Gateways, TTN mapper, and data gone

Gateways
1

Yesterday, I got my gateway, and a TTN Mapper working (woot), and now I see the gateway on the map.
BUT yesterday I could see lots of data from the application (the mapper) and traffic on the gateway.

Right now, I’m showing last heard from on the application of 1 hour ago (when I turned off the mapper) and the gateway 19 seconds ago BUT

I see nothing in the data of the app or traffic on the gateway (Like I did yesterday)

In addition - I see nothing in the coverage from yesterday, but I clearly had decoded data in the application

BTW, I can’t see the non geotagged weather data from my desk either - but I can now (see below) see it’s traffic)

Any clues what I’m doing wrong (for the latter, the TTNGuide says contact on slack, but)

2

BTW, at 8:37am, started being able to see the Gateway traffic again, but nothing on the application (because it is still off - no GPS indoors)

3

The web console is for real time debugging only - it does not store data and it goes when you close the page. If you want to keep the data, look at the integrations.

1 Like
4

The integrations are set, and have been

5

What, all of them, that’s rather a lot.

But also somewhat irrelevant, as whilst the Data Storage integration will backfill a number of records for you, the web console will not show much more than live data.

If it’s not the web console, then please be more specific.

6

The one from the example for the TTNMap - Only thing I give a * about right now.

Really

7

Good to know what you care about, I congratulate you on being the first swear word I’ve seen on TTN so far this year.

Again, specificity helps the volunteers on here help us to help you without burning through our link budget.

What page exactly are you looking at?

8

https://ttnmapper.org/

the integration was per
https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/docs/applications/ttnmapper/

The console for
eui-b827ebfffeedd188

The application
https://console.thethingsnetwork.org/applications/atscinodemapper/data

image

https://ttnmapper.org/devices/?device=atscimapper1&startdate=&enddate=&gateways=on&lines=on&points=on

Shows nothing - nothing from yesterday, nothing from today - NOTHING

payload format

function Decoder(bytes, port) {
// Decode an uplink message from a buffer
// (array) of bytes to an object of fields.
var decoded = {};
if (port === 2) {
// The port should match the port configured in ttn_mapper.cpp
var i = 0;
decoded.latitude = (bytes[i++]<<24) + (bytes[i++]<<16) + (bytes[i++]<<8) + bytes[i++];
decoded.latitude = (decoded.latitude / 1e7) - 90;
decoded.longitude = (bytes[i++]<<24) + (bytes[i++]<<16) + (bytes[i++]<<8) + bytes[i++];
decoded.longitude = (decoded.longitude / 1e7) - 180;
decoded.altitude = (bytes[i++]<<8) + bytes[i++];
decoded.altitude = decoded.altitude - 0x7fff;
decoded.hdop = (bytes[i++]<<8) + bytes[i++];
decoded.hdop = decoded.hdop /10.0;
if (bytes.length >= 14){
decoded.voltage = ((bytes[i++]<<8)>>>0) + bytes[i++];
decoded.voltage /= 100.0;
}
}
return decoded;
}

9

in addition, I followed the instructions here:
https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/docs/applications/ttnmapper/#create-the-integration

and I see the data

so then I try the instructions here

https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/docs/applications/ttnmapper/#verify-the-integration-is-working-correctly

and I see nothing

The say
“For troubleshooting please post your question in the #ttn-mapper channel on Slack.”

As I see nothing for slack, I posted here, figuring that is the closest equivalent. If it is the wrong place, fine.

10

Firstly, I think we need to dial the temperature down a bit - your frustration is very clear and understandable but this is a community built & run network using backend servers that are provided free of charge by The Things Industry. It’s not a 911 sort of situation.

As I’ve highlighted a couple of times now, you should not expect to see data in either the gateway console (ever) or for an application or device (apart from the last few records if you have Data Storage is turned on) when you first being the page up. It only shows live traffic.

TTN knows your gateway is online: https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/gateway-data/gateway/eui-b827ebfffeedd188

Only you will be able to see if application or specific device data is available - you will have to wait until there is an uplink before you can expect to see something.

TTNMapper is a third party add-on to TTN and whilst it is customary for us to help out, we have no visibility on what may be going on with the server or any additional diagnostic tools than the ones available to everyone.

Using the gateway EUI and the device id I too cannot see any data using the TTNMapper Advanced Maps query page. What is slightly suspicious is that it shows the UK (where I am) when I ask it to draw a map, so you’d think it has not got the gateway location in its database. Except it has, because I can see it is in Queens when I browse the map.

