The old issues have been resolved with 3.18 firmware. Now, there’s a new issue.
Everything has been working well as long as I don’t turn it off for a long period (over night). I’ve left the PB running for two days with no issues. But, as soon as I unplug it over night, I have startup issues.
I hope all this makes sense…
Every time I turn on the PG after leaving it unplug for a while, I get stuck on the loading screen. I have to turn the PB on and off several times before it corrects itself and works as expected. When I plug it in, it starts the last used sequence like it should… but gets stuck on the loading screen when trying to login. If I let the loading screen sit (3+ minutes) and it times out and the browser says the connection was lost (browser debug errors listed below). I refresh the page and the loading cube comes back spinning. After a while, I get a warning that PB is having issues displaying images (the previews of patters) and it asks if I want to load the page without images. If you click yes, it takes you to 192.168.###.###/?min After a minute or two, the patter that’s playing will suddenly stop. If I let the PB sit (frozen) and don’t change any settings, the patter will start again (takes about 10 minutes). Once the pattern starts again, the GUI will be buggy. If I refresh the page, I’m back to being stuck on the loading screen. After a while, the GUI will get past the spinning cube, but never really loads and the pattern stops again.
At the moment… I cannot get past the loading screen. I’ve rebooted the PB multiple times with no avail. If I push the button to change the sequence that’s playing, but when I restart the device again, it goes back to the sequence that was playing yesterday… not the sequence last playing before each reboot.
Firefox gives these errors while stuck on the loading cube:
Source map error: Error: request failed with status 404
Resource URL: http://192.168.50.38/
Source Map URL: pickr.es5.min.js.map
Firefox can’t establish a connection to the server at ws://192.168.50.38:81/. (this error repeats endlessly)
The connection to ws://192.168.50.38:81/ was interrupted while the page was loading. (this error repeats endlessly)
Sorry for the long post… Just wanted to show everything I’ve tried on my own before reaching out.
Hi @Nurples ,
This sounds like it might be a problem with WiFi connectivity, but I think the root cause might be power related. Please bear with me to collect some more info!
Can you get in to the interface eventually?
How far from your router is the PB?
What kind of signal strength do you see in a WiFi scan?
What are you using for power, and how far away is your power supply?
Have you tried without LEDs connected?
Have you tried without LEDs, and PB powered by USB from a computer?
Did you try the recommendations in the other thread, and if so which and did they help?
Make sure you don’t have any metal near the Pixelblaze’s antenna.
Try moving things closer together.
Long wires from the power supply, noisy power supplies, or grounding issues can also impact WiFi. Adding capacitors close to PB can help in some cases.
Sometimes getting a cheap wifi extender can make a huge difference!
That info will help a lot! Based only on the info that it has problems after being unpowered for some time, this leads me to think that it might be power related.
I have definitely had bad power supplies cause WiFi issues. The same supplies might work fine for other applications. I’ve also had supplies that work fine with just a PB, but start to cause WiFi issues once the additional load of LEDs are added. Collecting the info above and trying USB power without LEDs can help isolate the issue. It might be some other cause, but let’s try to rule out power first.
Can you get in to the interface eventually?
Usually, yes… But not right now.
How far from your router is the PB?
30 feet maybe…
What kind of signal strength do you see in a WiFi scan?
WiFi scan shows a pretty tall green bar. I assume this means good strength. (maybe an update could have a mouse over popup that shows the DB?)
What are you using for power, and how far away is your power supply?
I’m using a 2.4A USB power supply. Using 5’ USB power cable.
Have you tried without LEDs connected?
Yes, no difference.
Have you tried without LEDs, and PB powered by USB from a computer?
Yes, no difference.
Did you try the recommendations in the other thread, and if so which and did they help?
Make sure you don’t have any metal near the Pixelblaze’s antenna.
Try moving things closer together.
Long wires from the power supply, noisy power supplies, or grounding issues can also impact WiFi. Adding capacitors close to PB can help in some cases.
Sometimes getting a cheap wifi extender can make a huge difference!
I’m working on a wooden table. I’ll try moving closer to the router. I’ve got a much larger power supply that I can wire directly into the PB. I’ll try that to ensure that power isn’t an issue.
When stuck on the loading screen, I get a lot of syntax errors. I also got this error while trying to connect this time:
@Nurples,
Odd, this is a different kind of error than I’ve seen previously. I’d like to see what’s going on in the network tab, see what kind of payload sizes, headers, and if its consistent.
Would you go to the network tab of the dev tools, click the gear icon and enable “persist logs”, reload the page like 2-3 times (give some time each reload), and save as a HAR (also under the gear icon)? zip and email to wizard@electromage.com
The HAR file is basically a snapshot of everything on that tab, including payloads, in a giant JSON file so you don’t want too many samples.
If you are still game, after getting the HAR, there’s another thing I’d like you to try. Would you reconfigure it for AP mode, and see if connecting directly solves the problem? That takes your router/network out of the equation (and might use a different radio channel too), but still relies on PB’s WiFi, power, and your computer + browser. If that still has problems, do you have a phone/tablet handy to try?
