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Speedway Connect Troubleshooting Techniques

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Daniel Cohen
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Overview

The purpose of this article is to discuss techniques for troubleshooting and resolving Speedway Connect-specific issues. Each one of the troubleshooting steps mentioned are grouped into their appropriate section and can be done individually.

Table of Contents 

Enabling and Disabling Speedway Connect

Logon to the Speedway Connect Web Page (https://<reader name/ip address>).

If the top of the application has a green tags "Status" icon then Speedway Connect is Enabled:

Click the "Status" link to convert it to a red tags "Status" icon that means Speedway Connect is Disabled:
** Note: If Speedway Connect is Disabled and you want to enable it then click the red tags "Status" icon to turn it green.

If you changed the color of the tags "Status" icon, you will need to click the "Apply" button:

Click the "OK" button on the popup that appears:

You should see the following popup if the settings were applied successfully:

 

Speedway Connect is now in the enabled/disabled state you wanted.

 

Before Getting Started

The following steps should be done before testing Speedway Connect directly.

#
Troubleshooting Steps
Details
1 Check the logging events from the reader

The problem you are experiencing may be reported as an error in the reader's system logs (syslogs). Follow the steps in the "How do I capture logging events from my reader" (here) article and review the logs for errors. For example, if HTTP Post address is invalid, you should see a message describing this problem in these logs.

Enabling additional debugging messages may also show whether tags are being read. Issue the following RShell (ssh to reader) commands to increase the log level to output more information:

  • config logging rfid debug
  • config logging system debug
  • config logging management debug
2 Install the latest Octane Firmware (here) and Speedway Connect (here) version

There are several reasons to install our latest software

1) Prior issues may have been resolved.

2) Should you encounter a new issue, our Engineering team will implement a fix for issues reproducible on the latest versions of software.
3 Reinstall Speedway Connect on R120 If the logs report something like:

ERROR: enableAdvancedGpo failed, LLRP [4697] : //ImpinjAdvancedGPOConfiguration/GPOPortNum : out-of-range

Then reinstall Speedway Connect.
4 Verify Reads with ItemTest

Use a separate application to verify the tags you expect to be read by the reader are indeed being read by the reader. This will help verify the issue is indeed with Speedway Connect software.

1) Download and install ItemTest (here)

2) Disable Speedway Connect software prior to running ItemTest. Otherwise, you'll receive an error that another client is connected to the reader.

3) Start the ItemTest application, add and configure the reader you want to check out, and perform an inventory run.

4) If you get the tags you were expecting then Speedway Connect is where we need to focus our attention next.
5 Make sure Speedway Connect is Enabled

If Speedway Connect is disabled, no tags will be reported and the system will be disabled.
6 Verify a valid license key is entered

Having an invalid License key could cause the Speedway Connect 500 tag read limit to be reached very quickly if you either have a lot of tags in the field of view or Dual Target Search Mode is selected.

Note: Speedway Connect gets installed with Dual Target enabled.  This would have the unintended consequences of the system becoming disabled relatively quickly before you can connect and see everything working. Please make sure there are no tags in the field of view before installing Speedway Connect.
  Make sure your host can DNS lookup the reader by name

We encountered a situation where Speedway Connect cached the ip address of the host but would occasionally fail to lookup the host by IP because the host was unable to lookup the name by DNS. This created a situation where the code would claim it was unable to update the Speedway Connect License. 

 

Missing Tag Reads

Simplifying the Configuration

Identify which setting(s) is(are) causing the issues being experienced.  To do this, simplify the configuration to build up confidence that Speedway Connect is working correctly.

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Troubleshooting Steps
Details
7 Only output to TCP/IP Socket

Set the output to only TCP/IP Socket port 14150 and click the "Apply" button. Speedway Connect should now look like:

Telnet to port 14150 on the reader. An example using Putty will look like:

* If the tags being reported are the ones you expect, then Speedway Connect is indeed receiving the correct tags from the reader and the following steps in this section can be skipped.

* Should the putty session close or not connect it is probable the License is invalid or new settings were just applied.
8 Disable GPI Triggers if they are enabled

If you are using GPI Triggers, let's disable them and click the "Apply" button. Speedway Connect will now look like:

Disabling the GPI Triggers will cause Speedway Connect to start reading tags immediately.

