Loss of comms to C-Bus, restarting C-gate fixed it

Discussion in 'C-Bus Toolkit and C-Gate Software' started by more-solutions, Oct 26, 2012.

  1. more-solutions

    more-solutions

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    I have seen on more than one occasion a situation where communications via a CNI is lost and which can only be recovered by restarting C-Gate. Closing/Re-opening the network in toolkit doesn't work.

    Usually this triggered by physical problems on the network. For example, loss of power to the network, and unable to regain connection after power is restored. Or breaking the network to replace a unit, unable to regain connection once the network is back up.

    Specifically: Yesterday, I had one network I couldn't reach which I thought was an Ethernet issue (I couldn't ping/telnet to the CNI), and one network which went down for about an hour while a unit was replaced. When that second network came back up (physically), I scanned for new units and found the new unit (address 255) but couldn't commission it because C-Gate/Toolkit still thought the old unit was there, albeit that it couldn't ping it. So I rescanned, and the network failed to respond. I tried several times without success. In the end I restarted C-Gate, and sure enough was able to gain access to that network. What was weird was that I also then gained access to other network that I previously couldn't even ping (and regained the ability to ping/telnet to the CNI).

    I don't like restarting C-Gate as the site has 35 networks and is controlled through a head-end that communicates via C-Gate, so the 15 mins or so of outage I get from restarting C-Gate is far from ideal. Any thoughts as to how I could regain connection without restarting C-Gate?

    I'm running C-Gate v2.8.0 and have level 7 logs from before/after c-gate was restarted, if that helps.
     
    more-solutions, Oct 26, 2012
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  2. more-solutions

    daniel C-Busser Moderator

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    Hi, thanks for reporting this.

    You've given a good description but it's hard to say what might be causing your issues without log files. In Toolkit if you select "Help | Report a Problem" you'll see an e-mail address shown on the dialog. If you can send the toolkit.ccl, C-Gate event.log files, C-Gate project file and C-GateConfig.txt file to that address (zipped and under 5MB per e-mail), we can take a look.

    I know it's inconvenient but if you can collect a level 9 log of the problem that would also be really helpful.
     
    daniel, Oct 28, 2012
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  3. more-solutions

    more-solutions

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    I can probably supply all of these except the toolkit.ccl file from the backups I take when I'm on site (logs only to level 7 though); is that sufficient for now or should I wait until back on site to collect the .ccl (I'm back on site in around a month's time).

    Leaving it set to level 9 in case of problems is probably not viable. Can I switch to level 9 without restarting C-Gate when a problem occurs?

    Mark
     
    more-solutions, Oct 29, 2012
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  4. more-solutions

    daniel C-Busser Moderator

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    Sure, you can send it without the .CCL in the meantime.

    No, switching it to level 9 after the fact wouldn't help that much I'm afraid. I understand your concerns about leaving it at level 9 constantly, and it will have a small impact on the machine's performance, though I should add C-Gate won't fill the disk with logs any more (it cycles the files now).
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 2, 2012
    daniel, Nov 2, 2012
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  5. more-solutions

    daniel C-Busser Moderator

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    Hi Mark, thanks for sending your logs in. I've e-mailed you with a detailed analysis of your logs, but in short, for the benefit of other users:

    C-Gate 2.8.0 exhibits the following behaviours:

    - a background sync occurs in segments which are "padded" out to fill the sync time (typically 1 hour). Upon finishing a sync, a new sync starts again quite soon.
    - all networks sync at once.
    - networks frequently flip between "OK", "sync" and "error" states because C-Gate is trying to query units that are no longer there.

    C-Gate 2.9.x had a number of changes designed to depict network states more accurately:

    - a single background sync runs continuously until it's finished, then nothing happens until the next sync time.
    - only 5 networks sync at once. When one finishes syncing, another waiting network sync can begin.
    - C-Gate doesn't put a network back into "sync" state after the first sync. Furthermore, the state remains "OK" unless the sync fails, whereupon it goes to "error".

    The behaviour is quite different but you may want to consider trying the most recent Clipsal C-Bus software at this site.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 5, 2012
    daniel, Nov 5, 2012
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