Thetis Cannot Access 7000DLE MKII after Protocol 2 upgrade

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edtyler
Posts: 9
Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2022 5:39 am

Thetis Cannot Access 7000DLE MKII after Protocol 2 upgrade

Postby edtyler » Fri Apr 01, 2022 5:23 am

I recently received my 7000DLE MKII and got it running with Thetis 2.8.11 with the 21k9 patch. All was well.

Not being content to leave "good enough" alone, an upgrade to Protocol 2 was done using HPSDRBootloader v2.0.4.4. The program had no trouble contacting the radio to to do the programming, which appeared to complete normally. I powered off the radio, moved the bootloader switch to "OFF" and powered the radio back on.

Thetis complains that it cannot find the radio. I observed that Thetis was sending UDP packets (port 1024) to the broadcast address for the network. The right led is flashing (FPGA heartbeat). I can ping the radio IP from the Win7 computer.

Some strange things to note.
1) As shipped, the radio had the bootloader switch in the ON position. <----- Is this expected??
2) Thetis worked fine with the protocol 1 firmware in the radio with this switch ON.
3) After the upgrade, if the switch is OFF, I can ping the radio.
4) After the upgrade, if the switch is in the ON position, I cannot ping the radio. This is not unexpected, because presumably the bootloader does not need a IP address
5) The radio is getting its address via DHCP. It gets 10.48.96.48 with a netmask of 255.255.240.0

I am suspecting that the protocol 2 firmware may not be listening on the proper broadcast address for the UDP packets. When I bring up HPSDRBootloader and look at the IP setting dialog there appears to be no way to set a netmask. If I read the IP, then I see 255.255.255.255, which may mean DHCP is being used.

Note: if I change the computer's netmask to 255.255.255.0, then Thetis works, but the computer has problems with other IP based applications. This seems to confirm that Protocol 2 firmware is ignoring the netmask being issued by the DHCP server. Protocol 1 does not seem to have this problem.

As always, any help would be appreciated. I'm not sure how to get the Protocol 1 rbf file that was in the radio to restore operation.

Thanks,
Dale (W6EDT)
Dale (W6EDT)
User avatar
w-u-2-o
Posts: 5539
Joined: Fri Mar 10, 2017 1:47 pm

Re: Thetis Cannot Access 7000DLE MKII after Protocol 2 upgrade

Postby w-u-2-o » Fri Apr 01, 2022 1:25 pm

edtyler wrote:Not being content to leave "good enough" alone, an upgrade to Protocol 2 was done using HPSDRBootloader v2.0.4.4.
What version of Protocol 2 firmware did you load?

1) As shipped, the radio had the bootloader switch in the ON position. <----- Is this expected??
No, but it's not relevant to this problem.

2) Thetis worked fine with the protocol 1 firmware in the radio with this switch ON.
3) After the upgrade, if the switch is OFF, I can ping the radio.
4) After the upgrade, if the switch is in the ON position, I cannot ping the radio. This is not unexpected, because presumably the bootloader does not need a IP address
All normal.

5) The radio is getting its address via DHCP. It gets 10.48.96.48 with a netmask of 255.255.240.0
Here's the thing: the IP stack in the firmware does not have any way to receive a netmask, not from Bootloader and not from your DHCP server. It's very primitive. I can't say for certain, I'm not very good at reading code, but last I looked it seemed to me that the firmware used no netmask at all, i.e. the equivalent of 0.0.0.0, but again I can't say for certain.

@n1gp -- Rick, do you know the answer to this question?

I am suspecting that the protocol 2 firmware may not be listening on the proper broadcast address for the UDP packets.
Nope, not relevant. Since Thetis broadcasts a discovery packet it should go to all MACs in the broadcast subnet.

When I bring up HPSDRBootloader and look at the IP setting dialog there appears to be no way to set a netmask. If I read the IP, then I see 255.255.255.255, which may mean DHCP is being used.
This is the first thing that looks wrong. To program the firmware for DHCP in Bootloader you are required to program an IP address of 0.0.0.0. You should therefore use Bootloader to do this and retest.

Note: if I change the computer's netmask to 255.255.255.0, then Thetis works, but the computer has problems with other IP based applications. This seems to confirm that Protocol 2 firmware is ignoring the netmask being issued by the DHCP server. Protocol 1 does not seem to have this problem.
They both use essentially the same IP stack firmware code. And they both have no facility for accepting a netmask. This kind of points the finger at the aberrant 255.255.255.255 address currently in the ANAN. Let's see what happens when you use Bootloader to reprogram that to 0.0.0.0.

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