Flex Lockup on 1.10.16

KS0CW

Network is solid with latency in the ms single digits and i havent seen any reported dropped packets when looking at the network diags from SmartSDR. I have a CAT5 wired TPlink SF1005D with static IPs providing connections for the 6300, 1 Windows laptop (running Win10, SmartSDR & dimension4) and desktop PC running win10 and dimension4 in addition to whatever else (WSJT, FLDIGI, DXLab, FRStack, MMSSTV...etc), this network has no internet or other traffic just what is destined to/from the 6300. All other traffic is on my internet wireless network running  DHCP that both clients access on the 802.11 NIC.

Don, VE2HJ

Hi Eric,

Here are the details of my home network.

The router is a Cisco Linksys E1550 :

One port Ethernet connected to a cable modem from my Ethernet service provider on a static adress.

For(4)  Inthernet port  , Port # 1 connected to the Flex6500, CAT 6 cable 

Port # 2 not used ,

 Port # 3 Connected to the computer , CAT 5 cable

Port # 4 not used.

On WiFi i have a Toshiba Ultrabook, an Epson Workforce printer and a smartphone.

The router is my DHCP server. The lease time is set to ONE DAY.

 

While vewing the router settings i noticed that it was set to the Pacific Time Zone. I chaged it to match the computer time zone to the eastern time zone. It may make no difference but !

De Donald, VE2HJ

Dave-N9CHM

My Flex and HP computer are connected to each other through a TP-LINK TL-SG105 Gigabit 5 port switch. This Gigabit switch, is CAT5 wired to a Netgear WNDR3800 Wireless N600 Dual Band Gigabit Router. Latency is <1ms. Lease time is 24 hrs. Only 1 lockup in ~100 hrs of SSB operation since 2/23/17.

Cal N3CAL

Eric,

My home router is a D-Link DIR-868L connected to a Cisco SG200-8 Gigabit Switch which services my shack.  Both my Windows 10 computer and my Flex-6500 are connected to this switch.  Lease time is 7 days. 

Cal/N3CAL 

Rob Fissel

Router for the home that handles DHCP is an ASUS RT-AC66R, with the 6300 connected to one of the gigabit ports. There is an Airport Extreme attached to the ASUS, acting as an AP only for WLAN. WLAN radios are turned off on the ASUS. The lease time is 1 day. Shack PC is Windows 7 Pro.

Andy M5ZAP

Router is BT Home Hub 5 (made under licence by Sagem or Huawei) the BT router is the DHCP server.

Router connected to TP link Gigabit switches (4 switches in total in different rooms) Switch models are TL-SG1005D or TL-SG1007D (5 or 7 port versions of same switch).

Ethernet cabling to each switch is Cat 5e

Switch in Radio room (TP link TL-SG1005D) is connected to Computer and Flex 6500 with Cat 6 Cables. Nothing else is connected to that switch.

DHCP lease time is 24hrs

Network Health reported by Smart SDR and Windows 10 utility
Latency <1mS
Dropped packets is always zero

Dave-N9CHM

FYI, TP-LINK TL-SG105 Gigabit switch Ports: #1= HP computer controlling FLEX, #2=2nd HP computer for Internet browsing, #3= Cat5 to Netgear WNDR3800 Router, #4= FLEX 6500, #5=unused.

Dave - WB5NHL

Flex and desktop computer are connected  to 5-port Trendnet TEG-S80g gigabit switch which feeds a central whole house 16-port TrendNet TEG-S16Dg gigabit switch.  DHCP server is Amahi 7 NAS.  Lease lengths are 4 hours

Tim - W4TME

Thanks for the info.  I have added all comments to the defect detail.

KS0CW

FWIW -- experienced another lockup, this time it hung in transmit working JT65... long power button press to shutdown/recover.

Rob Fissel

FYI Ria asked me to re-upgrade my 6300 to 1.10.16 (I had rolled back after the lockups), uninstall DImension 4, and run Meinberg. This had no effect on preventing the lockups - I had two within about an 8 hour span. Also, the first install I did of 1.10.16 a month ago took 4 attempts to get a successful upgrade. The first three attempts to flash the box hung. This most recent attempt took 3 times, the third finally being successful. 

kk4x

I have had 2 lockup since upgrading about a week ago and yesterday. Same symptoms, continuous audio tone and long button press required to reset

73

Ed

kk4x

k0eoo

My 6500 and PC W10 connected to Netgear ProSAFE FS105NA fast switch via 3' ea ethernet cable and switch is connected to ASUS RT-AC66U router via 25' ethernet cable.....  Might add, since my last lockup a week or so ago I have had NO problems of any kind, knock on wood....

