Com'X510 - Connection loss and endless reboot

[Romain_Brunner]

Hi all,

We installed 14 Com'X510 in metro stations for a public transportation customer.

From the beginning of the project we experienced several issues, but two did occur more often than others:

- Unplanned reboot of the Com'X that never ends. We only get to the "The box is starting" page and that's it

- Total connection loss with the Com'X. The IP address doesn't answer anymore.

All boxes are on the same network, some have the 3.6.3 firmware, other the 4.0.10. It doesn't seem to change anything.

We have a VPN access on the network, but it isn't very useful in these two cases. We need to go on site to reboot the Com'X, knowing that it can happen again because the cause is unknown. Moreover, we need at least 5 days to get an authorization to go on site, so the customer is becoming very angry and begins questioning our products.

I have really no clue about what is going on there. As it is the only project where we have such problems, I'm beginning to think it can be network related.

Do someone experience a similar issue, or have any suggestion?
As we are forced to

[Anonymous user]

Hi Romain,

I'm very sorry to hear you are having these issues. Can you help us with some more information on these ComX:

• In v4.0.10, we've fixed some issues specific to the ComX continually starting. Can you confirm you have seen this issue also on ComX with 4.0.10?
• How many devices do you have configured in each ComX?
• What network method is the ComX using (ethernet, cellular, etc)?
• How many ComX have you seen these issues on?
• Does a reboot of the ComX fix both issues?

Best Regards,

Colton

[Bojan]

Hi Colton,

I think I might have reproduced the issue on my test Com'X510 - the IP address of Eth1 has changed, but the Data Logger is still uploading files to FTP server. Let me know if you need more information in order to reproduce the bug:

Mar 6. ComX'510 had IP: 192.168.0.23 and it was "pingable" from FTP server.

Mar 13. ComX'510 has IP: 196.254.11.164 an it is not "pingable" any more, but it uploads data logs for FTP server regularly:

[Anonymous user]

Hi Bojan,

Is your ComX configured to be in DHCP mode? This could be some sort of IP address conflict.

Best,

Colton

[Anonymous user]

Hi Bojan,

The IP address you are seeing your ComX revert to: 169.254.x.x is a "ZeroConf" address. This means that for some reason the ComX was unable to get an IP address assigned by the DHCP server. This is almost certainly a network issue. To eliminate the DHCP server as a problem, can you try setting the ComX into static IP mode?

Best,

Colton

[Bojan]

Hi Colton,

It looks like there was a problem with ComX renewing the lease.

It should have tried to renew it's lease when 50 percent of the lease time has expired. To renew its lease, ComX  DHCP client should have sent a DHCPRequest message to the DHCP server from which it originally obtained the lease.

It looks like it have never happened, so I manually unplugged Ethernet cable from Eth1 and plugged it back and  everything is back to normal now.

I'm wondering if that was the Romain's issue in loosing IP addresses, too?

[Anonymous user]

Hi Bojan,

The scenario you described would certainly explain how your ComX ended up in a ZeroConf state. Can you share your diagnostic information for how you determined the DHCP client did not request the new IP address?

Best,

Colton

[Romain_Brunner]

Hi Colton,

To answer your questions:

• In v4.0.10, we've fixed some issues specific to the ComX continually starting. Can you confirm you have seen this issue also on ComX with 4.0.10?
  • The box continually starting has the 3.6.3 firmware. The box not responding has the 4.0.10 one. I would say that the starting problem occurs only with 3.6.3 but I can't be 100% sure.
  • The thing is that these Com'X originally published csv files by email, and we got some problems with the 4.0.10 for this function (impossible to change the recipients list, impossible to save some publication parameters), so we kept them on 3.6.3.
• How many devices do you have configured in each ComX?
  • Between 1 and 3
• What network method is the ComX using (ethernet, cellular, etc)?
  • All are on ethernet
• How many ComX have you seen these issues on?
  • 4
• Does a reboot of the ComX fix both issues?
  • Yes, but only temporarily

Hope it can help you.

Thanks for your help,

Romain

[Romain_Brunner]

Hi Bojan,

In our issue, the Com'X doesn't publish on the FTP anymore, that's how we identified the malfunction.

I don't know what renewing the lease means. Can you explain me?

Thanks,

Romain

[Bojan]

Hi Colton,

Here is my diagnostics file.

I can only wait one week for lease to expire and confirm the issue.

Best regards,

Bojan

[Bojan]

Hi Romain,

You can find more about the renewing the lease in this article.

It's not relevant to your project if you set the ComX into static IP mode. It applies to DHCP mode only.

Best regards,

Bojan