I need some help troubleshooting my emoncms.org data feed problem.
Just finished building emontx and loaded latest example emonTx_CT123_Voltage sketch and emonlib yesterday. The only changes I've made are to set the frequency and calibration figures.
I've used a Raspberry pi with ready made RFM12pi expansion board. I loaded the Emoncms on the Raspberry PI - Ready-to-go image and then updated with git pull. The pi is connected to my wifi router directly via cable.
I have 3 x ct sensors and 9v voltage sensor (all standard ones from shop) in use.
The setup works great logging data to emoncms on the pi at 192.168.1.103 The feed data seems to update every 5 - 10 secs giving nice smooth lines on the multigraph I've set up in my dashboard.
However the logging of data to my emoncms.org feeds over the internet is not working properly and due to my limited understanding of networking and linux I'm now stumped. The emoncms account is receiving the data but in sporadic intervals. Sometimes it's updated every 30 secs but mostly it's updated every 15 - 50 mins. This is making the multigraph for example, very jagged looking and the feed data is not matching with my local emoncms data very well.
Would this be a setup issue with my router or with the setup of the emon firmware?
Re: Emoncms data feeds not updating as regularly as local pi emoncms data feeds
Disclaimer: I'm no networking expert.
The real question is: Why is it not updating? We presume (but the first step is to prove it) that it is despatching the data at the proper intervals. Is it despatching the data and the data is not getting through, or is it waiting for an acknowledgement that doesn't come back (which might mean the data didn't get through), or is it not recognising the acknowledgement and getting stuck that way? Have you checked the firewall in your router?
I've no idea how the RPi interfaces with the web, the Nanode uses DNS to get the server's IP address, which you're not using with your local emoncms. If DNS does not respond in a timely manner, that could create a hang-up.
Re: Emoncms data feeds not updating as regularly as local pi emoncms data feeds
Thanks for the reply Robert, I hadn't seriously considered the router to be the problem as it's been updating PVoutput with my inverter stats, through a laptop running Aurora monitor, without a hiccup for over 18 months now.
Following your post I was going to swap my 3g router for another one but thought I'd try a 3UK broadband sim card (which I had to hand anyway) in place of the Tmobile one first and eureka, the web based emoncms now seems to be updating every few seconds. It's only been running for a few hours with the new sim card but everything now seems to be working well.
Maybe Tmobile where throttling my bandwidth or more likely it was a dns issue as I do remember seeing a comment flash past on the raspberry boot screen about it being unable to obtain the server name from 192.?/??...
Re: Emoncms data feeds not updating as regularly as local pi emoncms data feeds
Ah, you didn't say you were using the 3g network! I remember seeing comments somewhere (it might have been here, or possibly JeeLabs) that 'they' had problems with a wireless network. It might be worth trying to find that.
If you saw something about a server name from 192. that makes sense because you won't have your own Domain Name Server (and the World DNS won't know about your local 192 addresses). My guess is the 3UK system is more tolerant - I think you need to check how you've set up the emoncms address on your RPi - you might be mixing the two servers' addresses.
[Edit] This might shed some light: http://openenergymonitor.org/emon/node/1903
[Edit 2] Also http://openenergymonitor.org/emon/node/1696
Re: Emoncms data feeds not updating as regularly as local pi emoncms data feeds
Update...systems been running problem free all week now on the threeuk 3G network.
For the record I don't have the Huawei E367 3G dongle plugged into the Raspberry pi like the guys having problems in the links. Its plugged into a ZTE MF10 wifi router which at the moment is connected to the pi via ethernet cable. No drivers or UMTS software is needed on pi this way.
The only problem is when the wifi router crashes, which it has done in the past occasionally (approx once per month), it will need manually power cycling. I don't think I can get the pi to restart it.
The pi boot message which I mentioned in my last post is still there even with the new sim card. I wrote it down this time instead of relying on memory....."couldn't reliably determine the servers fully qualified domain name using 127.0.1.1 for Server name" googling it points to server name not set in httpd.conf file. Not sure if the message is related to the connection problems I had but I'll try to fix it anyway.