No activity on spectrum or waterfall upon restart V2

Eric-KE5DTO

Tim wanted us to make sure that everyone knew to try the new shoe-shaped Spicy Double Chalupa.  Mmmmmm. 

Eric-KE5DTO

On a more serious note, we will have to experiment.  The MTU is just one theory at this point.  Wifi networks are quite varied from one place to another.

Peter K1PGV

I guess the relevant question would be: Does the radio, or somebody, do path MTU discovery to determine the max size packet end-to-end that can be sent?  Or does it "dumb down" to 576 as a result of... something?

(To be clear: For me, this is really of academic interest. I don't see myself playing SmartLink anytime soon, due to the lack of decent IP infrastructure where I live.)

Peter
K1PGV

Sam Leach

Let me add that ... in this case of no panafall, both ends are wired.  One with fiber (300 Meg down and a flock of speed uplink) the other is coaxial system testing at 90 down and ~15 up. So it is not a WiFi issue for us.

sl

Tim - W4TME

Understood.  I do not suspect this is a wifi related issue, but a network configuration somewhere in the path between the radio and the client, regardless of how they are connected.

Sam Leach

Another note:  With both ends turning in very good speed check numbers, we are getting only three yellow bars for network quality and ~ 310 MS latency.  When pinging test server latency is far less 30 and 20 MS respectively.  Latency numbers are essentially identical from local restaurant (802.11g of continuously varying quality) and from 1500 miles hard wired (Newfoundland). 

Tim - W4TME

Network quality indicator uses the loss of VITA-49 packets the validator of link quality.  The client knows what VITA-49 packets to expect and if it starts missing them, that triggers an indication of line quality issues.

Sam Leach

Here's a Wireshark capture from the Newfoundland end showing a malformed VITA-49 packet.  May be of use in hunting this down. All wired ... no wireless.

Sam Leach

Verified this morning (with Chris VO1IDX) that the VITA-49 packets were arriving malformed consistently.  Tim has explained (above) that the smartlink network quality indicator reflects dropped V-49 packets. The presence of modest network quality indications when operating on fairly high quality network makes sense then, if something is maligning those specific packets and not others. We do full motion  (arms waving) video conferencing over the same connection with no difficulty.

Sam Leach

Update:  Good packets arriving at VO1IDX this morning (per Wireshark capture) and still no panafall.  I agree with IDX, we've expended our network troubleshooting options.  Will keep a keen ear to the wire.

Chris Hillier

I just did packet capturing this morning for an hour Sam. Last night my captures were full of malformed packets but this morning I could barely find one. I thought we might have been onto something, but alas that was foiled. Back to the drawing board as they say.  -vo1idx

Gary Jf

I  experience the same at my QTH connected to a nearby Xfinity hotspot.  I believe that data is being blocked because I see the same on some streaming activities like Netflix.  I am going to the clubhouse next to try it on our internet there.

Ken - NM9P

I wonder if you could try turning waterfall completely off, dragging the divider to the bottom to make it disappear, set the rate to 0 and display FPS to about 5 and see if the bandwidth drops enough that the McRouter stops blocking the panadapter display. (Or Tim, does this still get sent via large packets, only fewer of them?) I can live without waterfall, but it is tough without the panadapter trace!

Chris Hillier

it's not just at McDonald's the issue is happening Ken. I'm trying to connect to a flex 6300 in Maryland from my QTH in Newfoundland. I can tx, rx, atu works, great audio, but no waterall (which we want) and the pan trace seems to time out right after it starts.

I am on a hardwired fibre connection 320 MB/s down, 115 MB/s up and the site of the equipment in Maryland is also hardwired and gets 50 down, 15 or so up which is plenty, but neither of us are using wifi. 

I did packet traces and keep getting malformed packets on the vita 49 protocol, which is from my understanding the protocol the waterfall and pan trace would depend on. 

I am very surprised at the battle we're having to get this going. It seems so straight forward. What are we missing?

Tim - W4TME

Sam - please open a HelPDesk support ticket so we can work on this issue using our standard support processes.  This information is helpful and I do not want to allow it to fall through the cracks with all of the other community traffic coming in.

