Send remote reboot command

[boB]

The Ethernet network code is definitely working better than it did say, a year ago.
Even more improvement will be coming  not too long from now as the unusual
disconnects are finally understood.  This appears to be only with certain systems.

For now, using the auto-reset is a great way to thwart any long term disconnect
problems.

boB

[Westbranch]

boB, is that whole system specific or is it related to the vintage of the Classic?

[microage97]

Can we telnet into the 502 port to query the values?

[atop8918]

You can telnet, but the Classic will only respond to MODBUS commands (assuming it isn't locked up) so you will have to properly format your telnet queries to match the MODBUS command you are attempting.

I'm working on some final network fixes and should have some Beta firmware for those willing to give it another try.

[microage97]

I am wondering if the issue isn't a over heating thing with the ethernet chip. Mine seems to stop responding when I am in absorb mode and the 150 is pretty hot....Just thinking....

[atop8918]

We did do some analysis of the hardware to check if there was a drooping supply or temperature problem but I don't believe we found any smoking guns. I am just doing some final checks on the latest network release with some more robust state checks and will hopefully release an Alpha version for willing testers this week.

[microage97]

Thanks for your hard work!

[atop8918]

You are very welcome. Thanks for buying our gear!

[boB]

boB, is that whole system specific or is it related to the vintage of the Classic?

Just the Classic but that should help the entire system.

boB

[dgd]

The easiest remote reboot I have seen, not involving power cycling the Classic and associated grunty breakers, is to use a small momentary relay to simple short to ground the 9v supply in the middle serial port (rj12 connector market MNGP/SLAVE)
That definitely does a complete reset and you have lost the energy KWhr count.
This appears to work even if the Classic is non responsive.
Very remote is possible if you have cell coverage using an old cellphone and one of those commonly available code activated cell relays.

dgd

[dgd]

I am wondering if the issue isn't a over heating thing with the ethernet chip. Mine seems to stop responding when I am in absorb mode and the 150 is pretty hot....Just thinking....

I didn't think there was an ethernet chip unless its something real basic. Does the CPU via firmware not do all the ethernet processing?
Maybe if there was ever an update of the processor board on the Classic then using a more modern dedicated ethernet controller (I like the Wiznet series)would eliminate all this ethernet unreliability nonsense and also provide some proper stack management for several TCP connections
Just IMHO 

dgd

[atop8918]

No, the CPU does not do all the Ethernet processing. There is an Ethernet PHY chip on the board which handles the actual signal translations and requirements for the OSI Physical Layer (in this case Ethernet). The processor has an Ethernet MAC module which does the packet handling and filtering. The software TCP/IP stack lives above this in the Flash of the processor itself. This is what handles the actual IP processing such as ICMP/TCP/ARP/BOOTP/DNS/DHCP.
Overheating, clock jitter, or power supply issues are definitely a possibility whenever dealing with high-speed signalling as is present in something like 10/100 Ethernet.
There is proper stack management for multiple connections as demonstrated by the unit's ability to simultaneously handle ICMP, ARP, DHCP, DNS, remote MyMidNite connections and the MODBUS port. We have just made a design decision to allow one listen TCP MODBUS connection for security reasons.  You may agree with this or not but it is how the unit was designed and will remain for the lifetime of the product. We selected the Ethernet PHY and the Ethernet enabled processor based on performance and price point. External chip solutions were considered but found to be too costly to use on this product t remain competitive. 
I agree that there is no excuse for the MODBUS connection to be so unreliable and now that I've finally had time to work on it I have released an early beta test of firmware involving a new state machine and connection monitoring for dealing with these issues. This is available for download now if anyone wishes to test with it. If it proves to fix the stack issues then it will be released.

[dgd]

Thanks for explaining this.
It's good to know you are hopefully resolving the ethernet reliability issues, I never thought it would be easy so thanks for applying your time and resources to this
I also understand your reasons for just one user tcp session, I just wish I could get the design team to reconsider this if not for the current Classic then for its  next revision or replacement.

Dgd

[atop8918]

I completely understand your frustration with the one connection and especially with the unreliability of said connection. We are definitely going to try to do it right with our future products. No crappy local app with poor support from Adobe, embedded web server for easy config, SNMP for enterprise deployments, multiple connection support, option to route an unencrypted mymidnite datastream to your own servers.
All lessons learned which we will hopefully be able to apply moving forward.