Failed observations - any hints?

SatNOGS Software
1

Hi everybody!
After a couple of week testing an HackRFone I decided to revert to my old setup with an RTL V3 dongle.
Changed parameters to fulfill RTLSDR dongle, I’m experiencing an issue: observation starts but nothing in /tmp/.satnogs/data, so failed observation.
Before this last test session all went fine and smooth…

With journalctl -f -u satnogs-client.service this is the output:

-- Logs begin at Fri 2021-10-01 19:27:44 UTC. --
Oct 01 19:33:32 raspberrypi satnogs-client[351]: requests.exceptions.ConnectionError: HTTPSConnectionPool(host='network.satnogs.org', port=443): Max retries exceeded with url: /api/jobs/?ground_station=311&lat=45.726034&lon=12.262917&alt=10 (Caused by NewConnectionError('<urllib3.connection.HTTPSConnection object at 0xb2284530>: Failed to establish a new connection: [Errno -3] Temporary failure in name resolution'))
Oct 01 19:33:32 raspberrypi satnogs-client[351]: apscheduler.executors.default - ERROR - Job "get_jobs (trigger: interval[0:01:00], next run at: 2021-10-01 19:34:31 UTC)" raised an exception
Oct 01 19:33:32 raspberrypi satnogs-client[351]: Traceback (most recent call last):
Oct 01 19:33:32 raspberrypi satnogs-client[351]:   File "/var/lib/satnogs/lib/python3.7/site-packages/apscheduler/executors/base.py", line 125, in run_job
Oct 01 19:33:32 raspberrypi satnogs-client[351]:     retval = job.func(*job.args, **job.kwargs)
Oct 01 19:33:32 raspberrypi satnogs-client[351]:   File "/var/lib/satnogs/lib/python3.7/site-packages/satnogsclient/scheduler/tasks.py", line 177, in get_jobs
Oct 01 19:33:32 raspberrypi satnogs-client[351]:     response.raise_for_status()
Oct 01 19:33:32 raspberrypi satnogs-client[351]: UnboundLocalError: local variable 'response' referenced before assignment
Oct 01 19:39:03 raspberrypi satnogs-client[351]: apscheduler.executors.default - WARNING - Run time of job "get_jobs (trigger: interval[0:01:00], next run at: 2021-10-01 19:34:31 UTC)" was missed by 0:00:32.156298
Oct 01 19:39:03 raspberrypi satnogs-client[351]: apscheduler.executors.default - WARNING - Run time of job "post_data (trigger: interval[0:03:00], next run at: 2021-10-01 19:36:32 UTC)" was missed by 0:02:31.723619

This is my satnogs-setup report:

------------[ copy here ]------------
{
    "versions": {
        "satnogs-client": "1.6",
        "satnogs-client-ansible": "202109022142",
        "satnogs-flowgraphs": "1.4-1",
        "gr-satnogs": "2.3.1.1-1",
        "gr-soapy": "2.1.3.1-1",
        "gnuradio": "3.8.2.0-14satnogs2",
        "satnogs-config": "0.12"
    },
    "state": {
        "is-applied": true,
        "pending-tags": null
    },
    "system": {
        "date": "2021-10-01T18:52:43.767495+00:00",
        "distribution": {
            "DESCRIPTION": "Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)",
            "RELEASE": "10",
            "CODENAME": "buster",
            "ID": "Raspbian"
        },
        "pending-updates": false,
        "platform": {
            "system": "Linux",
            "node": "raspberrypi",
            "release": "5.10.63-v7l+",
            "version": "#1457 SMP Tue Sep 28 11:26:14 BST 2021",
            "machine": "armv7l",
            "processor": ""
        },
        "memory": {
            "total": 1963110400,
            "available": 1747955712,
            "percent": 11.0,
            "used": 121561088,
            "free": 1504497664,
            "active": 98172928,
            "inactive": 296607744,
            "buffers": 49049600,
            "cached": 288002048,
            "shared": 9191424,
            "slab": 34406400
        },
        "disk": {
            "total": 62526631936,
            "used": 4706385920,
            "free": 55256903680,
            "percent": 7.8
        }
    },
    "configuration": {
        "enable_iq_dump": true,
        "iq_dump_filename": "/tmp/.satnogs/iq.raw",
        "satnogs_antenna": "RX",
        "satnogs_api_token": "[redacted]",
        "satnogs_post_observation_script": "/home/pi/tests/postob.sh {{ID}} {{FREQ}}",
        "satnogs_pre_observation_script": "/home/pi/tests/preob.sh -f {{FREQ}}",
        "satnogs_rf_gain": "29",
        "satnogs_rx_samp_rate": "1024000",
        "satnogs_soapy_rx_device": "driver=rtlsdr",
        "satnogs_station_elev": "10",
        "satnogs_station_id": "311",
        "satnogs_station_lat": "45.726034",
        "satnogs_station_lon": "12.262917",
        "satnogs_waterfall_max_value": "-61",
        "satnogs_waterfall_min_value": "-67"
    }
}
------------[ copy end ]-------------

Any hints???

Tnx de Victor, I3VFJ

p.s.: with rtl_sdr -f 144.8M -g 48 -s 250000 -n 1000000 iq.dat I get a good iq.dat, so I do not think to an USB issue; moreover tests with spyserver + remote SDR# are fine…

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2

This line in the output tell us there was a problem wth connecting to network.satnogs.org.

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3

The RTL-SDR v3 blog does not support a gain value of ‘29’ based on the two of the same model I have on hand. Maybe that it part of the error, in addition to the (temporary) DNS issue of not being able to resolve network.satnogs.org.

        "satnogs_rx_samp_rate": "1024000",

Maybe try setting this back to 2.048e6 just to level the playing field.

p.s.: with rtl_sdr -f 144.8M -g 48 -s 250000 -n 1000000 iq.dat I get a good iq.dat, so I do not think to an USB issue; moreover tests with spyserver + remote SDR# are fine…

A gain of 48 is supported by the v3 blog, maybe that’s why this is partially working

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4

Yes of course sorry I missed that one.

With rtl_test you can get the gain values supported and you can only use these values for a good result.

rtl_test -d 0
Found 2 device(s):
  0:  Realtek, RTL2838UHIDIR, SN: 00000001
  1:  Realtek, RTL2838UHIDIR, SN: 00002332

Using device 0: Generic RTL2832U OEM
Found Rafael Micro R820T tuner
Supported gain values (29): 0.0 0.9 1.4 2.7 3.7 7.7 8.7 12.5 14.4 15.7 16.6 19.7 20.7 22.9 25.4 28.0 29.7 32.8 33.8 36.4 37.2 38.6 40.2 42.1 43.4 43.9 44.5 48.0 49.6

A higher sample rate is an option but keep an eye on log file to see if there are samples being dropped.

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5

Tnx Jan and satcolintel5,
good point about “GAIN” and “samp_rate” setup. Corrected this morning but no way…
But there’s some other issue that I cannot understand: some directory are missing so I suspect an SD failure and/or a filesystem issue!
So now I’m trying a fresh installation ( on the same SD, cause I haven’t other here on the remote site, Murphy’s law in action…) to see if something works :slight_smile:
I’ll report asap after that.
Thanks again guys for support :+1:

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