CC2538: Packet loss in zigbee communication.

Hi Dhanraj,

Do you have any updates to provide on this issue?  Please continue the investigation or state your solution and mark the thread as resolved.

Regards,
Ryan

Hello Ryan,

I had continued the investigation.

I am not able to observe any consistent pattern.

Please have a look at attached report about packet loss. Each router should report maximum 288 times in a day, when 0% packet loss.

You can see the par day packet received for each router out of 288.

packet loss report.xlsx

Dhanraj:

     I don't think 15 meter LOS(Line-of-sight) is a problem for CC2538+CC2592 RF front ,22 dbm RF power this enough extension range to 100 meter LOS,even that is smaller than high performance WIFI router(30dbm).

     If you deploy on Z-Stack 3.0.x stack ZNP with CC2592,you should check the CC2538ZNP\hal_board_cfg.h carefully, as far as I am concerned,there have a bug on hal_board_cfg.h,don't case macro 

HAL_PA_LNA_CC2592

/* ----------- RF-frontend Connection Initialization ---------- */
#if defined HAL_PA_LNA || defined HAL_PA_LNA_CC2590
extern void MAC_RfFrontendSetup(void);
#define HAL_BOARD_RF_FRONTEND_SETUP() MAC_RfFrontendSetup()
#else
#define HAL_BOARD_RF_FRONTEND_SETUP()
#endif

Z-Stack 3.0.1 does have the macro included as far as I can tell:

/* ----------- RF-frontend Connection Initialization ---------- */
#if defined HAL_PA_LNA || defined HAL_PA_LNA_CC2590 || defined HAL_PA_LNA_CC2592
extern void MAC_RfFrontendSetup(void);
#define HAL_BOARD_RF_FRONTEND_SETUP() MAC_RfFrontendSetup()
#else
#define HAL_BOARD_RF_FRONTEND_SETUP()
#endif

But this does bring up a good point that all hardware power table settings should be checked carefully as incorrect values could affect packet reception.

Regards, Ryan

I didn't get you -what do you mean by -don't case macro ?


I have already modified hal_board_cfg.h as shown below-

/* ----------- RF-frontend Connection Initialization ---------- */
//#if defined HAL_PA_LNA || defined HAL_PA_LNA_CC2590 changes made to enable cc2592 by Dhanraj
#if defined HAL_PA_LNA || defined HAL_PA_LNA_CC2590 || defined HAL_PA_LNA_CC2592
extern void MAC_RfFrontendSetup(void);
#define HAL_BOARD_RF_FRONTEND_SETUP() MAC_RfFrontendSetup()
#else
#define HAL_BOARD_RF_FRONTEND_SETUP()
#endif

// #ifdef HAL_PA_LNA changes made to enable cc2592 by Dhanraj
#if defined HAL_PA_LNA || defined HAL_PA_LNA_CC2592
#define HAL_BOARD_PA_LNA_INIT() st(GPIOPinTypeGPIOOutput(HGM_BASE, HGM_PIN); )
#else
#define HAL_BOARD_PA_LNA_INIT()
#endif

I am using readymade  cc2538-cc2592 evm.

I don't think its hardware related bug.

I will explain you about the test scenario- 

1) so i have started this setup in a 3 floor building  ground floor, first floor, second floor.

Gateway is located in first floor,

in the ground floor i have 2 router and 28 zed

in the first floor 3 routers and 31 zed

in the second floor 3 routers and 29 zed 

this was my initial setup -

in this setup - packet loss in the ground floor and first floor devices routers and ZED  was very less (<10%).

But in the second floor there was huge packet loss (>30%) ,even zed were not running more than 2 days they stopped sending data.

so then i decided to isolate the network and first identify the packet loss issue in the routers

so for the second floor i have deployed the separate network with three routers only. And then i have observed that still there is a significant packet loss as i shown in excel sheet in previous reply.

I have collected ubiqua sniffer log for 9 hours , but a am not able to find anything from that.

Please find attached sniffer log.

Packet loss log 21032018.rar

short address and extended address of the router for second floor which are suffering from packet loss

1) 0X870B , 0X00124B00060d90ED

2) 0X9000,  0X00124B00060BEE57

3) 0XAB02, 0X00124B00060D91D1

Hi Ryan,

    Do you confirm you test on Z-Stack 3.0.1? I don't think this hal_board_cfg.h source code is correct when Z-Stack 3.0.1.exe default installation.

Hi behold, Mathew,

You are correct that the CC2538ZNP hal_board_cfg.h is missing the CC2592 definition, I have too many threads running in tangent and was as such accidentally looking at the CC2538 general resources.

Dhanraj,

Your link status for these nodes seems fairly consistent, all 0x01 cost (best) with the exception of 0xAB02 outgoing to 0x9000 and 0x870B outgoing to 0x0000 which are occasionally 0x00 (disconnect). With 68 different PANs there appears to be a lot of noise on channel 15. Is this expected? I'm thinking back to when you expressed that the issue is worse on weekdays. Have you tried testing on a different channel?  And why consistently broadcast permit join requests every one to two minutes?  It is apparent that some of your attribute reporting is taking multiple retries, have you increased the number of attempts in your f8wConfig.cfg?

We can back up on the length of future sniffer logs, 9 hours is a tad excessive.

Regards,
Ryan

Hey Ryan,

A good candidate for comment in  I think. 

I'm glad you confirmed the issue

Hi Ryan,

1)With 68 different PANs there appears to be a lot of noise on channel 15.

 > actually there are only two pan, i don't know why this ubiqua is showing so much pan , and also it is showing end device as routers. similar problem i have already reported earlier .

Currently there is one network have 5 routers and around 65 zed, And the second one which we are observing for packet loss is contains only 3 routers.

https://e2e.ti.com/support/wireless_connectivity/zigbee_6lowpan_802-15-4_mac/f/158/t/663751?tisearch=e2e-quicksearch&keymatch=end%20devices%20showing%20as%20router

2) Is this expected?

> No this much of noise is not expected , its a ideal working office environment.also WiFi Router is also there but ,WiFi will be there in most of the office environment.  

3) I'm thinking back to when you expressed that the issue is worse on weekdays. Have you tried testing on a different channel?

> currently network is using channel 15 ,should I go towards channel 1 or towards channel 25 ?

 4) And why consistently broadcast permit join requests every one to two minutes? 

 > each router enable permit join every 5 minute, i have implemented this because end devices were frequently leaving the network in the same environment, so they can join the network again , that is  why i have enabled this.  if it bad practice/ not recommended then i will disable this.   

5)  It is apparent that some of your attribute reporting is taking multiple retries, have you increased the number of attempts in your f8wConfig.cfg?

> No I have not increased the number of attempts .

To check interference with wifi, I have conducted wifi signal test, and I found that in my test environment two wifi networks are operating on channel 2 and channel 4 with good signal strength.And wifi channel 2 and 4 overlap with ZigBee channel 15.

Please find attached screenshot of wifi traffic in the test environment.