TTN Gateway - FAQ

rish · December 15, 2017, 10:01am

Continuing the discussion from TTN GATEWAY central:

Answers to some of the frequently asked questions:

Q. How do I get started with The Things Gateway?
A. Getting started with The Things Gateway is a 3 step process:

First step - Connect the antenna and plug the gateway into a power outlet
Second step - Go to the website (https://ttn.fyi/activate)
Third step - Follow the instructions on the website

Q. How can I reset my gateway?
A.

Pressing the button shortly while powered on restarts the gateway.
Holding the button for 2 seconds while powered on it erased the WiFi settings.
Holding the button for 5 seconds while powered on it erases the WiFi settings and activation settings.
Holding the button while powering on it will erase the full serial flash

The reset button is indicated with the text: Mode

Q. The second time I power my Gateway it takes a time to start up, why?
A. On power cycle and every 24 hours it checks for new firmware. If the latest firmware is not downloaded yet it will download the new image and perform are reboot in order to install the image. This will take a few minutes. The process is indicated by a flashing power LED. Power cycling during this process is not dangerous, but will be restarted once started up again. Please be patient.

Q. My gateway stays in AP mode, what do I do?
A. This behaviour occurs when there is a hick up in the wifi connection of the gateway. When this happens, your gateway will turn into an AP and devices you used to set up the gateway can connect to it (your laptop or phone). To avoid this issue, you should ‘forget’ the wifi AP of the gateway on your phone/laptop.

Q. I want to get in-depth insight in what my gateway is doing, is that possible?
A. The gateway has a UART port on which it prints debug messages. To see these messages you need to connect a device between the gateway and your computer that can read out a UART (e.g. an FTDI cable/board).
Connect UART-interface device to your computer and the RX line to the RX pin. Start terminal to UART with 115200@8N1.

Red = UART RX, brown = GND
Example connection FTDI:

Q. What do the LED lights on the gateway indicate?
A. If in the process of activating the gateway, it takes too long then probably something went wrong. Check the LED’s on the gateway to find out what is going on.

LED 1	LED 2	LED 3	LED 4	Status
On	Slowly blinking			Connecting to the internet
On	Fast blinking			Could not connect to the internet
On	On	Slowly blinking		Still activating
On	On	Fast blinking		Could not activate (restart activation from step 1)
On	On	On		Activated
On	On	On	On	Connected to the router

Or in more detail:

LED	State	Reason	Cause	User Action
1 - Power	Off	No software is running	No power	Make sure the device is powered
			Incorrect firmware loaded	Make sure the correct firmware is loaded
	Slow	Software update in progress		Wait
	On	Software is loaded and running
2 - Internet	Slow	Checking for internet
	Fast	No Ethernet or WiFi connection	No Ethernet link and WiFi connection failed; only possible way to connect is via the gateway’s WiFi access point (AP)	Connect to gateway’s AP
	On	Has internet
3 - Configuration	Slow	Activating
	Fast	Bad configuration	No ID	Need to configure a gateway ID on the device
			Already activated	Need to configure valid key on the device
			Invalid key	Need to configure valid key on the device
			No router	Need to configure router in the TTN console
			Invalid URL	Correct URL in the TTN console
	On	Activation successful
4 - Connection	Slow	Connecting MQTT
	On	Connected MQTT
5 - Activity	Single	Uplink/Downlink

Q. What if I take the gateway to a different location, do I have setup the configuration again?
A. Once you configure the gateway, the settings get locked so in case you move to a different location you will have to do the activation again. Goto ttn.fyi/activate and at Step 1, you can select your gateway from the list and configure them.

Q. How do I connect to the WiFi access point of the gateway?
A. After going to ttn.fyi/activate and registering your gateway, you will have to connect to the WiFi of the gateway and then connect to your home/office network. Connect to the gateways WiFi access point ‘Things-Gateway-XXXX’ using the password thethings.

Q. How can I check if the gateway is working or not?
A. To check the status of the gateway, goto the console as directed afterwards in the activation process. Under the gateway section (https://console.thethingsnetwork.org/gateways), you can see the status. If any device sends data through your gateway, you can check it under the ‘traffic’ section.

When connected to the same network, some information can be seen at http://things-gateway.local/info.

Leondegeling · December 19, 2017, 8:34am

@rish, It would be great if you could add the meaning of all the states mentioned in the debuginformation to this faq:

main states 0-x
wifi states 0-6
wifi scan states 0-x
lora states 0-x
inet states 0-x
sntp states 0-x

Like shown as:

WIFI: Entering state 0
WIFI: Entering SCAN state 0
...
LORA: Changing state from 0 to 0
MAIN: Leaving state 0
MAIN: Entering state 1
...
MAIN: Leaving state 1
MAIN: Entering state 2
INET: State change to 0
...
LORA: Changing state from 0 to 1
WIFI: Entering state 1
...
WIFI: Entering state 4
WIFI: Entering SCAN state 1
...
WIFI: Entering SCAN state 2
WIFI: Entering SCAN state 5
WIFI: Entering SCAN state 0
WIFI: Entering state 2
...

BoRRoZ · January 30, 2018, 8:54pm

4 posts were merged into an existing topic: TTN GATEWAY central

BoRRoZ · January 30, 2018, 8:52pm

let’s keep this topic as a FAQ topic and for technical issues please use TTN GATEWAY central 2.

arjanvanb · February 1, 2018, 5:37pm

What does the number in “Reboot reason: 0x13” refer to?

The source code of the firmware shows:

RESET_REASON_NONE = 0x00000000,
RESET_REASON_POWERON = 0x00000003,
RESET_REASON_BROWNOUT = 0x00000002,
RESET_REASON_WDT_TIMEOUT = 0x00000010,
RESET_REASON_DMT_TIMEOUT = 0x00000020,
RESET_REASON_SOFTWARE = 0x00000040,
RESET_REASON_MCLR = 0x00000080,
RESET_REASON_CONFIG_MISMATCH = 0x00000200,
RESET_REASON_ALL = 0x000002F3

As the method to clear the reason is documented as as:

This function clears the specified status flag(s) that were previously set by the processor to identify the reason for the most recent reset.

… and RESET_REASON_ALL = 0x2F3 is just the bitwise OR of all the above, a first guess is that 0x13 refers to both 0x03 and 0x10. But that needs to be confirmed.

WDT would be a watchdog timer; DMT a deadman timer.

RichieB · April 20, 2018, 10:25pm

If your gateway is experiencing a bootloop (very common issue) you can read about it here or go straight to the firmware installation instructions (use 1.0.3 or up, currently in beta).

Until version 1.0.3 is released as stable you do need to uncheck “Automatically update gateway” in the TTN console gateway settings. Otherwise the first thing the gateway will do is downgrade to 1.0.2 which might give it issues again.

LaCompagnie · September 13, 2019, 2:42pm

Hi. I pressed the reset button of my TTN gateway during 5 seconds in order toi change the ssid. The gateway is therefore in AP mode. When i go to hhtps://ttn.fyi/activate and select “already registered” i select my id but i cannot enter in AP mode even if on my computer i select the thethingnetwork ssid… Now my gateway is always in AP mode. If i choose register a pop up is written: a gateway id … already exists…
Is it possible to reset completely my gateway and enter a new id???
Thanks for your answers.

BoRRoZ · September 13, 2019, 3:55pm

Hi,

what is the original EUI ?