I’ve got 3 sets of farmbots running next to each other. All 3 were running smoothly until I decided to update the OS when ver. 7 came out. I updated one of the farmbots, and since then I have been unable to connect through wifi. Using ethernet cable works without any problems. I’ve tried reflashing the SD numerous times, rebooting the FB, etc, but nothing works.
Basically after running the configuration, the FB reboots, the blue light flashes endlessly, and the farmbot-XXXX wifi continues to appear on the network. I am running these farmbots at a university, but it shouldn’t be a wifi/port problem since this particular farmbot used to run fine until the update. The other 2 farmbots are still running fine under ver.6.4.11. over wifi. I was thinking maybe it is something in the OS update that is causing it.
But then yesterday the problem got worse. When I plug in the farmbot to configure it using wifi, no flashing blue light appears anymore. No farmbot-XXXX appears on the network anymore. But when I use the ethernet cable to connect, the farmbot works perfectly.
I don’t understand what is causing this. Any help is appreciated!
You mean the message from the configuration screen? Yes, there was a message when I tried connecting with wifi, but unfortunately I didn’t screenshot/copy it when it appeared. I do remember it had a message with “error, :nxdomain” followed by a lengthy message which I can’t remember now.
The reason I can’t get the error message anymore is because the farmbot-XXXX network doesn’t appear anymore (no blue light flashing either), it doesn’t seem like the farmbot is responding without an ethernet cable. I wasn’t expecting this to happen so I didn’t copy the error message immediately.
When I pull out the power cable, plug in the ethernet cable, and then plug the power cable back into the socket, it connects by itself without having to go to 192.168.24.1 to run the configuration. The blue and green LEDs light up and I just sync on the web app and the farmbot runs fine.
I don’t know if this matters, but I should mention that I couldn’t connect through wifi when I flashed the SD card with the latest 7.0.1.img or with the previous 6.4.9.img file. The SD card is currently flashed with the previous version (the OS version on the web app is 7.0.1). The blue light stopped flashing and the farmbot-XXXX stopped appearing on the network after I tried restarting the farmbot several times (by pulling out and plugging in) with the previous .img file flashed.
Let me know if there are other places I can check for error messages. Thanks
I just reflashed the SD card with the latest version and ran the configuration page with wifi (the farmbot-XXXX appeared on my network). The results are exactly the same as I wrote in my first post. I went back to the configuration page and I managed to copy the message:
I then connected with an ethernet cable and ran the configuration page, and now the farmbot is connected and running again. So for some reason, I can’t connect with wifi.
nxdomain means FarmBot can’t reach the configured server. If you didn’t change the server (you would know if you did), this means that something is preventing FarmBot from resolving the ip address of the https://my.farm.bot Please check any firewalls settings on your network.
I see, but the thing is, I didn’t change anything except update to the new OS and flash the SD card a few times, nothing else. The other 2 farmbots are running fine with the old version. So I am just wondering whether there are changes in v.7 that is perhaps causing this? Or could this be a hardware problem, maybe something is not working consistently as it should (since I suddenly couldn’t connect to the farmbot to run wifi configurations earlier)? I don’t know anything about hardware and software, so I am grasping at straws here…
I’ve doubled checked with our IT people, and they assured me that the wifi is unrestricted. We have a dedicated wifi for the farmbots, and it has worked well until this happened. If it is a firewall issue, shouldn’t the other 2 farmbots also have wifi connection problems?
I am out of ideas to try, please let me know if there are anything else that I can test out to confirm or rule out a possible problem. Thanks
I would like to give an update on my farmbot since my last post. After continuing to try out everything I can think of to get the farmbot to connect through wifi in the past few days, I’ve had no success at all. I alternated between connecting with ethernet and wifi, but the wifi still did not want to work.
What I did notice though was that the farmbot was rapidly becoming unusable even when it was connected through ethernet. The Z-axis started stuttering and wouldn’t move consistently, then the x-axis started doing the same thing. It came to a point that the x and z axis would try to move but couldn’t, and movement errors became the norm. I did not make any setting changes throughout, but it was clear that something was breaking down over the course of a few short days.
During this time, when I unplugged the ethernet to try with wifi (after shutting down first), no lights would appear on the electronics box at all. I tried different SD cards without any success. I assumed the wifi part was pretty much dead along with the overall movements. The deterioration of the functionality of farmbot over the past couple of days was striking…
Today I decided to remove the entire farmbot and install a 4th one (the other 2 has been working fine all along). I used one of the SD cards that had been previously used on the broken farmbot, and ran the configuration. I am happy to say that the 4th farmbot runs fine through wifi!! I still need to input a few sequences to test it, but all the axis run really smoothly using the control arrows.
I don’t know why and how this happened. I’ve looked through the forum and I haven’t found anyone else reporting something similar to what I experienced. This started when I updated to the latest OS version, maybe it is just a coincidence, I am not sure. We installed these 3 farmbots in August last year, so it has only been around 6 months. Thinking back, whenever I’ve had minor problems such as movement issues or syncing errors, it was almost always this particular farmbot giving us problems. So maybe it was a sign of things to come.
