no reception after update? [Solved]

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dk5ras
Posts: 70
Joined: Fri Mar 01, 2013 3:23 am

no reception after update? [Solved]

Post by dk5ras »

Hi,

on my working Kubuntu system, about two weeks old, I updated bladeRF and gr-osmosdr/iqbal, and now I have zero reception with gqrx. Just a flat line, without any signal but spurs. Reverting back to previous versions restored operation.

I am using a 115k-bladeRF with latest firmware and FPGA files.

Any ideas? :)

Ralph.
jynik
Posts: 455
Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2013 8:15 pm

Re: no reception after update?

Post by jynik »

Hi Ralph,

I have been doing some cleanup in the LMS code within that time frame, so it sounds like this must be my fault. I've been testing successfully with GQRX and a little PSK flowgraph for loopback tests, for what it's worth. I've attached a screenshot of me listening to a local analog TV station (yeah...we still have a few of those somehow!), mostly as a test of my own sanity.

Here's the versions of everything I'm running. Could you let me know which version works vs. the changeset(s) that break things for you?
  • gr-osmosdr changeset (master): 7a1f12cfcff1ecdfd91284f1f9ba3f9b59f33b94
  • gqrx changeset (master): 75aa5703e338722b6365d5bcd1c56e77f24aa465
  • bladeRF-cli version: 0.10.4-git-12c944a
  • libbladeRF version: 0.13.0-git-12c944a
  • Firmware version: 1.6.1-git-b7e6642
  • FPGA version: 0.0.3
If nothing jumps out at us version-wise, I think the next best course of action would be to bisect through the commits until you find the changest that results in this behavior. Let me know what you find, and we'll take it from there.

Sorry about this -- thanks for reporting it quickly! Hop on IRC today if you want to chat in real-time; I'll be around.

Thanks,
Jon
dk5ras
Posts: 70
Joined: Fri Mar 01, 2013 3:23 am

Re: no reception after update?

Post by dk5ras »

Hi,

thank you for the fast reply. I am a bit buy these days, but tomorrow and the day afterI should be able to spend some time on this, will be on a train for a few hours :)

I do not have the hardware with me right now, but at least the software, so here the last log output of the version I am using without those problems:

commit e37a34ca3305a06062cc87d4de16d94d4b573acc
Author: Jon Szymaniak <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Feb 4 21:07:08 2014 -0500

libbladeRF: Fixed uninitialized bandwidth in repeater test

I must admit I am not a programmer, and I am not very skilled with all this git stuff, but when you give me some hints how to "bisect" through the versions then I will try to follow this path :) At the moment I do not use any GUI for git, just the command line version, OS is a Kubuntu 13.10 machine.

At least I could narrow it down to bladeRF, the problems happen right after I update it. Clean build changes nothing. The interesting thing, when I have a frequency of 806 MHz I can see the two local LTE carriers, weak and with higher noise than normal. When I change the frequency to 945 MHz what is usually full of GSM carriers - nothing. The same applies to 1820 MHz, normally full of GSM and LTE, but with this version nothing. Playing with the gain sliders has an influence on noise, but nothing else.

Ralph.
jynik
Posts: 455
Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2013 8:15 pm

Re: no reception after update?

Post by jynik »

I know you mentioned updating everything, but I'd appreciate it if you could print out the versions of everything. I just want to abolutely rule out any sort of unexpected version mismatch scenario. I asked a few folks to run gqrx with the latest of everything, and they didn't see any issues...so I just want to double check this before we go further.

There's not too many commits from where you are to the HEAD of master, so you can manual work your way through the commits until you find the one that breaks things. The process would look something like this. Generally, you'll just jumping halfway through the questionable commits until you narrow it down.