Ken - NM9P

Hmmm. (Scratches head...) Well, that was my one good idea. You certainly have enough bandwidth up and down at both ends of the connection. For sure, There is a clog in the drain somewhere..... Serious Networking troubleshooting is out of my league. The guys at FRS will sort it out eventually.

Chris Hillier

Eventually I'm sure they will. But for a new potential customer like me it's not a good first impression.

Peter K1PGV

@Chris Hillier: That's understandable. Just please keep in mind that real-time streaming across the WAN becomes a *very* difficult problem, once "it works almost all the time for about 90% of the people."  There are countless practical issues that need to be dealt with, and those can only be discovered and dealt with in actual use.  This is the very first release of this product, and such things are bound to crop up.

Note that streaming with NetFlix (for one example) is a *far* simpler problem than implementing SmartLink. It's unfortunate that you happen to be one of the folks who are experiencing one of the issues.

That there are some issues showing up here and there speaks to the difficulty of the problem, not to any deficiency in the engineering team.

Peter
K1PGV
(a network protocol architect in a former life, and implementer of some non-Flex related pseduo-real-time streaming code)

Ken - NM9P

Peter, that sounds like tech-speak for "streaming video game designer" or "video conferencing system specialist."

Ken - NM9P

I understand your frustration, Chris. Even more frustrating is that by all initial measures you are WAY above minimum specs for system needs. So your situation is not typical by any means. It *should* be working with plenty of room to spare. There is a wrench in the works somewhere in your network, obviously. Purely guessing here, to **** time while the experts look into it......perhaps some obscure networking parameter configured on one end or the other of your network connection (router or firewall settings.). Or perhaps even CAT5/6 patch cable problems. Or something the internet provider on either end of the connection is doing. Or some strange deal in the handoff between one provider and the other as it crosses the border?

David Decoons, wo2x

I wonder if one of your routers have Jumbo Frames enabled. One of the other people in this thread checked his router at radio end and found it enabled. He disabled it and will be testing today to see if it helps. Just trying to think outside the. Oz. Dave wo2x

Peter K1PGV

>that sounds like tech-speak for

Yeah... no.  Nothing nearly so elegant or interesting, I'm afraid.

Several years back, I wrote a program called ScannerCast that streams "live" scanner audio over the Internet from user PCs to the Radio Reference web site. I learned a lot about Internet streaming on that project.. which was definitely only pseudo-real-time as it buffered several seconds of audio before transmission.

Peter
K1PGV

Peter K1PGV

>I wonder if one of your routers have Jumbo Frames enabled

IF the radio generates JumboGrams (we don't know if it does, I actually doubt it) then having a router on the LAN that handles these without fragmentation would only be a good thing, wouldn't it?

Peter
K1PGV

Bob W4PG

I am having the same issue.  Loaded V2 on my work computer and connect to my 6700 at home, no problem. All was working well.  I closed out SmartSDR to do some other work, came back and reloaded and NO spectrum display or waterfall.  Audio was fine.  I could transmit no problem. 

I notice that DAX is NOT streaming the audio. I have channel 2 selected on the Slice for DAX but nothing streaming.  I've logged out of Smart CAT and logged back in and it seems connected, but DAX still shows nothing streaming.  Going to to play with it some more and see.  Will try resetting the hardware at home when I get back and maybe try it again. 

..............Bob W4PG

Bob W4PG

So I just ran SmartSDR WITHOUT DAX or SmartCAT running first and the display WORKS!  Generally both CAT and DAX are running and logged in since those start at bootup.  Not sure what this means . . . going to try some more. 

Tim - W4TME

I suspect it is the same issue as the ones reported above.  DAX streams large VITA-49 packets for audio.

Tim - W4TME

Jumbo frames are turned off.

Bob W4PG

What does this mean (from my router log):

Jul 28 15:28:59 Whole System ACK Flood Attack from WAN Rule:Default deny<br>

D-Link router 3 or 4 years old.

Ken - NM9P

I have had "permit jumbo frames? Both on and off on my router and it didn't seem to make a difference at my location. But I have kept it turned off mostly for the past six months. I tested again a few hours ago and it still doesn't make any difference here that I have noticed. Perhaps the router and modem have different settings? Anyway, it is back off again for good.

David Decoons, wo2x

Ken. I was grasping at straws since some people are having issues with the UDP packets and potentially due to the size of the packets. Dave wo2x