Wireless Connection Problem

[Matt2081]

I set up our wireless bridge and wireless router following all the instructions in section 2.10 of the control system manual. Everything worked great, until I went to test the wireless connection. When I unplugged the bridge from the router (but kept the classmate plugged into the router) and tried to access the bridge using a web browser and entering "http://10.20.81.1", it was unable to connect. I am also unable to deploy programs through wireless. I'm not sure what I've done wrong. I've tried different static IP settings on the classmate (including 10.20.81.5, 10.20.81.10, and 10.20.81.6), but none of them allowed me to wirelessly connect to the bridge. Any ideas?

[Andy A.]

Matt-

I'm having the same problem. I don't know if the cause is the same, but I am confident that I have all the correct IP, mask, etc. settings correct. When plugged in the gaming adapter is perfectly accessible. When disconnected it simply will not connect wirelessly no matter how nicely I ask it. The wifi status light just blinks away.

any ideas anyone?

[Jon236]

Can you ping the bridge (10.xx.yy.1)? For some strange reason, when we do that, comms resume.

[Andy A.]

Originally Posted by Jon236

Can you ping the bridge (10.xx.yy.1)? For some strange reason, when we do that, comms resume.

No, unless the adapter is plugged in it has no communication with the router. If it is plugged in, it is pingable and we can log into it with the 10.xx.xx.1 ip. If not plugged in it never joins the wireless network, despite having the correct gateway and ssid, gateway etc. settings.

[Greg McKaskle]

There is a thread about boot order of the cRIO and wifi bridge. If this problem occurs with a cold boot of the entire program, but resolves when the cRIO is rebooted while the bridge stays up, then it is now relatively well understood, and a workaround for the bridge behavior will be released pretty soon.

Greg McKaskle

[Andy A.]

Originally Posted by Greg McKaskle

There is a thread about boot order of the cRIO and wifi bridge. If this problem occurs with a cold boot of the entire program, but resolves when the cRIO is rebooted while the bridge stays up, then it is now relatively well understood, and a workaround for the bridge behavior will be released pretty soon.

Greg McKaskle

Could you point me towards that thread? I've searched but I've been unable to find it.

If it's any help, I've been unable to connect wirelessly to the router with any laptop, as well.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by Andy A.

Matt-

I'm having the same problem. I don't know if the cause is the same, but I am confident that I have all the correct IP, mask, etc. settings correct. When plugged in the gaming adapter is perfectly accessible. When disconnected it simply will not connect wirelessly no matter how nicely I ask it. The wifi status light just blinks away.

Since it communicates wired, that confirms the correct IP and netmask settings. It does not confirm the correct wireless settings. Verify the wireless settings on both the bridge and the router.

If you still have trouble, post screenshots of all the settings pages, and maybe someone else can spot the problem.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by Andy A.

Could you point me towards that thread? I've searched but I've been unable to find it.

http://decibel.ni.com/content/thread/5712

[Andy A.]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

Since it communicates wired, that confirms the correct IP and netmask settings. It does not confirm the correct wireless settings. Verify the wireless settings on both the bridge and the router.

If you still have trouble, post screenshots of all the settings pages, and maybe someone else can spot the problem.

After resetting everything to default and going back through I found the problem. I have a wrt160N router, which is 2.4ghz only, not 5.0. After setting the Gaming Adapter to look for 2.4ghz, it worked right away. Guess I should have looked at the part number a little closer.

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Andy A.

After resetting everything to default and going back through I found the problem. I have a wrt160N router, which is 2.4ghz only, not 5.0. After setting the Gaming Adapter to look for 2.4ghz, it worked right away. Guess I should have looked at the part number a little closer.

A local rookie team was also struggling with this yesterday - they received the WRT160N router as part of their kit. They followed Chapter 2 of the control system manual. The problem is, they overlooked the part where the 160N is 2.4 GHz only. This requires a change to the WGA600N wireless bridge settings.

