Driver station has no robot communication
 

we are not a rookie team, but we have been out of completion for a couple of years. We started out with a brand new control system this year. We have upgraded firmware and imaged the PDM, roboRIO, PCM, and the radio. After wiring everything up all system status lights appear as they should be. We created a test program via Robot Builder and downloaded that to the roboRIO successfully. When we start the Driver Station with an Ethernet tether we get NO ROBOT COMMUNICATION message. We can ping the robot via Ethernet and USB cables. We can get into the Web Dashboard of the roboRIO via USB and all addresses appear correctly.

What are we missing???

Re: Driver station has no robot communication
 

What are the IP Address of:

1) RoboRio
2) Radio
3) Driver station

Is your team number displaying correctly on the Driver Station?

Re: Driver station has no robot communication
 

RoboRio - 10.38.51.34
Driver Station 10.38.51.70
Radio not sure.


The team number is in the driver station and it recognizes local PC power and joysticks, just not the robot. It gives some warnings, I don't have a copy with me, that says some connections are bad, but some are good, so it appears like it is trying.

Re: Driver station has no robot communication
 

Disable your Windows firewall (Disable McAfee type firewall management tools)
Disable any anti-virus
Disable the network connections you aren't using.

Once you get it working you can add these back in one-by-one to see what was causing the problem.

Re: Driver station has no robot communication
 

I'm pretty sure I've disabled everything listed, but I'll try again. Does the robot code need anything in it to get things rolling? We are just using a basic shell created by Robot Builder. I've also tried some of the sample programs, but always end up with the same results.

Re: Driver station has no robot communication
 

If you don't have user code or if your user code crashes, then you still should see the Driver Station Communications indicator go green (and the Robot Code indicator stay red).

If you can get that far (Communications=green) then you can worry about your user code.

Your IPs are fine (the radio IP doesn't matter-it's just routing if it's even in the network chain).
Check the diagnostic tab to see it the Driver Station is also pinging everything.

Re: Driver station has no robot communication
 

I get the same green lights as shown and when I plug in the USB cable the eNet Link light turns on as well. I didn't realize I can add pictures. I will get some of those and post them this evening.

Re: Driver station has no robot communication
 

If your Communications light is on then it's just a user code (or a code downloading) problem.
Networking sounds fine.

What language are you using?

Re: Driver station has no robot communication
 

I'm using Java. I guess we have a terminology issue on Communications. I have the two green lights for Robot Radio and Robot, but the lights for Communications and Robot Code under the battery level are both red.

Re: Driver station has no robot communication
 

Just an aside, but did you put the Java runtime onto the roboRIO?

Re: Driver station has no robot communication
 

Yes. Figured that one out after a different series of error messages. I think it was when I was trying to install the software the first time after getting the image installed on the roboRIO. Seems imaging removes the JRE. Been learning a lot, but need one more detail hidden somewhere.

Re: Driver station has no robot communication
 

So, the Communications light is red.

That's odd since the pings (in the section labeled "Communications" :) ) are communicating through the network just fine.

The Communications light should come on regardless of the language you are using, as long as the roboRIO operating system is running.
In fact, if you want to eliminate Java altogether as a cause you can reformat the roboRIO, but don't do anything else (no java runtime/no user code), and the Communications light should be green if the network is connecting.

If that's the case, I'd suggest connecting the PC only via USB, Disable all other NICs, stop/start the Driver Station to see if it makes the connection over USB (the simplest path).
If it still doesn't give a green Communications light, then look at the team number field on the Driver Station and use the downward arrow beside the team number to see if anything is listed there.
If nothing is listed try typing 172.22.11.2 into the team number field.

Re: Driver station has no robot communication
 

As another point to contend with, sometimes windows is just... wierd. Last year we had an issue where we'd connect fine the first time after a restart but all times after that the comms light would be red. We'd restart and it'd be fine. This was the one laptop out of three that we upgraded to win10, and because of that didn't upgrade any of the others. If in doubt, restart.

Re: Driver station has no robot communication
 

We ran into a problem with the same symptoms on Saturday. This is how we solved it.

1. Install latest Firmware on RoboRio
2. Install latest Image on RoboRio
3. Install latest WPI Plugin in Eclipse (Includes WPI Lib).

Rebuild and deploy your project. Our problem seemed to be we initially only did step 1 above.

Hope this helps.

Re: Driver station has no robot communication
 

Thank you everyone. It's working. An odd thing, but it seemed to make a difference. The conversation lead me to think about security and the only thing I could think of was when I installed the NI software it asked if I trusted NI. I said no as that is my standard practice when installing software. I reinstalled this time saying yes I trusted it and after the installation the Driver Station hooked right up. Who would have figured. Something was going on under the hood.

Team 3851 Graciously thanks you for all your suggestions and patience. You have saved our build.