Troubleshooting
- For the most stable connection, we recommend using a native Ubuntu 20.04 LTS operating system and the provided USB-C cable.
- Disable your firewall or add an exception to allow MAVLink traffic to come through.
- If Skynode's WiFi is in Access Point Mode (factory default), try connecting over Wi-Fi as an alternative. Make sure the Wifi antenna is properly attached. This can be very handy for tablets running Android.
- The "Online" status in the suite is refreshed every 5 minutes.
We have noticed a configuration issue that appears on Skynodes shipped between June and November 2021 in the North America region, causing it to reject LTE configuration changes. To resolve this, follow the procedure below:
- Open a terminal and connect to the Mission computer via ssh by running
- Copy-paste the following command and wait for it to complete
echo "Set modem configuration" && sed -i 's/^apn=.*/apn=orange.m2m.spec/' /shared_container_dir/modem.conf && sed -i 's/^roaming=.*/roaming=1/' /shared_container_dir/modem.conf && echo "Restart modem-configure" && systemctl restart modem-configure && echo "Mount FS as RW" && mountrw && echo "Configure ModemManager in debug mode" && sed -i 's/^ExecStart=.*/ExecStart=\/usr\/sbin\/ModemManager --filter-policy=strict --debug/' /usr/lib/systemd/system/ModemManager.service && systemctl daemon-reload && systemctl restart ModemManager && while ! mmcli -L | grep -q "Sierra"; do echo "Waiting for modem" && sleep 1; done && echo "Configure modem" && mmcli -m 0 --command='AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","orange.m2m.spec"'
- Check if you have Suite Business plan as the log upload is not supported in the Starter plan. You can upgrade your plan here.
- What operating system are you using? Which interface for connection? (Ethernet or USB)? Some OS struggle with Microhard USB interface, therefore we recommend using Ubuntu 20.04 or Android and connecting via ethernet.
- While paired radios typically keep their state across software updates, the pairing process itself is sensitive to the versions of APX4 and AMC. Please ensure you are using the latest version of AMC available from the Auterion Suite as well as the latest version of APX4 running on Skynode.
- Disable your firewall on the ground station, as this can prevent MAVLink traffic from getting through to AMC.
- Does AMC detect the GROUND unit? This can be checked in AMC under Settings -> Microhard. There should be a green label "Ground unit: connected".
- Are you sure you have connected the GROUND unit and not the AIR?
- Is the GROUND unit radio powered? It does not receive power over USB or Ethernet, but needs to be powered separately.
- Can you ping the radio module on 192.168.168.1? If not, try resetting the radio to GROUND. You may have to attempt this reset process several times until it's successful, the reset button is very fiddly and can slip off easily during press-and-hold. In such a case the reset doesn't work as expected. It only worked if you can ping the radio on 192.168.168.1
- Does Skynode detect the AIR unit? This can be easily detected with the orange LED. If it is blinking. Skynode cannot even reach it's own radio module. Check the cabling, IP settings and configuration password of the AIR unit.
- As a test, power up both AIR and GROUND unit without connecting them to anything. For this test, do not connect the GROUND unit to your computer/ground station and don't connect the AIR unit to Skynode. Just power the radios on and wait until they are booted. Do the 3 "RSSI" LEDs blink in a "walking pattern" (indicates "searching for other side"), or are they steady-on (indicates "connection established")?
- If they are steady-on, power down everything, wire up as described and wait for a connection. If you loaded the pre-paired configs on both AIR and GROUND, you don't have to pair, simply wait for the connection.
- If they are showing the "walking pattern": --> Reset the AIR and GROUND units and try again. Again, the fiddly reset button can make this difficult to achieve, and it may take several attempts
- There is known driver issue when using Windows. This document describes a procedure to install the correct RNDIS driver to resolve it:
Microhard Issues Troubleshoot.pdf
6MB
PDF
RNDIS driver on Windows
- The Microhard radios support fast ethernet, but no gigabit ethernet. In rare cases, your system might be set up to work exclusively with gigabit devices and fail to fall back to fast ethernet.
The advanced mode in the WebUI is really useful when you need to troubleshoot a problem with your Skynode. You can enable it by going to http://10.41.1.1 and clicking the Auterion logo 7 times.
The Advanced mode will give you a better understanding of what might be wrong with your Skynode. You will get an insight on each system services and software components status. You will also get access to more information related to network, peripherals, performance, partitions, etc.
You can also generate a diagnostic report by clicking on the Generate diagnostic report. It will generate a tar file that you can then share with Auterion Support to get help.
Skynode requires some free disk space in order to peform the update. A full disk is the most often reason why updates are unsuccessful.
Updating the Skynode or installing custom apps with the Auterion SDK fails with the following hint: "Update verification failed. The system has been rollbacked"
The web UI shows a similar message:
"Device update failed, rollback to the previous system"
The process for updating the Skynode and installing custom applications is based on Mender. To check the installation log, take a look at the file
/persistent/mender.log. If you see an error similar totime="2021-01-01T00:00:00Z"
level=info msg="Update module output:
Error processing tar file(exit status 1):
write /usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libbfd-2.34-system.so: no space left on device"
it indicates, that there is not enough disk space available to unpack and install the update. See the section below on how to free disk space.
The persistent partition
/data can be used for custom applications and data. Through the course of time the partition can fill up and require the user to free up unused disk space. Special care needs to be taken when removing docker images. Under no circumstances should you manually delete files inside
/data/docker, since this directory contains Docker's internal database as well as cached layers. Two methods for removing unused docker containers are explained below:The easiest way of freeing disk space is to remove stopped docker containers. Docker provides a handy command to clean the entire Docker system:
docker system prune --all
Beware that this will require you to reinstall some docker containers should you still require them afterwards.
It is possible remove specific docker applications with the following method
# List all applications
ls -l /data/app
# Move to the src directory of a specific app
cd /data/app/APPNAME/src
# Shutdown all docker containers associated to this app
docker-compose stop
# Remove the stopped containers
docker-compose rm -f
# Remove the images of the stopped containers
docker rmi APPNAME
# Remove the remaining app folder AFTER using aforementioned docker commands
cd
rm -rf /data/app/APPNAME
When connecting a second battery and power module to the skynode, the readout for the second power module needs to be enabled in AEPX4 by enabling the parameter
BAT1_SOURCE. Additionally AEPX4 can be configured such that having both power modules connected is mandatory in order to be able to arm the drone. In order to do so, enforce the number of required power modules by increasing the parameter to COM_POWER_COUNT=2. Reboot Skynode and telemetry for both batteries should now be displayed in AMC.
Last modified 4mo ago