You can now connect to port 14150 via putty to see if the result changed at all.
9 Disable Filters if they are enabled

There are two sets of filters, let's disable them and click the "Apply" button. Speedway Connect will now look like:

Disabling Filters will make sure no tags are getting filtered out of the application.

You can now connect to port 14150 via putty to see if the result changed at all.
10 Change the search mode to Dual Target

Changing the Search Mode to "Dual Target" will ensure tags can be read where single target would have limited tags from being read.

Making this change and clicking the "Apply" button should show all tag reads in the field of view. Speedway Connect will look like:

You can now connect to port 14150 via putty to see if the result changed at all.

Note: If you are running Speedway Connect in "demo mode" (no valid license key has been entered), then we recommend changing the Search Mode to Single Target and the Session to 1 so that you do not consume the 500 tag read limit as quickly.

Note: If heartbeat is enabled, each heartbeat is considered a tag report towards the 500 tag read demo mode limit.
11 Change the Data Prefix to something other than 0

If you use a data prefix of 0, then the only thing that gets printed is nothing.  The reason for this is the ascii character for 0 is the null character.  When C++ prints strings, it will only print the characters up to the first null character it finds.

Please change the Data Prefix value to something other than 0 and you will see tag reports working again. 

 

 

Testing Speedway Connect Responsiveness

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Troubleshooting Steps
Details
12 Enable Heartbeat

The Speedway Connect Heartbeat can help determine if the Speedway Connect software has frozen up or not. Making the Heartbeat to output every 3 seconds and clicking the "Apply" button should show asterisks (*) being output at a regular time interval. Speedway Connect will look like:

You can now connect to port 14150 via putty to see the result changed to now include asterisks every 3 seconds or so. If those asterisks do not appear then Speedway Connect is hanging and you need to contact Impinj Support to investigate further.

 

 

HTTP Post Troubleshooting

Should the missing tags be occurring when you are doing HTTP Post, then steps can be taken to debug your environment to see if the issue is indeed in Speedway Connect or in the Application being called by Speedway Connect.

#
Troubleshooting Steps
Details
13 Post to a known Third Party Test Site

Note (As of 3/7/2019): It appears ptsv2.com does not accept the json format from Speedway Connect. Please use either https://webhook.site/ or https://putsreq.com/ instead.

Posting to a Third Party Test Site (http://ptsv2.com) will take your application out of the equation and confirm whether the problem is due to Speedway Connect not functioning properly or your application not functioning properly.

This step requires access to the internet, get a random url, so you can set the HTTP Post URL to:

http://ptsv2.com/t/7q1r7-1529536721/post

(Note, this link will not work, as the randomly generated test page will be removed after a while. You will want to generate your own random test page from the main page)

Speedway Connect will look something like:

 Now visit the Third Party Test Site data folder:

 
Open one of the files and check to see if the contents of the file contains tags, the reader_name and mac_address for the reader. Here is an example snippet from a file:
Post Params:
key: 'reader_name' value: '"My Reader"'
key: 'mac_address' value: '"00:16:25:10:5F:24"'
key: 'line_ending' value: '
'
key: 'field_delim' value: ','
key: 'field_names' value: 'epc'
key: 'field_values' value: '"000000000000000000000016"
"00000000000000000000001B"
"3074257BF7194E6C05EA91A5" 
If no documents exist then something is probably wrong.
Try Enabling Heartbeats and trying again to see if Speedway Connect is responsive or not.
14 Check reader DNS settings

The purpose of this check is to ensure the reader can perform name resolution on any HTTP POST URL.

