Another groundstation that stopped working

Hi all

Two months and two weeks ago I started groundstation #1627. The setup was quite easy, the learning curve hasn’t been too steep and the station (based on a Raspi 3B+ and a SDRplay) has been up&running for weeks. Sometimes I got some failures but it worked.
Two weeks ago – out of the blue (no change in the setup whatsoever) - it stopped working: no waterfall at all, anymore. I ran every troubleshooting routine I could find in the documentation with no success; I decided to reinstall everything from scratch on a brandnew SD card, following carefully the instructions e doublechecking every step. Once again it did not work. I made two further reinstallations – still no way to get a single observation.

Here are some data.

$ SoapySDRUtil --probe=“driver=sdrplay”
######################################################

Soapy SDR – the SDR abstraction library

######################################################

Probe device driver=sdrplay
[INFO] devIdx: 0
[INFO] hwVer: 2


– Device identification

driver=SDRplay
hardware=1710067E10
sdrplay_api_api_version=3.070000
sdrplay_api_hw_version=2


– Peripheral summary

Channels: 1 Rx, 0 Tx
Timestamps: NO
Other Settings:
* RF Gain Select - RF Gain Select
[key=rfgain_sel, default=4, type=string, options=(0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)]
* IQ Correction - IQ Correction Control
[key=iqcorr_ctrl, default=true, type=bool]
* AGC Setpoint - AGC Setpoint (dBfs)
[key=agc_setpoint, default=-30, type=int, range=[-60, 0]]
* ExtRef Enable - External Reference Control
[key=extref_ctrl, default=true, type=bool]
* BiasT Enable - BiasT Control
[key=biasT_ctrl, default=true, type=bool]
* RfNotch Enable - RF Notch Filter Control
[key=rfnotch_ctrl, default=true, type=bool]


– RX Channel 0

Full-duplex: YES
Supports AGC: YES
Stream formats: CS16, CF32
Native format: CS16 [full-scale=32767]
Antennas: Antenna A, Antenna B, Hi-Z
Corrections: DC removal
Full gain range: [0, 47] dB
IFGR gain range: [20, 59] dB
RFGR gain range: [0, 8] dB
Full freq range: [0.001, 2000] MHz
RF freq range: [0.001, 2000] MHz
CORR freq range: MHz
Sample rates: 0.0625, 0.125, 0.25, 0.5, 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 MSps
Filter bandwidths: 0.2, 0.3, 0.6, 1.536, 5, 6, 7, 8 MHz

  • Two days ago I got following message

Aug 31 21:13:22 raspi satnogs-client[7743]: observer.observe()
Aug 31 21:13:22 raspi satnogs-client[7743]: File “/var/lib/satnogs/lib/python3.7/site-packages/satnogsclient/observer/observer.py”, line 165, in observe
Aug 31 21:13:22 raspi satnogs-client[7743]: self.plot_waterfall()
Aug 31 21:13:22 raspi satnogs-client[7743]: File “/var/lib/satnogs/lib/python3.7/site-packages/satnogsclient/observer/observer.py”, line 267, in plot_waterfall
Aug 31 21:13:22 raspi satnogs-client[7743]: waterfall_png=self.observation_waterfall_png)
Aug 31 21:13:22 raspi satnogs-client[7743]: File “/var/lib/satnogs/lib/python3.7/site-packages/satnogsclient/observer/waterfall.py”, line 39, in plot_waterfall
Aug 31 21:13:22 raspi satnogs-client[7743]: waterfall = read_waterfall(waterfall_file)
Aug 31 21:13:22 raspi satnogs-client[7743]: File “/var/lib/satnogs/lib/python3.7/site-packages/satnogsclient/observer/waterfall.py”, line 22, in read_waterfall
Aug 31 21:13:22 raspi satnogs-client[7743]: ‘timestamp’: np.fromfile(wf_file, dtype=’|S32’, count=1)[0],
Aug 31 21:13:22 raspi satnogs-client[7743]: IndexError: index 0 is out of bounds for axis 0 with size 0

  • Today I got following message

Sep 02 16:22:21 raspi satnogs-client[293]: return request(‘get’, url, params=params, **kwargs)
Sep 02 16:22:21 raspi satnogs-client[293]: File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/requests/api.py”, line 60, in request
Sep 02 16:22:21 raspi satnogs-client[293]: return session.request(method=method, url=url, **kwargs)
Sep 02 16:22:21 raspi satnogs-client[293]: File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/requests/sessions.py”, line 533, in request
Sep 02 16:22:21 raspi satnogs-client[293]: resp = self.send(prep, **send_kwargs)
Sep 02 16:22:21 raspi satnogs-client[293]: File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/requests/sessions.py”, line 646, in send
Sep 02 16:22:21 raspi satnogs-client[293]: r = adapter.send(request, **kwargs)
Sep 02 16:22:21 raspi satnogs-client[293]: File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/requests/adapters.py”, line 529, in send
Sep 02 16:22:21 raspi satnogs-client[293]: raise ReadTimeout(e, request=request)
Sep 02 16:22:21 raspi satnogs-client[293]: requests.exceptions.ReadTimeout: HTTPSConnectionPool(host=‘network.satnogs.org’, port=443): Read timed out. (read timeout=45)

I confess that I start to believe that the satnogs software is not as stable as it should be.

If someone could help me it will be greatly appreciated.

Nino from Italy

1 Like

The first error indicates a corrupted waterfall data file. This can happen if the GNU Radio script terminates abruptly.

The second error indicates an internet connectivity problem. It can happen from time to time while a new version of the network is deployed. But, if I understand correctly, in your case it’s persistent.

Which version of satnogs-client are you using? The timeout should have been 1800 seconds instead of 45.

Thank you for your answer, Acinonyx.

Versions installed:
satnogs-client 1.3.4
satnogs-flowgraphs 1.2.2-1

Meanwhile I ran the Update configuration tool and after that I got another kind of error:

Sep 03 15:16:39 raspi satnogs-client[356]: [INFO] hwVer: 2
Sep 03 15:16:39 raspi python3[785]: [790]: sdrplay_api_device: strmHandlerThread: Entry
Sep 03 15:16:39 raspi python3[785]: [791]: sdrplay_api_device: eventHandlerThread: Entry
Sep 03 15:16:39 raspi python3[785]: [792]: sdrplay_api_device: heartBeatThread: Entry
Sep 03 15:16:39 raspi satnogs-client[356]: [INFO] Using format CF32.
Sep 03 15:22:39 raspi python3[785]: [791]: sdrplay_api_device: eventHandlerThread: Exit
Sep 03 15:22:40 raspi python3[785]: [792]: sdrplay_api_device: heartBeatThread: Exit
Sep 03 15:22:40 raspi python3[785]: [790]: sdrplay_api_device: strmHandlerThread: Exit
Sep 03 15:22:40 raspi satnogs-client[356]: 1
Sep 03 15:22:40 raspi python3[785]: [793]: sdrplay_api_Close

That’s annoying.