Shearwater Bluetooth still FUBAR

[mwerle]

Incidentally, the PC which has lots of hassles even connecting with Shearwater Cloud? Absolutely no problems with (a self-compiled version of) Subsurface under Linux with both the Perdix AI and the Peregrine. (The current official version of Subsurface does not yet support the Peregrine).

So at least it's not a -hardware- incompatibility.

Shame Subsurface can't do the image upload though.

 

[mwerle]

Update: Tried to update the startup image on the Peregrine again this morning and it actually started downloading the image. First attempt the Peregrine disconnected part-way through, second attempt worked, but both attempts actually started transferring the image whereas yesterday (same PC, same software versions) no data was ever transferred, the disconnect happened immediately.

So much for computing being deterministic

 

[KenGordon]

So much for computing being deterministic

Nothing with comms or a cache is deterministic.

Have you tried Shearwater Desktop?

 

[mwerle]

Have you tried Shearwater Desktop?

Shearwater Desktop doesn't support the Peregrine... but yes, I used that for the Perdix.

EDIT: Anyway, all sorted now until the next FW update.. when I'm sure I'll enjoy this "fun" once more.

 

[rsingler]

So... solution was?
Or just repeated attempts until connection held long enough to complete task?

 

[mwerle]

So... solution was?

I wish I knew.

Day 1 : No matter what I did, the image transfer always failed with 0 bytes sent. Tried dozens of times on 4 difference PCs and even downloaded and tried v2.6.0 and 2.6.1 of Shearwater Cloud (after initially trying the latest v2.6.2). (Always making sure all other devices under my control had their bluetooth turned off)

Day 2 : First attempt failed after sending some amount of data (wasn't paying attention, it is very slow, but the transfer had started immediately), second attempt succeeded. PC hadn't been rebooted, just sleep-mode overnight. As far as I can tell exactly the same setup/environment as the day before. V2.6.2 of Cloud.

So... *shrug* it was a different time of day though, so maybe the day before there was a a neighbour's device which interfered in a very specific manner?

Burning a black candle and walking around it backwards while humming "we will rock you" might help just as much.

 

[Brett Hatch]

@mwerle Any chance that the PCs in question are using a bunch of USB-3 cables, or some devices nearby are using them? That would be the 9-pin kind where both the male and female side connector have a little blue piece of plastic inside:

The reason I ask is because I have spent the better part of the last 6 months since lockdown being driven up the absolute wall. The symptoms were that my work laptop would randomly disconnect from my BlueTooth mouse, as well as the WiFi. Turns out that my keyboard and some other devices used USB-3 connections, which create a lot of signal interference in a large radio frequency range, including the 2.4GHz range used both by BlueTooth and WiFi (as well as a ton of other consumer wireless devices, such as cordless landline phones).

The solution was to move my work-from-home setup to use USB 2.0 and/or USB-C cables, neither of which have the interference issue of the god-awful, incredibly-poorly-designed, forever-on-my-s***-list USB-3 cables.

Link to the Intel white paper describing the interference issue (fair warning, it is for gigantic nerds ): https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/327216.pdf

 

[mwerle]

I do have a PC with USB3 around, but it's not generally turned on unless gaming. It's one of the ones I did try on Day 1 but didn't have any active USB3 devices plugged in.

I would also expect any interference to also affect other operations (such as downloading dives), not just the image transfer. Ditto if it was a neighbours' device causing interference.

Having had a quick read through the whitepaper (awesome, love people who post sources!) it seems the issue is not so much the cables but more the (quality of the) connectors. Still, something to be aware of and keep in mind, so thank you for sharing! It may have shed light on my work desktop having spurious mouse issues - now I think about it, it likely was when I was using a USB3 memory stick plugged into a port near the mouse receiver. Will have to experiment once we're allowed back into the office..

 

[tridacna]

Burning a black candle and walking around it backwards while humming "we will rock you" might help just as much.

Is that Black Candle 2.0 or 3.0? I’ve tried the old version while humming at 58.7 Hz but nothing. I’d be interested to see if that helped yours perhaps.

 

[davehicks]

@mwerle Any chance that the PCs in question are using a bunch of USB-3 cables, or some devices nearby are using them? That would be the 9-pin kind where both the male and female side connector have a little blue piece of plastic inside:
View attachment 611217

The reason I ask is because I have spent the better part of the last 6 months since lockdown being driven up the absolute wall. The symptoms were that my work laptop would randomly disconnect from my BlueTooth mouse, as well as the WiFi. Turns out that my keyboard and some other devices used USB-3 connections, which create a lot of signal interference in a large radio frequency range, including the 2.4GHz range used both by BlueTooth and WiFi (as well as a ton of other consumer wireless devices, such as cordless landline phones).

The solution was to move my work-from-home setup to use USB 2.0 and/or USB-C cables, neither of which have the interference issue of the god-awful, incredibly-poorly-designed, forever-on-my-s***-list USB-3 cables.

Link to the Intel white paper describing the interference issue (fair warning, it is for gigantic nerds ): https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/327216.pdf

Note my comment earlier to go stand in your yard away from other electronics if you have bluetooth gremlins. The tin foil hat can't hurt either.