You may want to just do a drive-by with your GPS device or device+mobile app to reseed some data and see what happens.

There is an email address just below the info on the Slack channel. But I will page @jpmeijers, the developer / owner who may be able to add insight in to why your data is not showing. If he doesn’t respond quickly or at all, he may well be tied up with fixing servers.

11

Also, can you edit your post and remove the integration picture - your email address is showing but the screen shot doesn’t add anything vital.

12

I AM seeing the Application Data at this point as I now have it running - so that issue is taken care of. The only place it isn’t going is to the mapper. (BTW, currently the mapper is about 15 feet from the gateway)

Now, as you have just said that these servers are not commercial - I’m guessing we’re going to have to find commercial servers, and commercial help. We can’t base a product on the level of support of “free, might work”, or totally give up on TTN. My assumption (my bad) is this was the freeware “try before you buy” version of a commercial product, and would get support like it. (aka the vendor actually trying to make a sale)

I’m fairly sure my answer is going to be a LoRa transmitter/receiver pair (single Point, to single point), and store the receiver info so it can be read on an I2C bus. At that point, I no longer have to worry about TTN servers, or any other servers

13

And may well be overloading the gateway input stage. A brick wall or 20+ metres is recommended.

It is sort of, within the realms of assumptions being the mother of …

I doubt there would be any company that could provide the level of support many have received here on the off chance they subscribed to a commercial offering.

So you are in the hands of volunteers who believe in the community benefits of LoRaWAN. For community projects - like nature reserve water levels or pollution on roads outside schools etc etc, TTN is a hugely useful resource that benefits many people.

For companies using the free resources, there often comes a time when they either go TTI or another commercial network or setup their own servers. So if you want commercial support, that would be TTI or one of us here in work mode.

My commercial clients have a full needs & knowledge assessment (which they pay for), some extensive discovery including commercial RoI (which they pay for) and a training cum proof-of-concept building mini-project (which they pay handsomely for). Think 5 figures. Happy to help, slots available Q2 2021.

4 Likes
14

The radio chips use SPI.

The radio modules use serial.

So you’ll need an MCU to bridge the gap.

15

Like I said, I’m now seeing plenty of data in the gateway and application data, but nada in the mapper, so it isn’t a RF issue

Discussing with the powers that be, and the market place where we want to be, I doubt TTN and LoRaWan is where we want to be.

As I said at the very beginning. Here is/are your sensor(s), here is your base station. They plug into one another/are RF connected to one another. It displays on the screen. We don’t manage your data, we don’t want to manage your data. Right now, the users are within cable length - we’d like to go somewhat longer.
We currently are NOT in the solutions market.
The closest thing to what we are trying to do would be like selling the MCCI Catena products, but with a different class of sensors, and with brain dead install to our little console. “Hey, here is the source code to the app, go to the gateway, generate your EUIs, setup your TTN account, and have fun”
I think the end users having to setup an application, a device, do integrations etc is not where we are intending to go at this time. Will generate too many support calls etc.

AKA we’re not looking to do solutions, we looking to do products. We have enough issues with our WiFi product that has Thingspeak built in - getting folks to put their account info and WiFi info in. Most of our stuff is meant for EEs/Process engineers to setup. Our items would probably be “enter your IDs, setup your own servers, apps, integrations” and if the current market holds, they would have the source code, and be told to compile it themselves

16

You keep missing it ever time you say this - DON’T think radio module
Think Adafruit feather - aka a module on an Arduino
The Arduino has I2C.
I write code that watches the radio - message comes in. Right now I write it to serial. Easy enough for me to parse it, and I store the message in a variable
At the same time I monitor the boards I2C bus - it receives “?R”, and I take the message (let’s just say it is temperature) and I send “R,23.85” out on the bus
We DO this now. We read/write to I2C all the time. A feather would just be a simple store and forward

17

OK, so, you are getting data, there is an issue with a third-party website, I keep missing the point and you don’t think TTN is suitable for your company.

As there no longer appears to be an issue with TTN, everything else would be off topic for this forum.

1 Like
18

The reason TTN would not be appropriate is we are not in the systems integration business, and hold no interest in being there - we are in the sensor business

TTN looks very interesting, and we may decide (eventually) to offer sensors, but we have found that when we get into having customers setup networks as complex as setting up TTN applications, setting the integrations (never mind having having to register devices etc) it dramatically increases support calls and issues (it is hard enough getting them to switch a device serial to I2C with one jumper. Not that it is crazy, but we are in the “sell our sensors” not “systems integration”

Anyway, thanks - I’m going to leave the gateway up as a thank you to the community. Use as you see fit