SubSurface, Perdix 2, and Bluetooth Sync Issue

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Oh, I totally misread @inquis post. When he mention a cloud account I was thinking of the Shearwater cloud, not the Subsurface cloud. Now I get it, Thanks

I have another related question. Can I have some Subsurface desktop files that are linked/ sync to the cloud and some that are not at all linked in the same computer? Or do all the Subsurface files become linked to the cloud once I sync one of them?

We have three Perdix and I am happy with the way I download the two old Perdix AI and transfer the data to their respective Subsurface files. I do not want to mess or disturb those two files.

Thanks
 
Can I have some Subsurface desktop files that are linked/ sync to the cloud and some that are not at all linked in the same computer?
Yes, File | Open, pick your local log file. The cloud capability is tied to an email (one to one), so it's less convenient to use multiple cloud-based logs.
 
I was hoping for a more direct fix...

Thanks
There isn't one.

It's a very frustrating process. Here's what I've observed:
1) Sometimes my windows computer doesn't even see the dive computer when trying to add a new bluetooth device.
2) Sometimes my windows computer sees the dive computer, fails to connect, and the dive computer disappears again.
3) I have to keep turning the bluetooth on the dive computer on and off until it shows up on the windows computer and connects successfully.
4) The next time I go to sync, the dive computer won't automatically connect to the windows computer. So I remove the dive computer from the bluetooth devices and go back to step 1 until I get a solid connection between the windows computer and dive computer.

I have a thought, I could just turn on and off the bluetooth on the dive computer until it connects with the windows computer without having to remove and add the bluetooth device.

Though I have had better success syncing to my phone and using the SubSurface cloud storage to sync to my computer, it's not 100% either. I have had scenarios where I end up doing the same thing on my phone, but it's less frequent than every time on the windows computer.

An observation, when using the Shearwater software, which works great with the Perdix 2 (make sure you have the latest version), it never adds the dive computer to the list of bluetooth devices in windows, it just connects within the software and syncs every single time. In fact, I believe I couldn't get it to work when the dive computer was connected in the windows bluetooth device list. Once I removed it, it worked perfectly.
 
Yes, File | Open, pick your local log file. The cloud capability is tied to an email (one to one), so it's less convenient to use multiple cloud-based logs.
And I highly recommend exporting your cloud data regularly to your computer. Nothing is free and one day SubSurface could just go dark without notice.
 
Good reason to not keep the dive computer ( 6 months wasted with this device ) trying to pull logs off... onto Linux
NEWS FLASH it is not subsurface.... it is the hokey Bluetooth stack on the device.


What I have learnt (and by "learnt" I mean "this _seems_ to be true") is

(a) doing a "bonding" pair seems to help some people, but it
shouldn't be necessary, and it causes its own set of issues.

In particular, what happens is that "bonding" creates a long-term key
for the pairing, and from all that I can figure out, the Shearwater
will forget that key (and thus stop responding to a bonded connection
attempt) if it is turned off.

Now, "turned off" is the key here. If you have been diving recently,
and the shearwater is still tracking any deco at all (which will take
days), then it won't actually shut off unless you take the batteries
out for a while.

But if you haven't been diving, and are just using your shearwater for
testing (or you do the download after you get home, several days after
the last dive), then any "screen off" will be a power off event.

End result: you don't _have_ to always re-pair with the Shearwater
dive computers, but re-pairing should fix the "desktop thinks it's
bonded, but the shearwater isn't, and they won't communicate until you
unpair and re-pair".

(b) The shearwater bluetooth stack isn't a real bluetooth stack, and
it resets some state at every "start bluetooth", and it won't accept
more than one pairing or connection attempt per such a session.

So if you have problems downloading, you need to *exit* the shearwater
bluetooth mode, and start again, because otherwise if the shearwater
thinks somebody has connected to it (from a previous failed download),
it won't accept a new connection. Same for pairing.

(b) the shearwater BT stack is _slow_. The new "Petrel Native Format"
makes things worse, because it's much chattier (and yes, I suspect
libdivecomputer probably downloads too much, making the problem even
worse).
 
I was hoping for a more direct fix...

Thanks
I have been fighting with this since august ,,, my answer is simple as my divesoft works flawlessly and so does my garmin just sell the perdix2 and get with systems which work for my needs
I am more quirky the computers need to work with linux and subsurface.. but getting the logs off the perdix2 is the concern no simple way to do it without the apps by shearwater due to the makeshift bluetooth stack they built since they could not write or use a functional one out of the box. ( coding issues in the firmware ) so they needed to make garbage apps to do it.
 
Good reason to not keep the dive computer ( 6 months wasted with this device ) trying to pull logs off... onto Linux
NEWS FLASH it is not subsurface.... it is the hokey Bluetooth stack on the device.


What I have learnt (and by "learnt" I mean "this _seems_ to be true") is

(a) doing a "bonding" pair seems to help some people, but it
shouldn't be necessary, and it causes its own set of issues.

