Lost LabView connection to the roboRio via WiFi

[mdlueck]

Greetings,

How timely FIRST's recent notification to "try the other Ethernet port" on the OpenMesh OM5P-AN router. Our symptoms today are as follows:

In the morning I read the notification of the updated router auto-program program, so uninstalled the old version / installed the update / an reprogrammed the router.

The first time we connected it to the robot everything worked, including the WiFi LAN.

We powered off the robot to make some changes, and that was the last our drive station could connect to the roboRio.

I did remember the FIRST update to try the other Ethernet port on the OpenMesh OM5P-AN router. At that point, both LED's on the roboRio's Ethernet port were dark, so I was hopeful. Switching Ethernet ports on the router and IPL'ing at least get the Ethernet port LED's on the roboRio lit again. Still, the drive station would not connect to the roboRio.

I next checked the settings in the OpenMesh OM5P-AN router. All seemed to be in order.

Then I dried accessing the roboRio's web/Silverlight interface and that also looked in order.

The only way we could get the Drive Station to connect to the roboRio was over the USB tether connection. (I just now realized we never tried tether connecting the roboRio to the Drive Station over direct Ethernet.)

We did switch back to the original Ethernet port on the OpenMesh OM5P-AN router, and that time the Ethernet LED's on the roboRio were lighting up correctly. Still, no Drive station connection.

The other programming mentor on our team knew of NI's MAX utility. It could not see a roboRio when connecting over Wifi. It could see it properly when using the USB tether.

So I am suspecting something wrong with the NI MAX interface to the Ethernet port of the roboRio, whereas the roboRio's Silverlight admin interface is working properly. Which I believe NI MAX and LabView are connecting over Ethernet in a similar way to the roboRio, where as over USB the interface is different / yet works without error.

Could someone please kindly suggest debugging techniques / steps to a solution?

I am thankful,

[mdlueck]

Re: Lost LabView connection to the roboRio via WiFi

Greetings again,

Our other programming mentor added input that the drive station was successfully connected to the roboRio after switching to the other Ethernet port on the router, we just did not drive it. After another power cycle, however, THEN still connected to the other Ethernet port, the Drive Station could no longer see the robot.

Next steps plans are as follows. Please chime in with other suggestions.

Plan A) Reprogram the new router


Plan B) Brush 12 year dust off of network sniffer skills:

I last used Ethereal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireshark

"Originally named Ethereal, the project was renamed Wireshark in May 2006 due to trademark issues."

http://packages.ubuntu.com/trusty/wireshark

Installing it on our Xubuntu 14.04 laptop.

I am thankful,

[Kevin O'Connor]

Re: Lost LabView connection to the roboRio via WiFi

Hi Michael, sorry I missed your first post!

The first thing I would try is connecting over USB and opening the roboRIO web dashboard. Verify that it is getting an IP from the radio (you're looking for the 10.xx.yy.zz IP) and note what the IP is. Then connect over wireless. If you are unable to get a connection with the DS, try pinging the IP you have noted from the command prompt. If that works, you can try entering the IP address or the roboRIO-4482-frc.lan into the Team Number box in the DS. This will bypass mDNS by using the IP or the DNS server in the OM5P radio respectively.

[mdlueck]

Re: Lost LabView connection to the roboRio via WiFi

Good evening Kevin,

This evening I thought to try the former FRC Wi-Fi router, the D-Link DAP1522 Rev B. That works over Wi-Fi right away.

Next I reprogrammed again the OpenMesh OM5P-AN router. (Using the updated FRC_Radio_Configuration_16_4.exe version.) The Drive Station is unable to establish communication with the roboRio with that device over Wi-Fi. So we just switched back to the D-Link, and I came to post this update.

I will go back and try your troubleshooting suggestions next. Thank you for posting them.

For now, it seems we have isolated the trouble down to the new OpenMesh OM5P-AN router.

I am thankful,

[mdlueck]

Re: Lost LabView connection to the roboRio via WiFi

Good evening again Kevin,

End of day, we have the roboRio connecting again via Wifi and the new OpenMesh OM5P-AN router.

I was able to connect to the roboRio with the USB direct connect and be monitoring the roboRio web admin page. When I saw it had two IP addresses, I disconnected the USB cable and it failed to continue connecting over the WiFi.

Since you mentioned mDNS, I thought to flush the Windows client DNS cache. I opened an Admin Command Prompt, and issued:

ipconfig /flushdns

Next restarted the drive station application and right away the connection indicator was green.

Then I asked one of our students to try the same. Sure enough, they were also able to connect ONLY AFTER flushing the DNS cache on their Windows computer.

Thank you for making mention of mDNS possibly causing difficulties... that got me thinking DNS and ARP cache on the Windows client computers as we are changing networks between WiFi Internet to WiFi robot to USB to the Robot.

We will press onward towards the goal keeping this tip in mind.

I am thankful,

[mdlueck]

Re: Lost LabView connection to the roboRio via WiFi

Greetings,

Still we face issues with connecting to the roboRio with the WiFi connection through this season's new router.

It is back to being able to:

1) Successfully light the correct LED's on both the access point and the roboRio.
2) Access web admin interface of the WiFi access point via URL: http://10.44.82.189/cgi-bin/luci
3) Access the web admin interface of the roboRio via URL: http://roborio-4482-frc.local/

Not able to:
1) See the roboRio with NI MAX
2) See the roboRio with the FIRST Drive Station
3) See the roboRio with LabVIEW to deploy code to it

So we successfully worked with the roboRio over a USB tether cable yesterday.

I validated that the roboRio is showing two IP addresses in the web admin interface:

10.44.82.89
172.22.11.2

So affirming that it is interfacing with both interfaces successfully.

I plan to plug the D-Link WiFi router back in tomorrow and validate that the three noted gaps above are corrected by just swapping out the WiFi router device.

Suggestions anyone?

I am thankful,

[mdlueck]

Re: Lost LabView connection to the roboRio via WiFi

Just before the competition season, I recalled the Windows Firewall. I found various NI / LabView / FIRST executables not trusted on either/both kinds of networks. I adjusted those executables to be trusted in all cases. I also did the same policy adjustment to the mDNS executable. We made it though the entire season being able to connect to our robot.

Therefor, I suspect the Windows Firewall might well have been the root issue all along through the build season.

I am thankful,