Make sure your reader's DNS settings are correct. To check the reader's DNS settings, issue the following RShell command:

    • show network dns

To add or remove DNS servers, use the following RShell commands:

    • config network dns add <ip of dns server>
    • config network dns del <ip of dns server>

TIP: If you are having a trouble setting up and/or using a DNS server, try adding a public DNS server. For example, the following RShell command will add a public DNS server provided by Google:

    • config network dns add 8.8.8.8

After adding or deleting DNS servers, you will need to reboot your reader by issuing this RShell command:

    • reboot

For additional information, please consult the RShell Reference Manual.
15 Try using the HTTP Post Proxy

Try using a HTTP Post Proxy to transfer the HTTP post information to see if that might resolve the problem.
16 Return a 200 Status Code from Web Service

Speedway Connect will hold onto tag reports and try to resend them over and over when the HTTP Post it tries to perform fails for some reason.  One such case is when the Web Service receives the data but fails to return a "200 OK" status code.   Here is an example of how a C# web service returns a "200 OK" status code:

     HttpListenerResponse response = context.Response;
     response.StatusCode = (int)HttpStatusCode.OK;
     System.IO.Stream stream = response.OutputStream;
     response.Close();

 

USB Flash Drive

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Troubleshooting Steps
Details
17 Verify the drive is setup properly

Speedway Connect will write tag data to the drive creating a new file every hour. Check the following items:

- The USB flash drive must be formatted as FAT because it is a non-journaling file system. Removal of the drive when being accessed all but guarantees corruption.

- USB 3.0 or newer drives are not supported. (Note: Keyboard Wedge has issues with USB 3.0 as well.)

- The USB flash drive must have enough space to record tag reads.

- Minimize the writes since flash memory only allows a finite number of writes. Running with Dual Target and Max Throughput may create an unnecessary amount of writes.

- The reader is using USB 1.1, so the write speed is about 130 kb/s

- Buy the very best USB stick possible. Stick with the brand names.
18 Enable FTP

Make sure ftp is enabled in RShell with the following command:

  • config network ftp enable

The location of the USB drive is: /mnt/usbfs/usbsda1
19 Safe Approach for Removing USB Drive

The USB flash drive file system can become corrupt if you remove the drive while the reader is trying to access it. To minimize this risk, power down the reader when unplugging the USB drive.

If you do not follow this strategy, the USB drive may not be properly removed/ejected from the reader and this can cause some damage to its memory. The next time the reader tries to write EPC values to the drive, it may encounter the damaged memory sector and make the file "Read-only".

The following procedure explains an example of how to safely run thru a USB Drive example:

1. Prepare a USB drive, formatted in FAT, and make sure there is no file on the drive 
Note: You will need to know that this USB drive is NOT Read-only at this point. If you are not sure, format the USB drive.

2. Plug the USB drive into the reader.
3. Launch Speedway Connect and select "Dual Target" in "Reader Settings : Modes" section and check "USB Flash Drive" checkbox in "Output : Connection" section.
4. Place a tag on the antenna and start Speedway Connect.
5. Read a tag for a few seconds and disable Speedway Connect.
6. Power down the reader by unplugging the power cord/PoE cable.
7. Unplug the USB drive, verify that a csv file is created with a list of EPCs, and plug it back into the reader.
8. Power up the reader by plugging the power cord/PoE cable.
9. Repeat steps 3 ~ 5, but this time read a different tag.
10 Disable Speedway Connect.
11. Power down the reader, unplug the USB drive.
12. Verify that the csv file contains 2 sets of different EPCs.

This verifies that after the first tag is read and written to the USB drive, the second tag is also read and written.

 

Web Page Issues

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Troubleshooting Steps
Details
  Press Shift and F5 a few times.

If you encounter a situation where the Graphics do not load completely and Speedway Connect looks like:

mceclip0.png 

Simply press Shift and F5 a few times to refresh the page and have everything reloaded.
20 Check the Browser Console

It is possible the web page is not communicating with the web server. To find out if there are problems, please check the Browser console for any clues as to what might be going on.

Here is how the Console might look like in Chrome:

In the case above, someone applied the settings twice and there is NO error. It is also possible there might be Network related errors and checking the Network tab can yield those problems.
21 Look at the reader logs.

The Reader Capabilities File is missing because the error message:

  "This application needs the on-reader application to create the reader capabilities file." appears


This means the LLRP port (5084) is not accepting the connection from Speedway Connect. Please look at the reader logs to see if there is an error for why port 5084 hasn't opened up.
22 Reboot the reader

If you have trouble saving the settings and get errors like:

      Warning! We were unable to submit the License Key!

Please reboot the reader and try again.

 

Should any of the above steps fail to shed light on the problem, please click the "Save" button and send support@impinj.com the configuration file along with what went wrong.

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