Sorry for the long post, but I would appreciate it if you guys could provide some answers to why this happened. Thanks
Glad to hear your device is up and running. Unfortunately WiFi is somewhat unstable at what would seem like a normal distance for most devices on the Raspberry Pi, so i suspect that is what is at play for you right now. It’s also possible there is a power deliver issue to the Raspberry Pi on this bot.
Thanks for the reply, I also started to suspect maybe it was a power delivery issue, but I don’t know how to test it. It definitely looks like there was something wrong with that particular farmbot and not the wifi network that were are using. Anyway, since I’ve got the new one working, I’m just gonna leave the broken one for now.
@connor@Gabriel would it be possible to include the supply power into the webapp and check it? I know that octopi currently has something built in where they warn for undervoltage of the supply of the Raspi so maybe we could do it in a similar way?
I just built my first farmbot and I’m trying to run it. I have the same problem and error message. On the card I installed the last firmware version. I tried to connect via wifi and via ethernet. Ethernet also didn’t work’s. I checked the cable all ok. I have such a message as on a photo.
is your device on a enterprise or school network? nxdomain means farmbot cannot resolve the dns address “my.farm.bot” to it’s ip address. This is usually due to a firewall issue.
My farmbot is in a private home network, I have an only Draytek router with standard product configuration. All devices automatically connect to the network without problems. How I should configure the farmbot? What I must sign in advanced network settings?
When I put rj45 ethernet cable to the farmbot the led on the socket didn’t flash. It is normal? In yours, farmbot before configuration when you put the Rj45 to the socket led also didn’t flash?
@wojdylam I had the same error message, but when I plugged in the ethernet cable, it connects every time without any problems. As mentioned in my previous posts, at first the blue LED flashes when trying to connect with wifi, but it never successfully connects after configuration. After multiple attempts, the blue LED stops appearing completely whenever I tried to connect through wifi. But my problem got worse, even when connected through ethernet, the farmbot motors started acting up in all sorts of ways, It seemed like a different set of problems altogether. I haven’t had time to try to figure out the problem, so I replaced it with another farmbot and it has been running well since.
Today i was connect trought WiFi from hotspot mobile. Everything work on WiFi, but i can’t use this connection its’s to expensive and my home WiFi it’s to far from farmbot. I must connect trought Ethernet. On Ethernet farmbot dosn’t work, I have still the same error. I try a lot of diffrent settings in this connection but without effect. I think the Ethernet on board in rpi3 is broken or not configured.when I plug rj45 cabel, Leds on socket didn’t blink. Please tell me on yours farmbot when you plug rj45 the socket blinking?
@Connor unfortunately I’ve run into the same problem as before…Everything was working fine through wifi until last weekend. If you check my first few posts on this thread, you will recall that the problem I had with the first farmbot wasn’t resolved, I just installed a new electronics box with new hardware inside and it worked on wifi when I flashed v.6.4.9. I didn’t want to risk upgrading to v.7.0.1 just in case the same thing happened again. But what happened a few days ago was that it suddenly updated to v.7.0.1 automatically (the autoupdate was turned off). And as soon as that happened, I couldn’t connect through Wifi after I ran the configuration.
The sequence of events that happened this time round was very clear cut: When it was still on v.6.4.9, it was connected through wifi and I was busy on the web app, and it suddenly started auto-updating. After the update was done, I had to reconfigure, and that’s when I couldn’t connect through Wifi (the blue LED would keep flashing and the farmbot wifi would still be detected - as I wrote in my earlier posts).
I’ve re-flashed numerous times with different versions, sometimes I couldn’t connect even using the ethernet cable. After trying for several days, it works now in v.7.0.1, but only through ethernet (wifi has never worked since the auto-update).
When trying to configure with wifi, it has the same message as before with the nxdomain error posted above. I know you said " nxdomain means farmbot cannot resolve the dns address “my.farm.bot” to it’s ip address. This is usually due to a firewall issue." But the fact is it worked through wifi in v.6.4.9. before the auto-update to v.7.0.1. My other 2 farmbots currently set up next to it are still working with v. 6.4.9. through wifi. Surely there is something else going on here.
In earlier posts on this thread, you mentioned it could be a power delivery issue after my first farmbot basically broke down completely. I am just wondering whether this wifi problem could be the first symptom of a power delivery problem? This is the second electronics box plugged into the same wall socket that has basically the same problem as the first electronics box.
Please let me know if there are any solutions to this problem, and if there are any ways to test the power delivery problem. I would really appreciate your help.
Yes, getting a beefier microusb cable has been known to fix wifi quality issues. Along with that, can you please follow this guide to gather a log dump for me? please PRIVATE MESSAGE this log dump to me. Do not post it in this thread as it may contain sensitive data.
Thanks a lot, I will gather the log dump and send it to you on Monday.
btw, can you explain exactly what you mean by getting a beefier microusb cable (how much beefier? a link to the specs I should get would be nice…) just to be sure, which cable are you referring to in the electronics box? sorry, not an electronics guy over here…
I still need to input a few sequences to test it, but all the axis run really smoothly using the control arrows.