They are correctly instructed to set the WGA600N robot radio to 2.4 GHz on Page 46, instruction 8-a, of Chapter 2, but this mention is not prominently indicated relative to the rest of the instructions. There is no highlighted screenshot indicating this difference. There is no rookie-specific subsection which highlights this important difference. As has been proven by several different otherwise-methodical groups of people following the correct directions, the note is easy to overlook, and time has been unnecessarily wasted because of it.

I'd request that Chapter 2 of the manual be revised to make this 2.4 GHz rookie setting stand out more clearly. At least put it in boldface type! <- I bet this stood out when you read this post.

[Blackphantom91]

Have you tried reseting the router? and bridge if so then test the integrity of the cable it may have shorted.

[Matt2081]

Thanks for all the suggestions. We ended up trying to get it to work all last night, and it finally worked right before we left. We reset both the router and gaming adapter to factory defaults 4 times, then followed the instructions in chapter 2 each time. I'm almost certain we did nothing different, but it just happened to work on the fourth time

We did run a power cycle of the router and gaming adapter before our last attempt, but I'm not sure if this is the reason why it worked since this wasn't our first power cycle. We waited for the router to fully reboot, though, before turning the gaming adapter back on.

Hopefully this is helpful to someone.

One last problem we were having: when we tried to connect the classmate wirelessly to the router (following chapter 2), the router's network didn't show up in the list of available wireless networks. I'm not sure what the problem is, does anyone have any ideas?

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by matt2081

One last problem we were having: when we tried to connect the classmate wirelessly to the router (following chapter 2), the router's network didn't show up in the list of available wireless networks. I'm not sure what the problem is, does anyone have any ideas?

The router is probably configured according to the instructions to use only the 5 GHz frequency band. The Classmate is only capable of communicating on the 2.4 GHz band.

[Travis Hoffman]

Here's a fun one to ponder:

So the rookie team I mentioned earlier was still having trouble getting their wireless to link up even after changing to the 2.4 GHz setting on the bridge. Everything was configured exactly as intended, verified by me, but the system still wouldn't link up. So I set their bridge and router aside.

I took Team 48's router and bridge from last year - only the boxes - no cables or anything else - and connected them to the rookie team's kitbot and Classmate and such, using their cables. I reconfigured 48's hardware with the rookie team's IP's - wireless communication picked right up - no problems. Could ping the cRIO. Downloaded default program. Vision camera was transmitting images. Good stuff.

Now, after this, I individually reintroduced the rookie's gaming bridge and router into this system, such that a 48 device was talking to a rookie device each time. I expected at least one of the rookie devices to not work, based on the fact they never worked together, but guess what? Both devices worked. Weird. So I finally said what the heck, and connected both rookie devices back to their robot and Classmate. Instant wireless communication, vision camera pictures on the dashboard, no problems whatsoever. Other than unplugging and plugging the rookie devices, no other changes were made to their router and bridge between the time the devices wouldn't talk wirelessly and the time they would.

Maybe the rookie router/bridge needed to "learn" from the veteran router/ bridge how to do things the right way before they could stand alone and work on their own? Network device mentoring...awwwwww.

[Andy A.]

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman

Here's a fun one to ponder:

...

Maybe the rookie router/bridge needed to "learn" from the veteran router/ bridge how to do things the right way before they could stand alone and work on their own? Network device mentoring...awwwwww.

I have never experienced a wireless network setup that was as easy as it was billed to be. There is always something not configured correctly, requiring a reset or animal sacrifice. More often then not I have no idea what was wrong or how it got corrected.

Needless to say, I was not impressed when the new communications gear came out. I'm actually not really impressed with the whole cRio based control system, or the inclusion of a laptop on the OI, but hey... I'll always be a child of the pBasic IFI days. I really pine for those simpler times, when I actually understood what every component of the control system did, and could tell them apart. These days I can't keep all the sidecars, breakout boards, modules, wireless dohickies, communication buses and speed controllers straight.

Heck, there are even three or four different voltages on the robot now! Back in my day we only had 12 volts to work with and we liked it that way. The really sneaky teams could get a few milliamps of 5v's, and talk to the controller with a photoresistor and a program set to blink an LED.

I feel like a dinosaur, wondering what happened to his beloved van door motors.