Skylark 5.6 for Dreamcatcher 3

I can’t complain so far with my DC3.03, All working fine.

Keep an eye on it. So far 3 people in North America have had crashes over SES-2. Ken

second lock-up… at about 24 hours of run time—might be a cron

last system message before lock up

Sep 28 13:44:01 othernet user.info ondd[511]: [carousel] completed: opaks/314a-messages-2019-09-28_13_42.txt.tbz2
Sep 28 13:44:02 othernet user.notice root: Discovered /mnt/downloads/opaks/314a-messages-2019-09-28_13_42.txt.tbz2, extracting…

I had a different kind of lock up 12 hours ago. The unit stopped receiving packets, but the Touch Screen worked fine this time. I didn’t notice the LEDs nor did I have the foresight to look at the Diagnostics to see the LNB bias-T status. I’ll do that next failure. Ken

really strange, no problems on my 3.03 since over 2 Days on 5.6image

This is great improvement when slowly changing the frequencies. The DC frequency is applied almost instantly and I don’t have do a re-boot to get the lock.

Thanks much, !

Another thing I just discovered when copying the new Satellite Calculator @Tysonpower Manuel developed. My external micro SD card was full.

What happens in Skylark when an external micro SD card becomes full? Does it impact any other operations like the unexplained shut downs I’ve been experiencing? Ken

Easy and quick upgrade to 5.6, configurations remained unchanged and was up and running in minutes. Radio disconnects properly, and Skylark 5.6 displayed in lower right corner.

Packet loss is minimal using my old 18-in satellite dish and Maverick LNB. SNR consistently in the 4.5 to 5 dB range.

Richard
KE7KRF

you might be onto something, my third lockup on the v3.03 board, would not re-connect to client mode wifi.

while working the lcd to to a reset, ap, sta modes a couple of time the first screen on the lcd sometimes showed 0.0 GB free, sometimes 5.5 GB free.

So I re-imaged the boot partition, that didn’t help, the installed skylark 5.5 on the boot partition, tht didn’t work,

Did a second configuration reset from the lcd… and it rebooted to station client mode with no wifi,

So fourth try of rebooting into access mode finally has me back on version 5.5, and able to set a client wifi.

Something is definitely different in the config files that are NOT on the boot partition.

For now I have skylark 5.6 on a ver 3.05
and skylark 5.5 on a ver 3.03
different antennas and lnb so all I can is watch stuff happen
no second sd installed in either

edit-- ver 5.6 crashed again
diagnostics:
[ OK ] File service is running

   Last few updates from file service:

   Jan  1 00:00:35 othernet user.info ondd[497]: [carousel] setting time
   Sep 30 19:14:05 completed: opaks/4919-messages-2019-09-30_19_12.txt.tbz2
   Jan  1 00:00:21 othernet user.info ondd[492]: [main] v3.0.0
   Jan  1 00:00:21 othernet user.err ondd[492]: [carousel] index failed CRC
   Jan  1 00:00:44 othernet user.info ondd[492]: [carousel] setting time

We’ll see. Right now, my DC 3.03 has 12 GB free on the OS card and 2.5 GB free on my external storage card. My LED11 light is still steady green, which is different from when SK 5.5 ran on it.

Jim, as I understand the external SD card operation - - it only get’s written to when you reboot the DC or remove/reinsert the SD card into a live DC.

I’m back up now and will monitor operation. I have a DC 3.05 on the way which I will start using when it gets here. I’ll take my existing SD cards and move them into the DC 3.05 without changing anything. Ken

@Abhishek
@Syed
I just returned home and found my v3.02Q crashed and disconnected again.

I will do this test as soon as possible to see if there is a v3.02Q/v3.03 vs v3.05 difference. Ken

I have encountered the same “lock-up” situation twice since upgrading to Skylark v5.6 on a Dreamcatcher v3.03. The touchscreen is unresponsive and the web server doesn’t respond either.

Yes I had 2 more failures exactly like yours in the last 24 hours. It has nothing to do with the full external storage card which I fixed. Ken

Had my first lockup today after 4 to 5 days or so tho.

I believe @maxboysdad Jerry is reverting his DC v3.03 back to Skylark to 5.5. I’ve got mixed emotions about doing that. Since my new DC V3.05 is soon to arrive, I’m inclined to move forward and retire my DC v3.03 :cry: Ken

@Abhishek
@Syed
So, are we going to abandon “backwards compatibility”? I am all for moving forward, but I don’t see a less functional DreamCatcher and a broken operating system as moving forward… I would like to keep my 3.02Q and 3.03 units working. Right now, that has already been shot down with 5.6.

1 Like

Well, my 3.03 worked great for a few days, so it must be a fixable problem and not an hardware issue i think.

1 Like

@maxboysdad Skylark 5.6 works better on Dreamcatcher 3.05. We’ll definitely look into the issue that’s causing the lockups on older Dreamcatchers.

Removing the display is progress in that it significantly reduces costs. We need trim even more costs to get to a real mass-market price. Future versions will definitely be less flexible but also cost less. For example, Dreamcatchers currently allow for really wideband transmission and reception, due to the on board mixer and synthesizer. That may not always be an available feature.

I disagree that removing the display is progress, however, probably for different reasons than you cite. here. As a customer and end user, I would rather spend the cost of the display and have it’s functionality as opposed to having to have a computer out in the bright sunlight trying to see it and adjust the LNB. Since you are not often mobile and carrying this unit around portable, nor working outside where the sunlight does interfere with the viewing of the computer screen, I guess it is too much for you to understand this viewpoint. It is like your new enclosure mentioned in another page of this forum, there is no provision to put a cone on the LNB, which we have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt is necessary in most places. This enclosure will not work well for most end users. For you, the convenience of not having to address this in your design is your prerogative, but does not relieve the situation for the end user, who is, by the way, in the total perspective, paying your wages…

1 Like