Re: Team Fusion #364, Bayou Regional, FMS Woes
 

Did you see this post in 330's thread?

Just to throw that out there.

Re: Team Fusion #364, Bayou Regional, FMS Woes
 

The fact that it is WEP does NOT make it secure... in fact, some people joke that it is easier to crack WEP at someone's houls (and faster) than to get up and ask them. All commercial wifi setups have flaws. For example, I have seen backtrack 5 crack my home wifi (linksys a/b/g router, set to WEP temporarily) in under two hours. Via a laptop. With WPA2, it took 4 (used the WiFi protected setup vulnerability). A sufficiently determined team COULD crack the encryption in a relatively short timeframe. Or, they could use any of the other specialized linux penetration testing distros. And if the WPA list key is not avaliable to teams, how hard would it be to imitate the FMS setup? (change MAC address on router, set up a network, log attempted connections and passwords)

Yes, I seem to have put too much thought into this. I do not intend to be the kind of person who would do this, however.

Re: Team Fusion #364, Bayou Regional, FMS Woes
 

Whatever the problem is....I just hope that it is fixed IF/when we go to Lonestar...I know that EVERYONE on the team worked our butts off to build what we all agree is the best robot we have ever made.. and it stinks beyond belief to see it all go to waste over a problem that wasn't even our fault.. Personally I am kinda disappointed with FIRST for how unhelpful they were, they above all others should be the prime example of gracious professionalism and this time they fell short.. However, I am very proud of my team mates and how they conducted themselves through all of our issues and I know that even if we are not able to compete and put all of our hard work to good use, that all that hard work was not completely wasted because we all learned A LOT this year, and still had fun in the process despite the hard time we encountered at the regional.

Re: Team Fusion #364, Bayou Regional, FMS Woes
 

You might find it enlightening to consider the total amount of time a given team's wireless network is even active at a regional.

Re: Team Fusion #364, Bayou Regional, FMS Woes
 

And again, as I understand it...

Why try to crack the WPA or WEP, whatever it is, encryption when you can simply reprogram your router with another teams number?

Re: Team Fusion #364, Bayou Regional, FMS Woes
 

But the FMS would detect duplicate IP addresses because I doubt the install script FIRST uses changes the machine address. So if something nefarious happened, I doubt it involved re-programming a router with the same team number (by FIRST) - which means they would have to hack comms to get the WPA keys. And a MITM attack seems too far-fetched for FIRST students to pull off.

Nope, there has to be another reason. We were a few spots down from you in the pits. I wish I new you were having trouble, we could have swapped some parts around and eliminated some causes. It is so unfair that you had an undiagnosable problem like that! Any luck with Greg?

Re: Team Fusion #364, Bayou Regional, FMS Woes
 

Greg is digging through the data I do have and I'm looking for more. I'm waiting on log files from another team at Bayou. If you have access to the DS computer, I'd really like to compare aspects of the files between teams with no perceivable issues and ones with issues. PM me if you are able to assist.

I'm also collecting log files as I force specific types of failures. I'm not sure if or when it will be known what caused the failures, but I'm learning of other things that would be nice to log and ways to better diagnose if this happens again.

Greg McKaskle

Re: Team Fusion #364, Bayou Regional, FMS Woes
 

Greg, forgive my ignorance, but I'll be telling my programming team about this.

Are there some instructions or something I can look up to help them find the log files?

Re: Team Fusion #364, Bayou Regional, FMS Woes
 

I don't think the firmware's the problem. When we looked on Saturday at the router's information during regional it said v.1.21.

Re: Team Fusion #364, Bayou Regional, FMS Woes
 

We attended the Bayou Regional and almost every time we we connected to Blue 3 we lost connection. The computer said we were connected to the FMS but the communication and robot code lights were off. The RSL never stopped blinking. Also once we were connected to Blue 1 and headed in front of the Blue 3 side ( by the ref table) and lost connection. After speaking with officals they stated that our battery dropped below 8 volts before dropping out, but the battery level on the dashboard was steady. Just my 2 cents.
2078 Driver

Re: Team Fusion #364, Bayou Regional, FMS Woes
 

The log files are located in:

C:\Users\Public\Documents\FRC\Log Files

You can view them using the Driver Station Log File Viewer located in:

64-bit Operating System
C:\Program Files (x86)\FRC Driver Station

or

32-bit Operating System
C:\Program Files\FRC Driver Station

Re: Team Fusion #364, Bayou Regional, FMS Woes
 

...hmmmm
George Wallace (SPAM'er, Exploding Bacon and Orlando emcee) said something interesting last night at our SPAM meeting. He was telling me that teams were reporting a dead spot on the field (Orlando regional): blue zone, near the scorer's table. Our freshman IT whiz-kid was telling me that, when we walked down to the field for the Finalist medals he took a peak at the field hardware. Apparently there is a cluster of high end routers located at the scorer's table in that corner. I was just talking to one of our CE/EE's, here at Belcan, who did a lot of work in the RF lab at FAU. Locating a group of routers in a cluster can and will cause near-field cancellation.
... yet another tidbit ...
Eric

Re: Team Fusion #364, Bayou Regional, FMS Woes
 

It's a single AP with 6 antennas (if you look closely, there are 3 for 2.4ghz and 3 for 5ghz).

In the range we are talking about (no more than 50' with no solid obstructions), 802.11 should have no problems with signal strength assuming the bridge is mounted well.

Re: Team Fusion #364, Bayou Regional, FMS Woes
 

Seems to be the answer everyone is getting from the FTA - there shouldn't be a problem, therefore it isn't a problem, therefore it's your problem.

I guess we should just ignore all the data points that multiple, experienced, highly competitive teams are providing, since there shouldn't be a problem.

Re: Team Fusion #364, Bayou Regional, FMS Woes
 

I've seen this thread mention many reasons other than 802.11 signal strength as the cause of issues. I only mentioned signal strength, in relation to a post questioning possible issues related to the design of the field AP.