Steve Gw0gei

I have still not had a lock up since the latest public release. Used in contests on hf and 4m over the last two weeks and radio left on for 24hrs plus several times. Network set up here is similar to m5zap above with bt home hub 5 router downstairs feeding dchp via cat 5 cable into shack upstairs and then into an old 16 port network switch in the shack. My 6300 is plugged into the switch , as is my new faster w10 tower pc, and this week I have also plugged in an 8x2 Antenna Genius so2r switch which arrived and is under test in the shack before being relocated in the cupboard behind the shack wall. Network performance monitored via ssdr and always shows full green lights and less than 1 ms latency. Given that I have dimension 4 running all time and some people are getting lockups without d4 It looks like that is not the problem? Could be an issue with the newer faster gb switches? Given that I am using a very old (15-20 yr old )16 port switch? Or of course, given that I work full time and mainly use the radio for week night contests and the odd bigger contests at weekends, maybe I am not using the radio as much as a retired person or an active daily dxer and haven't put enough hours in to trigger an event. My previous lockups were on my old dell i3 laptop and new tower w10 pc now in use for running ssdr in contests has not yet had the issue. Hopefully everyone feeding in their set up will help in tracking down the cause of the issue. 73 Steve gw0gei / gw9j

Andy M5ZAP

Hi Steve,

I have been running since last weekend without a lock-up after previously experiencing the lock-ups. If there are contributing factors, either hardware or software outside of the flex software platform then a matrix of setups for users both with and without lockups would help identify the root cause.

All software and hardware across the X axis and Callsign down the Y axis

Done in Excel as a pivot table would be ideal

 

Dave - WB5NHL

Eric;
Have you thought that the lockup issue is related to Windows 10 etc updates/ improvements(???).  I had a couple of lockups occur awhile ago (some weeks).  I noticed that just recently Windows 10 did an update. Comparing Windows updates might shed some light i.e. service stack updates  I am running Win 10 ver 1607 with the updates shown below ( I don't list updates with a specific purpose i.e. Adobe, NVIDIA)

KB3150513    3/18/2017 This update provides the latest set of definitions for compatibility diagnostics that are performed on the system. The updated definitions will help enable Microsoft and its partners to ensure compatibility for all customers who want to install the latest Windows operating system. Installing this update also makes sure that the latest Windows operating system version is correctly offered through Windows Update, based on compatibility results.

This update may not be offered concurrently to all platforms. It will be available only to platforms for which there are new definitions available.

KB4013418    3/17/2017  This update makes stability improvements for the Windows 10 Version 1607 and Windows Server 2016 servicing stack.

KB4013429    3/17/2017  Long list of fixes some might apply  applies to Win 10,8.1,7 etc

KB3211320    1/25/2017   This update makes stability improvements for the Windows 10 Version 1607 servicing stack.

Steve Gw0gei

I must have tempted fate - left the radio on for the last 24 hrs and came into the shack this evening to find it had disconnected. Single button push wouldn't close the radio down (no beep present though). I did the long button press and it rebooted ok and ssdr showed it without the need for a power supply shut down on this occasion. The radio had been left on rx only on 80m but with the antenna genius switched off so all antennas were grounded with no signal present. Set up as above and my new w10 tower pc was not in sleep mode. Hey ho, not a major issue at present for me, but clearly there is a problem which appears to be random in nature. I will be leaving the pc and radio on again over next 24 hrs to see if it happens again.without rebooting the pc etc.

Jason NR0X

I'm having what appears to be the same lockup problem on my 6700.  It's happened 5 or 6 times in the last 3 weeks or so.  The last one happened sometime during the night when I accidentally left ssdr running.

SW v1.10.16.174
HW v1.10.16.91

I don't use VOX
I don't use Dimension4

happy to provide as much info as I can, if anyone wants it.

Jason NR0X

DaveC

Adding my two cents. My radio has locked up twice in receive mode with continuous tone from radio, connection lost to radio, had to do a "hard" reboot of the radio i.e. hold power button in until radio turns off.

