RPi 2 Wireless Disconnects/RuneAudio Crashes

[johnbanks]

I’m running an RPi 2 with iQaudio DAC and Amp streaming wirelessly from my NAS and it sounds great.
However I have an annoying problem. My setup should run 24/7 but 2 out of 3 mornings I discover that RuneAudio is ‘dead’ - most times the WiFi dongle LED is out but occasionally it’s permanently on (not flashing). The solution is to pull and then re-plug the power and so reboot.

I’ve tried several WiFi dongles with different chips Realtek 8188 & 8192 and Ralink RT5370 and get the same problem. The Realtek chips are well known for their power management problems but I’ve taken the special measures recommended by MrEngman – a guy on various forums who seems to be the expert.

I do not have a LAN cable connected and my wireless signal is good – iwconfig shows ... Link Quality=100/100 Signal level=95/100 Noise level=0/100.
wlan0 has the static IP address 192.168.0.160
My wireless network is password secured.
I am up to date with the nightly build.

However when I scan my home network (by running netscan on a Windows machine) I see 2 instances of runeaudio – at 192.168.0.160 as expected and another at 192.168.0.82 which is a mystery and they both have the same MAC address.

It would be good to set up a log file that persisted after a reboot to try and pinpoint the problem causing the overnight crash.
Can anyone help?
Thanks

[hondagx35]

[dror]

Try this for 8188cus

create a new configuration file by opening:
sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/8192cu.conf

then add the lines:
# Disable power saving
options 8192cu rtw_power_mgnt=0 rtw_enusbss=1 rtw_ips_mode=1

notice, both last parameters are '1'

Dror

[hondagx35]

Hi Dror,

thank you for your reply.
Is this working reliable for you?

If so, we can implement this in future images.

Frank

[johnbanks]

Frank ...

As usual, thanks for your very quick and clear reply.

Several months ago I did disable dhcpcd as you suggested but recently re-installed and updated with the nightly build. I assumed this had since been incorporated in the nightly – bad assumption on my part, sorry. Disabling dhcpcd has fixed the problem of 2 IP addresses.

Your instructions for setting up a journal were clear and worked. It was necessary to reboot to bring them into effect.

Rebooting a couple of times showed the journal was persistent.

I’ve discovered that PageUp and PageDn speed up scrolling and the Left & Right arrows enable horizontal scrolling. Pressing q exits the listing.
A power on cycle generates almost 800 journal entries. The first 600 approx are dated 1st Jan 1970 and the balance have the actual date & time.
Doing journalctl --disk-usage reports the size of the journal files.

I deleted the journal to give a clean start and at 13:00 GMT started a test run. No music is streaming & no puTTy session is open. When I notice the wifi dongle LED is no longer flashing, I’ll pull & replug the power and take a look at the journal.

Can you please advise how to save the journal as a text file?
Thanks

[dror]

[johnbanks]

Frank and Dror ...

From the many references I’ve seen on forums, wifi dongles with Realtek chips (eg: Edimax) are problematic and require special measures. MrEngman a prolific forum contributor often gives detailed advice on this subject.
You may find the following thread informative ...



What is a little mystifying though is that Dror’s recommendation differs from MrEngman's regarding the parameters in the file: /etc/modprobe.d/8192cu.conf

The proof of the pudding seems to be here – I copy & paste ...

you should use the two commands
cat /sys/module/8192cu/parameters/rtw_power_mgnt
cat /sys/module/8192cu/parameters/rtw_enusbss
instead to check the power management commands are active. Both should return a value of 0 (zero). If they do not then you need to reboot the Pi and then check again.

Notwithstanding the above relating to Realtek chips, the problem I’ve described in this thread occurs whether I use a Realtek or a Ralink chipped dongle and I have tried 4 different dongles. So it is possibly related to wireless in general and not Realtek dongles in particular.

It is worth following the link within the above which relates to ifplugd. Maybe the body is buried there.

I am of course making the assumption that Debian problems/solutions may be relevent to ArchLinux.

In the meanwhile my test with a persistent journal is continuing.

Hope all this helps

[dror]

[johnbanks]

Dror ...
Thanks for your suggestion

As a matter of interest what results are returned when you give the following commands?

cat /sys/module/8192cu/parameters/rtw_power_mgnt

cat /sys/module/8192cu/parameters/rtw_enusbss

In the meanwhile my unit ran overnight but just a few minutes ago failed with the dongle LED solid on. I can neither puTTY nor browse to it by wireless.

[dror]

'0 ' for rtw_power_mgnt
'1' for rtw_enusbss