Recently I have been busy with NR and flows.
I've mentioned weird errors, and a few other things which have been brought about because of strange happenings on my flow/s / machines.
I have a couple of RPIs. One is a RPI 2a and acts as a WAP for local stuff.
I have 2 other WAPs. 1 is my "modem" and one is another RPI which is mostly turned off just now for reasons beyond this post.
The RPI WAP is DHCP. (And different IP to the other WAPs)
(and I now realise this could be the cause of the problem, but: here goes.)
This RPI (as stated) is a WAP. It is on 24/7. It is my "main" machine for collecting information about what's going on in my world stuff.
Saying that, it also scans for available WAPs.
It looks for my main WAP being up/down and the other (third) WAP which is down 99% of the time.
The reason for this is so it can tell me if the main WAP is working or not, and reduce the annoyance when I am wondering why things aren't connecting to it. I can easily see it is down.
(That fact in itself is a problem, but it only slightly but let's say that it is mostly up and hasn't really been a problem.)
I did that bit when I was starting off with NR and it also checks if my internet link is working.
Just an exercise in checking things.
Check the WAP, check the modem, check the internet..... ( a few other checks/ping there too, but...)
The local WAP is a bit smarter in that when a device connects to it, a signal is sent out asking the device to identify itself.
The device responds and all is sweet in the world.
Getting more adventurous I then started adding logs of what was happening and that is when things got bad.
I was/am seeing unexpected "identify yourself" message replies. These should only happen if a device is asked. Why are they happening?
(I did find some "contamination" of messages and quickly sorted that out.) (IQ +1)
I then started logging the requests. They too are happening for no real reason.
Then I got to this point/stage:
I am getting spruatic (?spelling?) messages saying that the main WAP is down.
To double check myself, I got the second RPI (which is a RPZ(w)) to also check the state of things.
It is saying that both the main and RPI (local) WAP are going down/up at about the same time.
I stuck a lot of extra stuff on the flows to log what is going on, but it is still happening and even the logs aren't making sense.
Here is a breakdown of the flow monitoring the WAPs:
(pulse trigger at given interval. Every 40 seconds) --> Scan for WAP. --> create list --> split on name.
If name == modem WAP, #1, if name == RPI WAP, #2
#1 and #2
--> timeout trigger (set to 80 seconds) to send false
if it times out --> (branch) indicator set to show condition.
(branch) --> switch (if false
) --> function
node to timestamp message --> (branch) log message.
(branch) --> another indicator.
Yeah, sorry. It will be hard to get your head around if you aren't me. I'll post the flow/screen shots later if you want. (I'm torn between too much and not enough information.)
But I now notice that even this is detecting failures, now and then.
Not as often as I remember, but enough to be of interest.
Mostly because it is usually both which go down/up at about the same time.
Probably timing, but I am just not getting something.
I may extend the timout time to .... 120 seconds rather than 80 (twice the scan time) and see what happens.