It actually ran for quit a while before I started having problems. I started having problems about 4 days ago. The swcond time was last night 3/29

No problem with 1.9.13 software

Radio 6300
SW  v1.10.16.174
HW v1.10.16.91
only one slice up mode is CW breakin on

Radio does recover on reboot. 

Anymore info you require?

Dave

Michael Aust

Same thing here, so now I just say with 1.9.13 on my 6700

Steve Gw0gei

Just had another lock up of my 6300 - this time unfortunately in the last fifteen minutes of a domestic 80m contest :-(  

I was running for previous 150 mins on same freq on 80m - using footswitch for ptt into the radio as usual - and mouse clicking on the voice recorder button to send my cq contest and call. Around 5 mins prior to the radio crash I noticed that my audio was breaking up (monitor is always on here with heil headset) and the sure enough the radio stopped its connection. I was monitoring the network indicator and it never moved off the full green bar score (am on cat 5 lan here in the shack).

I closed ssdr down and opened it up again, but no radio showing. I pushed the off button and no response. I did the long press and it went off, and then I pressed it on again (without power supply shut down) and the radio showed up again and resumed ok with persistence to my original 80m run freq. Luckily its a slow contest and I didn't lose my run freq.

The radio had been on for around 48 hours as its a weekend and I usually leave it on. No issues with the pc which is a few weeks old fast i5 gaming machine with NVidia 10 graphics card and running w10, so I don't think its a pc memory issue. I was using n1mmplus as usual, latest (today) version as upgraded just before the contest. Had no issues with n1mm and it just reconnected to the 6300 when it came back online.

I guess the short term lesson for me is I should reboot the radio and remove the power supply as part of my pre contest hour set up routine, to see if that avoids the problem occurring during a contest and losing me valuable points.

I will be happy to provide any more required info and/or to try any newer version in test mode. The sooner this gets sorted the better as I need a reliable radio for contesting.

73

Steve gw0gei / gw9j

Steve Gw0gei

Further to my report above, the only thing to note (and it may be unrelated) is that I was also experiencing an intermittent swr indication on the flex - kept going end of scale swr and back again when running 100w barefoot - when running with the tl922 amp switched in the swr problem seemed to disappear. Checking the 80m antenna this afternoon I couldn't find any problem and it working fine now barefoot or via the amp. This may be totally unrelated issue and could have been an owl or something sitting on the antenna (HI) as it was dark.

I left the 6300 running all night after the post crash reboot and it has remained ok all day today on 80m net this morning and on rx rest of the day. I have another domestic 80m contest this evening (cw this time) so I will leave the radio running still and wont reboot it prior to the contest so that it will have been running 24hrs plus by the end of the contest, given that I am just giving away points in this contest and it wont be a major issue if I get a crash mid contest. I run n1mm+ in so2r mode with intermittent use of the second slice on my 6300 for moving up and down rbn spots on my second bandmap when my run rate goes slow.

73

Steve gw0gei / gw9j

Tim - W4TME

Steve - The audio breaking up and the SWR jumping to full scale Are probably a result of interruptions to the transmit stream producing gaps in the transmission (impulses) and drop outs of metering data packets. This type of behavior prior to the radio stopping is in line with the avenues of investigation we are currently undertaking.  Thanks for the info.

Steve Gw0gei

Eric-KE5DTO

Thanks for the info Steve.  This is really helpful.

Al_NN4ZZ

Hi Steve,
Do you have the ATU in your 6300?  And was it engaged when the lockup occurred?

I've had a few lockups since 1.10.16 here and they seem related to the ATU.  I normally don't use the ATU but wanted to see if this is a valid observation before I post the details.

Regards, Al / NN4ZZ  
al (at) nn4zz (dot) com
SSDR / DAX / CAT/ 6700 -  V 1.10.16
Win10

  

Jim Ervin

I have been having the same problem with my 6300 since I upgraded.  Hopefully Flex will find a fix for the problem before I sell the 6300.

Steve Jones gw0gei

Hi Al No atu in my 6300, as all resonant antennas here. 73 Steve

Al_NN4ZZ

Hi Steve, Thanks. It may just be a coincidence then that the lockups I've seen only happen for me when the ATU is engaged. If anyone here or at FRS would like the details of the tests I did, let me know and I'll post them. Most of my antennas are resonant or close to it and I also have an external Xmatch antenna tuner so I rarely use the ATU in the radio. Regards, Al / NN4ZZ

Wayne VK4ACN

Ive had a few lockups last few days but i dont use atu. Feeding directly into spe amp