Code: Select all

# Remove and reconfigure, just to ensure we get clean builds
$ rm -rf build
$ git checkout <revision goes here>
$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake ../
$ make && sudo make install

# Test out the change ...
$  gqrx

# Rinse and repeat with the next commit
$ cd ../
$ rm -rf build 
 ...

If you want to have git do all this for you, you can use the wonderful 'bisect' feature. What I've shown here makes it look like more work than it is, but it rules out the potential for "wait, which commit did I just test?"

Code: Select all

# Show the git bisect help, which provide some nice details
$ git help bisect

# Initiatie a bisect session
$ git bisect start

# Define the commit we know is bad. HEAD points to the most recent commit, which is 23cfc1dd878d79203fe11a780778263e5b815da6 at this time. You can specifiy 23cfc1dd878d79203fe11a780778263e5b815da6 instead of HEAD, if you'd like/
$ git bisect bad HEAD

# Define the commit we know to be good. Per your investigation, this is e37a34ca3305a06062cc87d4de16d94d4b573acc.
$ git bisect good e37a34ca3305a06062cc87d4de16d94d4b573acc

# Step: Clean and rebuild
# Git will now check out something between the two of these commits. Now let's build and test
$ cd ../
$ rm -rf build
$ mkdir build
$ cd build 
$ cmake ../
$ make && sudo make install

# Step: Now test this build...
$ gqrx

# Step: Mark the status of the commit
#If this commit was good, we run:
$ git bisect good

# Otherwise, if this commit failed
$ git bisect bad

# Git will now bisect the remaining set of commits and check out a commit in the middle.
# Go back to "Step: Clean and rebuild" and repeat

# Eventually, you'll land on the guilty commit, and git will show you the commit summary for it.

When you find some time to narrow down the issue to a specific commit, let me know and we'll dive deeper. Before you got to all that work, I think taking a quick look at the version/changeset of everything you're running is a good idea.
dk5ras
Posts: 70
Joined: Fri Mar 01, 2013 3:23 am

Re: no reception after update?

Post by dk5ras »

Gnuradio is

commit cf8997ccc1e9c543aa234e561e7f002a176e13dc
Merge: 7f57cf7 1366dc2
Author: Tom Rondeau <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Feb 16 16:10:16 2014 -0500


gr-osmosdr is

ommit 24f6f88a37fccd36aa05f08de3f7f4289ff0607c
Author: Dimitri Stolnikov <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Jan 26 19:53:44 2014 +0100

(latest is only possible after updating bladeRF)


gr-iqbal is

commit d4fd4dd41ead825a25729021023dda3db51d8b85
Author: Sylvain Munaut <[email protected]>
Date: Thu Oct 24 00:07:02 2013 +0200


Later I will do some tests what bladerf version breaks things and let you know.

Ralph.
dk5ras
Posts: 70
Joined: Fri Mar 01, 2013 3:23 am

Re: no reception after update?

Post by dk5ras »

This is the last working one:

0655e83d7bb94ea5d0e79c2805293eda16e7fd6b

Next one, 9ee9c..., shows the problem.

Ralph.
jynik
Posts: 455
Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2013 8:15 pm

Re: no reception after update?

Post by jynik »

Hi Ralph,

I identified the defect and pushed a fix in commit a712304f.

The issues occurs when transitioning from < 1.5 GHz to >= 1.5 GHz, or vice versa.

Thanks for helping narrow things down, as well as your patience and bearing with me on this. Please keep me posted if you suspect any additional regressions, and always feel free to open issues on GitHub when you determine that a specific commit is at fault. :)

Cheers!
- Jon
dk5ras
Posts: 70
Joined: Fri Mar 01, 2013 3:23 am

Re: no reception after update?

Post by dk5ras »

Hey, great! This was also my thought - something with switching over the RF low/high border, wanted to narrow it down to the certain frequency, but you were faster. I will test it this evening, forgot the hardware at home today :-)

Ralph.
dk5ras
Posts: 70
Joined: Fri Mar 01, 2013 3:23 am

Re: no reception after update?

Post by dk5ras »

Everything is fine now and works as before - thank you very much for the quick fix!

Ralph.
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