Thread NCP over USB doesn't store network parameter

[Marco Sterbik]

Hello,

we're just planning to deplay our first border router for bigger in-house installations and wan't to use a USB-Dongle with the nRF52840 as NCP with the Openthread Borderrouter.

When setting the borderrouter up, everything works just fine and as expected, but after a reboot the thread-network defaults back to the settings from '/etc/border_router.conf'.

This only happens with USB-NCP, UART and SPI work just fine and store the values as expected.

Test-Setup:

• Raspberry Pi 3 B
• nRF52840-DK 1.0.0 (to re-evaluete all 3 interfaces with the same board/chip)
• Border-Router image: 3.1.0-1alpha
• NCP Software from SDK 3.0.0

Thanks for your help and best regards

Marco

[Marco Sterbik]

Ok, so this doesn't seem to be an issue with the USB-NCP - I just had the same problem with UART AND was able to perform a reboot with my USB-NCP.

After a reboot I immediatly logged in per ssh and executed wpanctl status which showed my formed network before the reboot.

But a few seconds later this changed back to "NordicOpenThread" with a short offline time in between.

Here is the log of wpantund in this case:

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ journalctl -u wpantund
-- Logs begin at Thu 2019-06-27 06:17:55 UTC, end at Thu 2019-06-27 06:18:51 UTC. --
Jun 27 06:17:57 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Starting LSB: tunnel device for ncp...
Jun 27 06:17:57 raspberrypi wpantund[365]: Exporting missing SPI interrupt pin for wpantund: /sys/class/gpio/gpio21.
Jun 27 06:17:57 raspberrypi wpantund[365]: Starting thread network interface: wpantund.
Jun 27 06:17:57 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: Starting wpantund 0.08.00d (Jun 11 2019 09:10:53) . . .
Jun 27 06:17:57 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: Configuration file "/etc/wpantund.conf" read.
Jun 27 06:17:58 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: Ready. Using DBUS bus ":1.3"
Jun 27 06:17:58 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: Running as root without dropping privileges!
Jun 27 06:17:58 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: State change: "uninitialized" -> "offline"
Jun 27 06:17:58 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: NCP is running "OPENTHREAD/20180926-00537-g5f95995c-dirty; NRF52840; Jun 27 
Jun 27 06:17:58 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: Driver is running "0.08.00d (; Jun 11 2019 09:10:53)"
Jun 27 06:17:58 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: Network is not joinable
Jun 27 06:17:58 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: State change: "offline" -> "offline:commissioned"
Jun 27 06:17:58 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: [-NCP-]: SLAAC enabled
Jun 27 06:17:58 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: Finished initializing NCP
Jun 27 06:17:58 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: AutoResume is enabled. Trying to resume.
Jun 27 06:17:58 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: NCP is commissioned. Resuming...
Jun 27 06:17:58 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: State change: "offline:commissioned" -> "associating"
Jun 27 06:17:58 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: State change: "associating" -> "associated"
Jun 27 06:17:58 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: Node type change: "unknown" -> "router"
Jun 27 06:18:02 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Started LSB: tunnel device for ncp.
Jun 27 06:18:04 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: Adding address "fde9:eb6:c5de:5::1/64" to NCP
Jun 27 06:18:04 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: Adding on-mesh prefix "fde9:eb6:c5de:5::/64" to NCP
Jun 27 06:18:12 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: State change: "associated" -> "offline"
Jun 27 06:18:12 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: Resetting interface(s). . .
Jun 27 06:18:13 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: Node type change: "router" -> "unknown"
Jun 27 06:18:13 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: [-NCP-]: NCP was reset (RESET_SOFTWARE, 114)
Jun 27 06:18:13 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: State change: "offline" -> "uninitialized"
Jun 27 06:18:13 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: State change: "uninitialized" -> "offline"
Jun 27 06:18:13 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: NCP is running "OPENTHREAD/20180926-00537-g5f95995c-dirty; NRF52840; Jun 27 
Jun 27 06:18:13 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: Driver is running "0.08.00d (; Jun 11 2019 09:10:53)"
Jun 27 06:18:14 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: Network is not joinable
Jun 27 06:18:14 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: [-NCP-]: SLAAC enabled
Jun 27 06:18:14 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: Resetting interface(s). . .
Jun 27 06:18:14 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: Finished initializing NCP
Jun 27 06:18:15 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: [-NCP-]: NCP was reset (RESET_SOFTWARE, 114)
Jun 27 06:18:15 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: State change: "offline" -> "uninitialized"
Jun 27 06:18:15 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: State change: "uninitialized" -> "offline"
Jun 27 06:18:15 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: NCP is running "OPENTHREAD/20180926-00537-g5f95995c-dirty; NRF52840; Jun 27 
Jun 27 06:18:15 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: Driver is running "0.08.00d (; Jun 11 2019 09:10:53)"
Jun 27 06:18:15 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: Network is not joinable
Jun 27 06:18:15 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: [-NCP-]: SLAAC enabled
Jun 27 06:18:15 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: Resetting interface(s). . .
Jun 27 06:18:15 raspberrypi wpantund[422]: Finished initializing NCP

Any suggestions on this?

[AndreasF]

Hi.

I'm not able to reproduce this issue, could you provide me with detailed steps in how to reproduce it?

Do you also happen to have traffic logs of the whole sequence?

Best regards,

Andreas

[Marco Sterbik]

Hi,

so basically I did the following:

1. Setup a new Borderrouter
2. Configure the Thread network through the Web-Interface
3. Check the Thread network with 'wpanctl status' and 'wpanctl getprop'
4. Restart the Rpi
5. After startup, immediatly re-connect per SSH
6. Query with 'wpanctl status' (directly after startup everything was fine, then it went over 'offline' to the default network configuration

Strange enough, after several reboots and retries I got my USB-NCP to keep the settings stored and now it keeps it all the time... maybe I did something else between 2 and 4 that did the trick...

Thanks for your help and have a nice weekend

Marco

[AndreasF]

Hi.

Great to hear that you got it working :-)

Good luck with the further work!

Best regards,

Andreas