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jimmym avatar image
jimmym asked

Venus OS on RPi 4 Remote Console over WiFi

I have Venus OS up and running on a RPi 4B-2GB, 32GB micro SD. It starts up just fine and I can connect to the remote console via browser & IP address when the ethernet cord is plugged in. But after starting up without ethernet connected, the WiFi connects to my home network and the RPi shows up in VRM. But when I try to connect to the remote console via browser when using WiFi, it times out.

Oddly, if it's connected via ethernet and WiFi, I can connect to the remote console by both the ethernet IP and the WiFi IP.

Thoughts?

Raspberry Piremote consolewifi
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4 Answers
elvis avatar image
elvis answered ·

make sure the wifi IP is correct.

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jimmym avatar image jimmym commented ·

It is indeed correct. x.x.x.95 is assigned by DHCP to the ethernet MAC. x.x.x.93 is assigned to the WiFi MAC.



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Kevin Windrem avatar image
Kevin Windrem answered ·

If you are running the new kernel (not the image from the Victron feeds) on your RPI4, you may need to update the EEPROM to get all I/O to function properly.

You'll need to flash an SD card with Raspberry PI OS and run that. Then you can the update from a terminal window:

sudo rpi-eeprom-update

Then you can shutdown and put the Venus OS SD card back in.

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jimmym avatar image jimmym commented ·

I used a Victron image (venus-image-raspberrypi4-20220215235310-v2.84.rootfs.wic) and replaced fixup4.dat and start4.elf on the SD card after burning the image.

I didn't know about the eeprom. I'll give it a shot. Thanks.

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Kevin Windrem avatar image Kevin Windrem jimmym commented ·
Replacing the start and mixup files allows the PI to boot but does not activate all the I/O. A new kernel is needed. Some development work has been done on this kernel but Victron is reviewing those changes now but has not officially approved them for inclusion in the released or beta feeds.


For now, you need to switch to an older RPI 4 board or an RPI 3

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Kevin Windrem avatar image Kevin Windrem jimmym commented ·

I found this post from @Johnny Brusevold that has links to the new kernel under development:

https://community.victronenergy.com/questions/117180/raspberry-pi-4-version-14-images.html

There may still be issues with the RPI 4 v1.5 board but I think this working on v1.1, v1.2 and v1.4 boards. Use at your own risk.

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jimmym avatar image jimmym Kevin Windrem commented ·
Thanks for the info, Kevin. I don't know what version my RPi4 board is. And finding an RPi3 is difficult to say the least.
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Kevin Windrem avatar image Kevin Windrem jimmym commented ·
If you had to replace start and mixup files to get it to boot with the Victron image, then its a v1.4 or v1.5 board. The image from Johnny should work out of the box and get all your I/O working. But make sure you also update the EEPROM as mentioned in a previous comment.


I tested this new kernel on a v1.2 board and others have tested it on the v1.1 board.


If you are using large, make sure you use the one with the updated kernel. Loading the one from Victron feeds will not work.


Yes, all RPIs are hard to find at the moment.

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jimmym avatar image jimmym Kevin Windrem commented ·
I'll have to give it a try. Can't do it today though.

What's the difference between the regular and large images?



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Kevin Windrem avatar image Kevin Windrem jimmym commented ·
Large includes Node Red and Signal-K. Use the regular image if you don't need these.
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jimmym avatar image jimmym Kevin Windrem commented ·

Burned that new image to the SD and it boots. However, WiFi doesn't work at all. It says it's connected, but I can ping it. Also, it doesn;t show up at all in VRM Portal. It says it's connecting, but the portal shows that it hasn't connected since yesterday.

The eeprom thing was a total wash. I installed Rasberry Pi OS to an SD card and couldn;t get connected via SSH (tried the ssh file trick). Telnet to port 22 shows the SSH version. I get a reply. But the login as pi using Putty just gives me an Access Denied error.

This thing is useless to me without WiFi.

I just need an RPi 3. I can't understand why RPi 4s aren't supported.

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Kevin Windrem avatar image Kevin Windrem jimmym commented ·
I suspect that Raspberry PI has not actually been set up as there are many steps needed after the image is first inserted into the PI. Connect a display, keyboard and mouse to the RPI while setting up Raspberry PI OS. Then you can run the EEPROM update. The fact that WiFi doesn't work is an indication that the EEPROM needs to be updated. I had the same problem on my v1.2 board.


Raspberry PI is not officially supported by Victron. Development is largely done by others, including the original Venus OS ports. The work that Johnny Blusevoid and Mark Bath have done has brought Venus OS up to a version 5 kernel that supports the v1.4 board's circuitry. This will eventually be blessed by Victron and rolled into the RPI 4 images it provides. Be patient.

