a way of sending an email if updating stops for more than a few minutes?

Question 2 –
Is there a log file that might indicate the problem? – which?

Thanks for any help

2

Hi guys …
It would be great to get some response.
If it’s RTFM … which FM?
Thx

3

Don’t forget that the majority of the support here comes from fellow users, many of whom have full time jobs and families, and that they provide whatever support they can in whatever free time remains.

Have you tried searching both this forum and the old forums for a similar question that has been answered?

4

Do you see the LED flashing now it is working again? This is important to confirm the significance of not seeing it when no data was being passed, ie does the LED work normally? is it bright enough to see? are you familiar its location? etc

If the LED stops flashing it signifies it is no longer receiving valid packets so there will be nothing to pass via the serial connection. Valid in this instance means passed CRC checks (ie no corrupt, partial or weak packets) and the group Id matches.

You don’t say what you setup is, for now I assume the latest emonSD image. When you do the automated update in stops emonHub and restarts it after the update, this will reset the serial port, which will reset the AVR on the RFM2Pi. So if the device has stalled due to a bad connection, power glitch or had it’s settings altered, resetting it would get it started again, using the default settings.

Which “CSV’s” to you mean? Are you referring to the PHPfina/PHPfiwa/PHPtimeseries feeds? If you are using fixed interval feeds the absent values will be null values as the timestamp is determined by the values position from the start of the file, so what you see sounds correct if there was no data coming in.

Q1 Yes there is the eventp processes in emoncms and/or you can set something up in node-red.

Q2 The emonhub.log is alway’s the best source of info for this type of issue, although the emoncms based log viewer is somewhat limited. If you can ssh into the emonbase and look at /var/log/emonhub/emonhub.log (there will also be some rotated out files eg emonhub.log.1 you can look at if the emonbase has been running for a long period, but unfortunately these files are lost on a reboot due to being held in RAM on the read-only OS. You can use “less” or “nano”(a bit slow with large files) to view the whole logfile.

At this stage it is a bit of a guess but perhaps a valid one, but there is/was an known issue where the RFM chip locks out very occasionally on rfm2pi and emonpi devices. although it has not been “fixed” it is no longer apparent in the emonPi firmware due to a temporary fix where it constantly resets see the RFM69Pi stops updating/freezes thread for links to the old forum where the most poignant info is, there are at least 2 very long threads on the old forum about this so issue so I would wait and see if it reoccurs and confirm the LED flashing (unless you are positive it stopped flashing) before embarking on the long read.

5

Thx Paul …

I hooked up my rig approx 3 weeks ago to become familiar with it. It’s in a very visible location and the RPi
does not have a case. I can easily see the red LED flashes on the emonTx and the radio module. During the updating ‘outage’, I did not see LED flashes from the radio module on the emonBase RPi – as confident as I can be after the event.

I’m running the image on the emon SD card I purchased.
My feeds are PHPFINA Fixed Interval 10 secs. The CSV’s I examined for the period of the updating ‘outage’ I got using the download icon on the Feeds page.

I did come across the forum posts about the RFM chip problem. And to be honest my eyes glazed and so I tried the update on the off chance.

I’ve now learned from you that this restarted the emonhub service – so I have an identified recovery action.

My desire for having an email alert(s) is because eventually the emon rig will be installed to monitor a 30 kWp 3 phase ground mount PV array at my son’s place – an hour’s drive away.

The question in my mind was what could/should trigger the email? Since receiving yr reply, I’ve checked emonhub status. It just tells me I’ve been active since 24th Sep but warns that the journal has been rotated and the log is incomplete/unavailable. So that is not useful.

Being pragmatic I would like to access a current feed value and the preceding one (or more) values so that, in a simple python/bash script, I can do things like … send an email, restart the emonhub service, etc.

A further reason for wanting to access current and preceding feed values is that I have an idea to use this data (in a simple python/bash script) to determine whether it’s a good time to switch on/off an ASHP used to heat an outdoor pool. The ASHP would need to run 7 hours per day – so a case of targeting the likely best exporting times during a May to Sep day – a pragmatic approach.

I’m considering an additional RPi to act as a ‘watch man’ periodically pinging the various RPI’s & 2 x emonTx’s and sending warning emails, initiating service restarts, etc. ‘Watch man’ could also have a simple database of current and preceding feed values.

I foresee each RPi & emonTx powered from a PowerBank as a rudimentary UPS and each RPi having the OS on a USB HDD to avoid SD card problems.

So my specific request is for some hints (or links to guides) – where will I find current & preceding feed values and how to read them & write them elsewhere?

Thx

6

2 posts were split to a new topic: EmonTx not updating emonPi