Anybody using the new Windows OTA tool?

syrinxtech · January 01, 2016, 10:06:29 PM

I tried the new tool uploaded by Felix for OTA programming from Windows.

I was running the tool on a Windows 7 box and it continually crashed after the first packet. I attached a screen shot showing the screen and as much of the error message as I could show.

Felix · January 04, 2016, 08:07:08 AM

I have another report of this, I will look into it asap. Thanks for the screenshot.

syrinxtech · January 04, 2016, 08:32:08 AM

Quote from: Felix on January 04, 2016, 08:07:08 AM
I have another report of this, I will look into it asap. Thanks for the screenshot.

My h/w partner is also having the same trouble but he's using Windows 10.

If you need any other troubleshooting info let me know.

Felix · January 04, 2016, 09:38:49 AM

I think it's because CheckForSerialHex() is called with DEBUG=true in the programmer. I just set this to FALSE in the programmer sketch.
The difference with no DEBUG is this:

I added some more error checking, can you please try the latest exe and report if this still happens?

syrinxtech · January 04, 2016, 10:05:13 AM

Just downloaded latest copy.

Now all I get is "No response from Moteino programmer, is it connected to COM7?" It is.

Or, "[Timeout receiving FLASH image from SERIAL, aborting...FLASH IMG TRANSMISSION FAIL]

---------------------------------------

My bad.....didn't notice the change in the debug flag in CheckForSerialHex(). I made that change and it worked OK.

BBF · January 04, 2016, 11:04:25 AM

Thanks Felix...

I too was having the same problem running the app on a Windows 10 machine.
Works perfectly now!!!

Felix · January 04, 2016, 12:17:19 PM

Great, I would still hope these work with DEBUG mode enabled (true as last parameter to CheckForSerialHex() in the programmer sketch).
I cannot really reproduce any further issue though. If I have some time I will look more, but in the meantime if someone is having a problem please post more details and I can dig into it.

Westy87 · January 06, 2016, 11:41:50 PM

I downloaded today's .exe and used the WirelessProgramming_gateway with CheckForSerialHEX debug set to "true". I got :
FAIL: No response from Moteino programmer, is it connected to COM14?
I clicked the start button a few times, (without touching any hardware!) and eventually got a
Moteino: [FLX?OK]
HANDSHAKE OK!
followed by a successful upload.
I repeated with CheckForSerialHEX debug set to "false" but could only get
FAIL: No response from Moteino programmer, is it connected to COM14?
Log dump attached.
I’m running Windows XP and .NET version 4.0 .
Any ideas?
---------------------
Jan7 Update: RE CheckForSerialHEX debug set to "false" but could only get
FAIL: No response from Moteino programmer, is it connected to COM14?: Well it seems this was due to a self-inflicted stupid mistake. In my enthusiasm to download the latest version of WirelessProgramming_gateway (i.e. CheckForSerialHEX debug set to "false") , I neglected to assign correct Node ID and Encryption Key values. This would no doubt explain the non-response from the Moteino programmer! After correcting this, all seems to work now ......

MrLight · January 07, 2016, 04:34:22 AM

Hi,
there is another bug:
When I try to use the application when the COM Port is already open by another process, the app will Crash. (When pressing start)
A Error Message would be great...

Felix · January 07, 2016, 08:13:27 AM

Thanks guys, I will look more into these issues and follow up.
Thanks for the patience.
For now please use it with DEBUG=false.

Felix · January 07, 2016, 06:28:49 PM

The latest change to the exe should take care of the busy port exception.

syrinxtech · January 08, 2016, 01:03:22 PM

Felix,

Not to sound ungrateful, but in your next release could you add an "About" menu option or button showing the current version?

The "Version" field displays "1.0.0.0" when you view the "Properties" via the OS.

Felix · January 08, 2016, 01:30:53 PM

How about in the title bar?
See the latest exe for that.

syrinxtech · January 08, 2016, 02:42:31 PM

Quote from: Felix on January 08, 2016, 01:30:53 PM
How about in the title bar?
See the latest exe for that.

That will do nicely, thanks.

WhiteHare · March 30, 2016, 07:24:54 PM

I ran v1.3 today, and it seems to work well. As a test sketch, I sent the node the sketch that it already has. Using the example sketches for the WirelessProgramming_gateway and the WirelessProgramming_node, that took 30 seconds at the "slow" rate, and 20 seconds at the "faster" rate (i.e. at 3 HEX lines per RF packet). So, the "faster" rate is a worthwhile improvement. As a cross-check, 30 seconds is also roughly how long msjfb's upload application takes for the same file.

Since the WirelessProgramming_node hex file is 38KB in size, that effectively corresponds to an upload speed of about 1,267bps and 1,900bps respectively. That's quite a reduction from the OTA bitrate of about 55Kbps that the sketches are using, and so I'm guessing the OTA bitrate is not the primary bottleneck. Nonetheless, has anyone tried it yet with the radios configured to use a higher OTA bitrate, and, if so, how big a difference did that make?

Any thoughts on where the bottleneck might be? Is it the write-time to the flash memory? If so, then would recycling the same idea and batching up received HEX strings and then writing longer HEX strings to flash memory (perhaps a page at a time?) speed things up considerably?