Nrfmon has stopped working - connects and then disconnects with a file error

[JohnOH]

It has been a long time dzach and you will be deep into other things. A couple of people have tested nrfmon on XP, Win7 and Win10 and all show the same issue. Microsoft and or TCL may have moved the foundations I guess.

[dzach]

Hi @JohnOH
Indeed some personal matters keep me away these days. Unfortunately I don't have any windows installation to see what's going on with nrfmon there. I checked on Linux and it seems to work fine there.

What is the issue? Is there any error message, if you run the program from a command prompt?

[JohnOH]

Sorry @dzach I missed this post. I try not to use Win as much as possible but I will try to set things up again and see if I can reproduce any problems. If there is something you would like me to test you only have to ask.

[JohnOH]

I have just updated my Win7 with latest patches and downloaded a fresh .exe file from: here

The program runs and grey scan lines scroll down the window. The red TX LED flashes busily on the JeeNode USB I am using. However, there appears to be a problem after the connection to the JeeNde is established.

█ Not connected
█ Not connected
█ Not connected
█ Not connected
ϟ Disconnect
. Disconnected
ϟ Connect (//./COM5)
. Connected
error reading "file3dcb770": I/O error
. Disconnected
error reading "file3dcb770": I/O error
. Disconnected
error reading "file3dcb770": I/O error
. Disconnected
. Listening
error reading "file3dcb770": I/O error
. Disconnected
error reading "file3dcb770": I/O error
. Disconnected

I wonder if there is some permissions problem accessing the serial port.

[JohnOH]

Running the .exe as an administrator has similar issues:

● nRfMon v0.7.6
(C) 2013,D.Zachariadis
Licensed under the GPLv3
ϟ Connect (//./COM5)
. Connected
● JeeNode.v6 live
. Listening
error reading "file3eaa228": I/O error
. Disconnected
error reading "file3eaa228": I/O error
. Disconnected
error reading "file3eaa228": I/O error
. Disconnected

[JohnOH]

The JeeNode USB is operational as in can receive my background traffic when running rf12Demo.ino.

[JohnOH]

Data appears to be flowing into the .exe:

▼ g 197 id 31 len 249 crc 0x0001
155 251 73 121 95 26 102 75 1 164 72 66 105 41 153 196 195 30 82 168 190 238 75 75 243 248 100 17 246 28 204 214 179 162 226 246 209 236 246 70 230 239 153 14 125 135 159 214 68 209 210 100 213 9 194 83 221 154 112 176 174 233 100 174 99 12 220 149 1 0 4 71 64 6 0 1 148 7 0 0 73 195 192 4 0 63 164 4 0 44 1 0 0 232 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 197 0 196 0 192 0 193 0 194 0 198 0 1 6 6 190 20 118 103 57 44 48 115 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 148 7 0 0 25 179 192 4 0 47 164 4 0 44 1 0 0 232 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 197 0 196 0 192 0 193 0 194 0 198 0 1 6 6 41 176 118 103 57 44 48 115 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 125 13 10 60 32 50 52 57 100
▼ g 164 id 138 len 233 crc 0x0001
247 136 196 11 204 69 29 110 246 123 122 147 86 187 181 250 102 70 13 232 31 31 10 99 13 198 164 212 153 234 30 5 225 128 81 31 62 1 19 178 11 125 249 71 25 169 179 215 114 216 79 71 120 138 79 178 218 158 96 191 255 213 68 190 134 136 161 1 0 4 71 64 6 0 1 148 7 0 0 46 196 4 0 149 167 4 0 44 1 0 0 232 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 197 0 196 0 192 0 193 0 194 0 198 0 1 6 6 70 181 118 103 57 44 48 115 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 179 215 114 216 79 71 120 138 79 178 218 158 96 191 255 213 68 190 134 136 161 1 0 4 71 64 6 0 1 148 7 0 0 46 196 4 0 149 167 4 0 44 1 0 0 232 3 0 0
▼ g 177 id 28 len 196 crc 0x0001
104 105 126 229 191 91 163 76 243 150 102 19 65 84 122 114 203 199 144 143 157 209 10 195 236 215 161 38 41 100 169 61 215 186 84 73 196 210 224 138 77 137 204 15 205 51 83 58 91 134 241 27 155 172 181 85 77 72 248 196 171 168 66 208 72 167 85 178 1 0 4 71 64 6 0 1 148 7 0 0 72 24 197 4 0 122 168 4 0 44 1 0 0 232 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 197 0 196 0 192 0 193 0 194 0 198 0 1 6 6 69 205 118 103 57 44 48 115 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 58 91 134 241 27 155 172 181 85 77 72 248 196 171
►

Perhaps we are overrunning this laptops ability to eat the data.

[dzach]

Hi @JohnOH!
Thank you for the detailed report.
It's a shame for me not to have an installation of nrfmon ready to run and having to rely on my memory.
In any case, here are some suggestions:

• Make sure you have downloaded both the latest nrfmon.tcl and the corresponding rf12mon.ino sketch.
• Turn on 'Traffic' on the console and try to connect. It should show the sketch signature, immediately after it connects.
• If it doesn't, then there is a problem with the port, like in the good old days ;-) (Not an elephant's memory, I just went over that long forum thread yesterday, trying to help a fellow nrfmon user with a problem).
• If it does, then try to send the same packet over and over and see if the packets you receive, as shown in your post above, are the same or come with errors. I may be wrong, but I kind of remember the CRC should be 0x0000 for a good packet (?) The packets above show a CRC of 0x0001 and are varying in header/content.
• If they come with errors, then probably the settings of the nrfmon side radio aren't matching the ones in the transmitters. Tweak them and hopefully you'll get solid packets.

[JohnOH]

Looking a lot better running on a macbook with tcl from here. I will look further at the Win7 tomorrow.

[JohnOH]

I have loaded tcl 8.6.7.0 for Windows from here.
It works on Win7 but quite slowly. It is also sensitive to the power profile settings in that the file I/O errors appear to happen when the laptop is in other than maximum power. CPU utilisation is low, like 1%.
The laptop is an old i5 processor from HP with 8GB RAM and a big SSD.
I can't remember how to limit the range of the frequency scan in an attempt to get reasonable scan speed out of nrfmon.

[JohnOH]

I have found the tips on driving nrfmon here. Right mouse and then select limit scan width and use left mouse to pull out the red lined boundaries.
It operates more swiftly in this mode but still quite slow considering the power available.

[dzach]

Try <shift> + <left button drag>.
I should probably add a numeric entry field in the nRfMon settings tab.
Have you solved the connection problem you had initially?