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jimmym avatar image jimmym Kevin Windrem commented ·
I don't have a miniHDMI port adapter, so it has to be headless. For now. In any case, I have a v1.5 board (it shows the version in Bluetooth connection in the VictronConnect app). I re-installed the original image with the 2 OS files copied. If I reboot it without ethernet, I can't ping the WiFi address. However, it shows up in the VRM portal. I can connect to the Remote console there. I need to get some devices connected to it. I'm not installing it in my RV until next year, so I'm sure a lot will happen before then. In the mean time, I'll see if I can get the eeprom updated on the RPi 4 and will try to get an RPi 3.


I appreciate your help.


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johnny-brusevold avatar image johnny-brusevold jimmym commented ·

Hi @JimmyM

If you use the original pi4 image and change start4.elf and fixup4.dat, you can boot but several things do not work properly, including USB and unstable wifi


I downloaded image from my google disk now and burned to a new sd card, to test if an error has occurred, but everything works as it should.

Tested now on 2GB, 4GB and 8GB pi4 v1.5 cards. The only thing I could see that confused a bit when configuring wifi via bluetooth was at the third test on the 8GB card where I got the message can not connect to network for 2 seconds, but it connected as it should.

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jimmym avatar image jimmym johnny-brusevold commented ·
I'll give it another try. God knows I could have messed something up. Which image? The 2.82 large or 2.85_1?



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johnny-brusevold avatar image johnny-brusevold jimmym commented ·

@JimmyM

Both work, but large image has node-red, something I personally really appreciate.

You can read a little about node-red here

https://flows.nodered.org/node/@victronenergy/node-red-contrib-victron

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jimmym avatar image jimmym johnny-brusevold commented ·
I loaded 2.85-1 and it's up and running. Everything works fine on ethernet. But on WiFi, it connects to VRM and makes updates. I can open a remote console via VRM. But I cannot get to a remote console using a browser and the local WiFi IP.
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Kevin Windrem avatar image Kevin Windrem jimmym commented ·
Have you enabled remote console access in the menus? There are separate enables for VRM and local network (Enable on LAN)
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Kevin Windrem avatar image Kevin Windrem jimmym commented ·
Have you updated the EEPROM? I found WiFi to be extremely flakey/slow before I did. Could be not enough bandwidth to draw the page but yet VRM updates happen.

I found a link about a boot loader recovery you can do from an SD card without any interface on the PI. It's available in the Raspberry Pi Imager under Misc utility images. Choose Bootloader then SD Card Boot. I don't know if this updates the EEPROM to the latest firmware or not but it's worth a shot.

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jimmym avatar image jimmym johnny-brusevold commented ·
Wow, Node red has a lot to offer. I like the relay controls. I just don't have the use case to use it right now.
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Kevin Windrem avatar image Kevin Windrem jimmym commented ·
Get the hardware to run a local GUI on the PI and configure Raspberry PI OS then run the rpi-eeprom updater. I think that will solve your flakey WiFi.
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Kevin Windrem avatar image
Kevin Windrem answered ·

It is not possible for VRM to get data and not be able to ping the GX device or show the GUI on a local browser unless it is connecting and disconnecting from the network. You should see this in the GX device's menus.

Are you sure you are using the correct IP address to pint and connect via a local browser?

Have you tried venus.local as opposed to an IP address?

How about signal strength? Interference?


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jimmym avatar image jimmym commented ·
If you want to get on a screen share with me I can show you that the Venus connects to VRM and I can connect to a remote console via VRM. I can see the WiFi IP address/Gateway, DNS. But the RPi does not answer pings nor can I connect to the device's remote console using the IP address in my browser(http://x.x.x.95) .

ping venus.local cannot resolve host.

WiFi signal shows 75%

ping x.x.x.95 returns Destination host unreachable

I KNOW it's the right IP, the browser shortcut/IP has worked before.

I stated above that the ethernet IP was x.95, but that's incorrect. it's x.93. Again. I can see the RPi WiFi IP address in the VRM remote console.

I tried setting the IP address manually to x.x.x.95 and it still doesn't respond locally.

I manually set the IP to x.x.x.211 and it started to respond to pings and I can connect to it locally.

I manually set it back to x.x.x.95 and can connect again locally.

Reboot... Now responds locally using the x.x.x.95 IP

I reset the IP to x.x.x.211 and it no longer responds. Shows up in VRM.

Set the WiFi back to Automatic IP config and lost connectivity entirely.

Power cycle. Connected to VRM as x.x.x.95 and I can connect to the console locally.

Reboot. Shows up in VRM and can connect locally.

Reboot, but do power cycle when red light blinks. Connect sto VRM and responds locally.

I'm going to shut it down and leave it. I'll try again later.






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jimmym avatar image jimmym commented ·
Started it up again today, no access to the console via WiFi. Was working yesterday when I shut it off.
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jimmym avatar image
jimmym answered ·

This is still a problem.

Now on version 3.12 I have a Pi 3 and a Pi4. Both connected to the same WiFi router.

BOTH are available on VRM but neither can be pinged on the network. Either Timeout or Destination Host Unreachable.

Neither can be reached via remote console when WiFi is connected and ethernet is not.

Once in a while, it will be pingable and console reachable after a reboot.

Wired ethernet always works perfectly.

I can't be the only one with this issue.



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