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  • Author Author: neilk
  • Date Created: Date Created
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Unintended Consequences........

neilk

Just before Christmas last year, my ISP offered me a deal whereby I could have my broadband connection upgraded to twice the speed and actually pay a little bit less, provided I signed up for another 18 months contract. The deal also included a new router. I have been satisfied with my ISP and the price was competitive so I signed up,

 

The router arrived, the switch over occurred and my desk top PC (cable connected) was back online and looking good almost immediately. I then went through the process of reconnecting both laptops and the wireless printer to the new SSID. I then brought the ESP8266 greenhouse monitor inside so that I could update the firmware via a cable connection - can't do OTA updates if the device can't connect to the network! Finally, I reconnected the Humax hard drive video recorder to the new SSID (we don't have a SMART TV).

 

Then the trouble started: my wife's laptop periodically refused to connect to the WiFi, or would drop out whilst she was using it and refuse to re-connect, although mine was OK. The only fix seemed to be to disable and then re-enable the WiFi adapter and then reboot the laptop. Strangely, after a few weeks, this behaviour stopped! Then the Humax video recorder started to regularly disconnect from the network, - every hour or so - flashing a message up on the TV screen to tell us and then re-connecting after a few seconds, flashing another message on the screen!! Although annoying, this was not a big problem, because we rarely streamed content from the Internet.

 

However......... In these extremely difficult times of enforced stay at home, we decided it would be good to be able to access streaming content. So we did, and it was very inconvenient when the recorder disconnected from the network in the middle of a film! I did some Googling and found a suggestion that certain models of Humax recorders don't like to connect to an SSID with a long name. Easy peasy - I logged onto the router, changed the SSID and password and then reconnected the Humax. By this time it was 9:30pm. We didn't stay around long enough to see if this had fixed the problem with the Humax.

 

The next morning, I sorted out the laptops again and then the printer. My brain obviously wasn't working properly, because I then logged on to my server to check the overnight temperatures in the greenhouse. It took me several minutes to realise that logging had stopped at about 9:20pm when I changed the SSID!

 

Out to the greenhouse, disconnect the unit, back inside and connect the unit to my PC and upload an updated firmware image. Check that it's connecting to the network and logging OK, and then back out to the greenhouse. Strange, it's not logging anymore. Back out to the greenhouse; watch it for a while, waiting for the blue LED to flash when it logs - it doesn't.......I wonder if the battery is flat? It shouldn't be!

 

Back to my desk, grab the phone powerpack, back out the greenhouse; plug it in and see the blue LED flash almost immediately! back to my desk and check it's logging. Yes!!

 

Thinking it through, even though the battery had several days of life left in it, when the unit failed to connect to the network at about 9:20pm, it just kept on trying and trying and failing  Connecting to the network and logging are the heaviest drain on power, so it's only to be expected that the remaining life in the battery drained away between 9:20pm and about 11:30am the following day!

 

To add insult to injury, the Humax recorder continues to regularly disconnect from the network and then reconnect!!! I have no idea why!

Parents

  • Neil,

     

    Sounds like life to me. I try to minimise these episodes by only updating or upgrading when absolutely necessary and certainly never to a new system hardware or software. Always wait until the initial bugs have been sorted out.

     

    I try never to buy a new car, always get one a few months old. I based this on purchasing a brand new motorbike when I was 20. It was a new model - very snazzy. First the crankshaft split in half (still under guarantee) and the garage spent months arguing with the manufacturer who was going to pay for it. Then it started running rough, especially when accelerating. Back to the garage several times while they declared there was nothing wrong with it. Eventually the master mechanic too kit out for a spin. Turns out there was a design fault on a small rubber house joining the carburettor (or something) and at the point where the tube joined the bracket the rubber would split due to vibration. You couldn't see it, it didn't affect low speeds, only when attempting to travel at normal road speeds. Cost about 50p to replace and took them all summer to find and fix.

     

    Dubbie

Comment

  • Neil,

     

    Sounds like life to me. I try to minimise these episodes by only updating or upgrading when absolutely necessary and certainly never to a new system hardware or software. Always wait until the initial bugs have been sorted out.

     

    I try never to buy a new car, always get one a few months old. I based this on purchasing a brand new motorbike when I was 20. It was a new model - very snazzy. First the crankshaft split in half (still under guarantee) and the garage spent months arguing with the manufacturer who was going to pay for it. Then it started running rough, especially when accelerating. Back to the garage several times while they declared there was nothing wrong with it. Eventually the master mechanic too kit out for a spin. Turns out there was a design fault on a small rubber house joining the carburettor (or something) and at the point where the tube joined the bracket the rubber would split due to vibration. You couldn't see it, it didn't affect low speeds, only when attempting to travel at normal road speeds. Cost about 50p to replace and took them all summer to find and fix.

     

    Dubbie

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  • in reply to dubbie

    Your point is very well taken - throughout my career, whenever I allowed myself to get to close to the "Bleeding edge", I almost always got my fingers burnt!! Fortunately, I was careful, most of the time!!

     

    A while ago, I blogged about upgrading my Arduino IDE and ESP8266 add on environments and finding that compilations failed for no good reason. I downgraded, got a working system, and am still using it!!