Robo Rio Comms issues

[Hi5Jason]

Hello,

We are having a very odd issue with a Robo Rio and I am hoping someone can help shed some light on it. 

At our first Regional this year, we had a significant comms issue with our brand new Robo Rio 2.0.  We replaced every wire, cord, and component in the chain including changing the Radio Power Module and the Radio Twice.  Every time, we could connect successfully to our robot in the pits, but as soon as we tried to connect to the FMS to compete it would not work.  We missed 2-4 matches completely due to these issues until we swapped out the Rio for a Rio 1.0 that the Event Organizers loaned to us.  We were able to compete successfully for the rest of the day.

When we got home from the competition we were still having some Comms issues.  We replaced the Micro SD card and it started working again, so we assumed that had been the problem and we failed to properly troubleshoot that.  We were also able to reflash the old Micro SD and get the New Rio 2.0 working.  Assuming the problem was fixed, we practiced hard for 2 weeks watching for any comms issues.  No problems at all.  We did buy another new Robo Rio 2.0 just in case as we did not want to see a repeat of our first event.

Arriving at our second competition, we had confidence that things were going to be running well.  When the Robot inspectors came around to connect to our bot to make sure all was good, no comms.  Not wireless, not via ethernet, and not even with USB!  We made the call to go ahead and replace the Rio and had no further issues with Comms.

I am not sure what other troubleshooting steps to take at this point or what else we can look for.  Did we maybe just get a faulty Rio that is inconsistent about where it has comms issues?

As this is such an expensive part of the robot and help that you can provide would be very much appreciated.

[oscarfonseca]

Hello Hi5Jason,

Thanks for using the NI forums. thanks for sharing the details on what happened at your events with the device.

While I doubt the behavior is linked to a hardware component failing in the device, we can check for other symptoms and troubleshooting steps. Here my comments:

---

@Hi5Jason wrote:

We replaced every wire, cord, and component in the chain including changing the Radio Power Module and the Radio Twice.  Every time, we could connect successfully to our robot in the pits, but as soon as we tried to connect to the FMS to compete it would not work.

---

Did the device still work in the pit during these times and component swaps? (by Ethernet to the radio, the roboRIO or by USB)

Does the device have a static IP set, instead of the default DHCP/Link-Local?

When you say "Comms issues", are you referring to the FMS (the field) not being able to find the roboRIO or that the robot code did not come up?

---

@Hi5Jason wrote:

We replaced the Micro SD card and it started working again, so we assumed that had been the problem and we failed to properly troubleshoot that.  We were also able to reflash the old Micro SD and get the New Rio 2.0 working. 

---

I wonder if there may be some debris or something in the SD card slot of that roboRIO that makes the device not properly work during operation.

---

@Hi5Jason wrote:

Arriving at our second competition, we had confidence that things were going to be running well.  When the Robot inspectors came around to connect to our bot to make sure all was good, no comms.  Not wireless, not via ethernet, and not even with USB!  We made the call to go ahead and replace the Rio and had no further issues with Comms.

---

Which was the behavior of the roboRIO LEDs during this second event? Was the Power LED green and Status LED off?

Did you try to communicate by USB from a different computer and still did not see the device coming up? Did you try pinging 172.22.11.2 when connected by USB?

When you swapped the RIO did you use the same SD card as the old one, or was it a different one?

I normally would point to the steps here to troubleshoot comms issues: Unable to Connect to roboRIO in Driver Station, Imaging Tool or LabVIEW 

Cheers,

[Hi5Jason]

Hello Oscar,

Thank you for getting back to me!

---

---

Did the device still work in the pit during these times and component swaps? (by Ethernet to the radio, the roboRIO or by USB)

Does the device have a static IP set, instead of the default DHCP/Link-Local?

When you say "Comms issues", are you referring to the FMS (the field) not being able to find the roboRIO or that the robot code did not come up?

---

Yes the device did work in the pits.  We had 2 FTA spend more than an hour troubleshooting the issue.  We could connect in any fashion, it was only when we were connected to the FMS when we had issues.  I will have to check with the students to be certain on the IP situation, I know they did change it a few times during testing.  Code was loading fine, it was purely communication with the FMS at our first event.  

---

---

I wonder if there may be some debris or something in the SD card slot of that roboRIO that makes the device not properly work during operation.

---

This is possible I guess.  We can certainly blow out the card slot with compressed air.  My guess is that the rio in question will once again work flawlessly now that we are not at an event.  This is going to be extremely hard to troubleshoot.  

---

---

Which was the behavior of the roboRIO LEDs during this second event? Was the Power LED green and Status LED off?

Did you try to communicate by USB from a different computer and still did not see the device coming up? Did you try pinging 172.22.11.2 when connected by USB?

When you swapped the RIO did you use the same SD card as the old one, or was it a different one?

I normally would point to the steps here to troubleshoot comms issues: Unable to Connect to roboRIO in Driver Station, Imaging Tool or LabVIEW 

---

I will have to confirm with the students what the lights were during the second event.  We tried at least 3 computers, including the robot inspector's machine.  I am not sure if they tried the ping.  We used a new SD card after swapping the Rio since we didn't have time for proper troubleshooting.  Now that we are done with competition I will go through all of the troubleshooting steps again as soon as I have a chance, but as I said I believe it will work fine until it is used at a competition.  Our next event is Houston and I am not sure I want to risk swapping back to a questionable device for that.  I will post the results of my troubleshooting and review.

Thank you again!

[Hi5Jason]

Hello Oscar,

I apologize for the delay in my response.  Things got kind of crazy with the Houston trip and fundraising events immediately after.  

We took the bad Rio in question to Houston with us and we spoke with both AndyMark and NI at the booths.  At the NI Booth we were told to return the device through AndyMark once we got home.  We are home now and AndyMark has referred me back to this forum to set up an RMA for the device.  

Joe with NI asked that we have the device returned directly to his attention.  If you could advise what the best process would be from here it would be much appreciated.

[Hi5Jason]

Hello Oscar,

I had not heard anything and wanted to follow up on my last post.  

Thank you!

[oscarfonseca]

Thanks for the ping, and apologies for the delay getting back to you!

I am sending you a direct message to coordinate the repair.

Thanks.