In particular, what happens is that "bonding" creates a long-term key
for the pairing, and from all that I can figure out, the Shearwater
will forget that key (and thus stop responding to a bonded connection
attempt) if it is turned off.

Now, "turned off" is the key here. If you have been diving recently,
and the shearwater is still tracking any deco at all (which will take
days), then it won't actually shut off unless you take the batteries
out for a while.

But if you haven't been diving, and are just using your shearwater for
testing (or you do the download after you get home, several days after
the last dive), then any "screen off" will be a power off event.

End result: you don't _have_ to always re-pair with the Shearwater
dive computers, but re-pairing should fix the "desktop thinks it's
bonded, but the shearwater isn't, and they won't communicate until you
unpair and re-pair".

(b) The shearwater bluetooth stack isn't a real bluetooth stack, and
it resets some state at every "start bluetooth", and it won't accept
more than one pairing or connection attempt per such a session.

So if you have problems downloading, you need to *exit* the shearwater
bluetooth mode, and start again, because otherwise if the shearwater
thinks somebody has connected to it (from a previous failed download),
it won't accept a new connection. Same for pairing.

(b) the shearwater BT stack is _slow_. The new "Petrel Native Format"
makes things worse, because it's much chattier (and yes, I suspect
libdivecomputer probably downloads too much, making the problem even
worse).

I have been fighting with this since august ,,, my answer is simple as my divesoft works flawlessly and so does my garmin just sell the perdix2 and get with systems which work for my needs
I am more quirky the computers need to work with linux and subsurface.. but getting the logs off the perdix2 is the concern no simple way to do it without the apps by shearwater due to the makeshift bluetooth stack they built since they could not write or use a functional one out of the box. ( coding issues in the firmware ) so they needed to make garbage apps to do it.

Mobile Subsurface app? Does that work?
 
Mobile Subsurface app? Does that work?
I will have to get a Mobile phone to test ( I manly use linux based mobile OS KDE on pine64pro ) later on today I will get subsurface on a droid platform and check... I did not know my research and 180 day rage run would break open today the way it did... I will test later need to see how long it takes for it to forget bluetooth pair attempts and also how many bluetooth radios can be in operation around it ( this also seems to be a big issue as it does not keep any pairing keys )
#shearwater_bluetooth_Issue



TO point the following has been determined which is scary for anyone with a Shearwater device ( in hindsight of the ultimate bad day event )
1.) you are diving dual dive computers one dies ( not the perdix2 )
2.) your perdix2 is paired to your cell phone
3.) you take a DCS incident in water + injury [shark] etc shock "emergency surfacing required" decompression skipped....
4.) you need a evac ... phone dies or is left on the boat
5.) you arrive re-compression [no data] just a circus clown perdix2 and hopefully your written dive plan
.......
Why is this scary
1.) the perdix2 will not pair with anything but your phone unless it is wiped ( it also is in calculation mode so thus LOCKED to a pier to pier memory )
2.) Why do you think the shearwater clowns made the cloud offering... 2 fold data harvesting for FREE and liability absolution for this hardware issue which was introduced in 2019... when the firmware or hardware build had a broken bluetooth stack.. <--- thinking hardware as if it was firmware then there is no excuse why it has not been patched or rebuilt.
3.) even if it managed to ping your phone turn on sync using a jedi idiot trick and sync to the cloud there would be no way for you to give them access to your account if you are unconscious or in surgery

=================================================================================
2023 at 3:19 PM wrote:
>
> The only way I'm able to download dives is to remove my Perdix from
> the OS and from Subsurface. Then I connect the Perdix as a new device
> and it will then download the dives.
This sounds very much like the traditional "Shearwater can be *very*
fussy about downloading from multiple different devices".

We never figured out exactly what the problem was, but it often seems
like the Shearwater BLE has some internal odd pairing thing, and it
remembers devices it has downloaded from before, and if it can still
see that old device, it won't talk to a different new one, no matter
what you do.

The solution to make it work fairly reliably was to always use the
same device to download from, and never *ever* mix devices. Once you
mix devices you end up with problems, and then getting back to a
working situation can be problematic.

The only thing that seemed to really clear the BLE stack in those
Shearwater computers was the computer actually turning off. And to
make things more exciting, that's not the same as "black screen".
While the Shearwater is still doing deco calculations (ie a few days
after the last dive), it's not "off" even if the screen is black, it's
in some low-power mode.

And again: the above is random rantings just based on the behavior
we've seen. I don't _know_ how it works. I just know that the trick to
make it work was generally to try to never ever connect to the
Shearwater from more than one device.

Once it gets confused, the "try to fix it" has ranged from "make sure
all other computers are far enough away to not be visible in BLE
scanning, or have their bluetooth turned off" to "actually remove the
battery from the Shearwater dive computer to really reset it".

Btw, in case it wasn't obvious: please do *not* do that battery
removal if you are still diving the computer in the next few days. It
also makes it clear any deco state and time settings, so it's really a
last option if nothing else has worked.
 

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