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Erratic connection behavior between Coordinator and Routers

Anubhav Gupta
Expert 1130 points

Other Parts Discussed in Thread: Z-STACK

Dear Ti,

 

We have connected two routers to a coordinator with Residential mode Zigbee Pro security settings. Today we have come across an issue wherein at times we were unable to make the routers connect to the coordinator where in we had not changed the code at all. Thus the network was showing very erratic behavior and sometimes it was getting connected automatically and most of the time it stayed disconnected. I am attaching the psd(packet sniffer data) file along with this.

Could you please check and suggest what might the possible issue in our setup?

Thanks

Anubhav4370.sniff_report.psd

  • 0
    TI__Mastermind 19350 points

    Would you please list the sample applications that you are using, H/W, and ZStack version? And then a brief summary of the customizations you had made to the working sample applications before encountering problems?

     

  • 0 in reply to Dirty Harry
    Expert 1130 points

    Hi Harry,

    I am using ZStack-CC2530-2.3.1-1.4.0 and my application is based on GenericApp (for Coordinator) and SensorDemo (For Routers) sample projects. We are using Zigbee PRO with Residential Mode of security.

    The project's requirement  is to have a mesh network of all the devices and the devices(electrical Switches) could be controlled through the coordinator(central remote device). For the Mesh network, we have made all the end devices as Router.

    We had initially set the PANID as 0xFFFF and the issue that I have been observing is that the PAN ID of the Cordinator is different as compared to the PAN ID of the Routers. Thus there was no communication happening over the application layer between the Coordinator and Router.

    When we change the PANID to 0x1001 then we see that at times one of the router gets connected to the Coordinator however other times both the routers just keep on sending the becon request with destination PANID & Address as 0xFFFF.

    Even some other times I am observing that the router is trying to associate itself with the coordinator and on sniffer it shows "association.status successfull" however the very next moment it again starts asking for the association request.

    Please do suggest how we can diagnose this issue further.

    THanks

    Anubhav

  • 0 in reply to Anubhav Gupta
    TI__Mastermind 19350 points

    It is never good to be developing on old S/W, and although it is inconvenient to merge to new S/W, 2.3.1 is already very old and with known bugs. I very highly recommend upgrading to 2.5.0. Also, I don't recommend starting with customized application. I recommend starting with the provided sample applications which are thoroughly proven. Start with a sample app that is close to what you will want to do and just practice with it, without modifying it, to practice bringing up a small network. Work without security at first - security adds all kinds of problems, not to mention more problematic sniffing of network traffic. If you want your product to be certified ZigBee Home Automation, why wouldn't you start with the Home Automation sample apps instead of with GenericApp? Anyway, after working with the sample apps, bringing a network up, randomly removing devices and watching what happens, and just getting comfortable in general, start adding things one by one. Like NV_RESTORE, NV_INIT, say, so that your network is more robust to losing power. And so on and so forth, making incremental changes and watching what happens after each incremental change and keeping copies of working networks along the way so that you are not suddenly in a predicament where there is this totally catastrophic failure that you obviously cannot duplicate on the sample apps provided with the stack.

     

  • 0 in reply to Dirty Harry
    Expert 1130 points

    Hi Harry,

     

    As per your suggestion I have moved to the latest z-stack firmware and  have disabled the NV_INIT and NV_RESTORE along with the Security.

    Following is what I observe

    1. When the coordinator is started prior to the Router things work well, however if coordinator is reset then it generates a new PANID and thus stops communicating with the earlier existing Router.

    2. If I enable the NV_INIT it stops communicating with the Router in total i.e No message from coordinator is detected on the Packet Sniffer.

    3. If I disable NV_INIT and enable NV_RESTORE on Coordinator and reset coordinator in between the communication, then even though the PAN ID ofRouter and coordinator is same they do not communicate with each other.

    please suggest where I might be going wrong?

    Thanks

    Anubhav

  • 0 in reply to Anubhav Gupta
    Expert 1130 points

    Hi Harry,

     

    One more observation is that who ever is directly linked /connected with coordinator it can communicate with the coordinator, however the device which is connected via Router cannot send the application messasge accross to the coordinator.

    Please let me know what could be the possible problem.

     

    Thanks

    Anubhav