Not connecting to nRFCloud

[Yano]

Hi, we have an nRF9160DK (0.8.3) and it does not connect to the nrfcloud.

We have updated to the latest firmware 1.0.0

We only have nb-iot here so we  didn't use the iBasis sim, instead using a vodafone V-Sim (which is active). 

Are we missing a step here?

Thanks

[Martin Lesund]

Hi Ian,

That's strange.

Could you confirm that you wait at least ~5mins after turning ON the modem and then send the AT+CFUN? command?

The first time connecting to an nb-IoT network can take some time.

[Yano]

Hi Martin,

just to be clear we are able to connect to the internet (we get all green LEDS and and IP address) also we have in log "Connected to LTE network".

Does that not show the fault is with connecting to server not the internet?

Ian

[Yano]

Hi Didrik,

I have no idea why it stopped working but we re-installed Segger and the project, this worked and it can connect / build+run etc again :)

We use Kiel here and are not familiar with Segger, it seems complex and buggy or maybe we just are not used to it.

We have never registered the device on the cloud so how would we have certificates?

Also how exactly do we get the certificates?

Using the URLs with our API Key in the Chrome window doesn't seem to work (we just get search results).

Here are the actual commands we are putting into URL text box: 

http api.nrfcloud.com/.../devices Authorization:"Bearer b8c3ad8b60e4abb110bb67421346f274586306e2"

POST api.nrfcloud.com/.../<device ID>/certificates Authorization:"Bearer b8c3ad8b60e4abb110bb67421346f274586306e2"

Are they formatted OK?

If we remove the http and POST we get this for both.

{
    "message": "Missing Authentication Token",
    "type":  "MISSING_AUTHENTICATION_TOKEN",
    "resourcePath":  "",
    "statusCode": "'404'"
}

Any ideas?

Ian

[Didrik Rokhaug]

Hi.

The "http" commands should be run in the command line after installing httpie. <device ID> should be replaced with the device ID you get from the first command.

However, if your device is not registered to your account in nRF Cloud you will not get any devices. I am working on what to do in that case and will come back to you as soon as I have an answer.

Best regards,

Didrik

[Yano]

Thanks Didrik,

Just to explain what we did, since we have rev 0.8.3 there doesn't seem to be a way to register.

First it asks you for the SIM details which I assume is only for iBasis and since we have a Vodafone SIM we clicked the "already have an active SIM link" (Vodafone SIM is active and working). Since we have an old DK we press that link too.

Also below is the CMD line output for the commands.

Ian

Ian

[Yano]

Hi Dirdik,

We're under pressure here, so to speed things up we purchased a new DK rev 0.8.5.

But....it will not update its firmware.

Any ideas please?

Ian

[MJD093]

Yano, quick question.

Now that you have Vodafone NB-IoT SIMs, did you ask Vodafone if you can use dynamic IP addresses on their network with those SIMs?

Our trial NB-IoT SIMs from Vodafone only support connection to whitelisted IP addresses (of which we are only allowed to supply two addresses) and therefore would not support AWSs dynamic range of IP addresses for the AWS IoT core. Which is what you need to connect to in order to get to nRF Cloud.

[Yano]

Thanks for that.

Wow I never though of that, so effectively Vodafone won't allow the traffic through!

I will contact them and ask but it seem very limited.

How did you get over this problem?

[MJD093]

I set up an EC2 instance on AWS and set it to a static IP address. From there, I can send data to the EC2 instance which has a UDP Server set-up on it and it can forward data to elsewhere.

[Yano]

Cool sounds like a good solution, but first I'll ask Vodafone if they can add an IP range to our test, do you know the AWS IP address range? It does say in the form "provided that the IP ranges belong to the customer" but I'll try first.

[MJD093]

You would have to look that up on the AWS website. I can imagine they wouldn't be too thrilled at whitelisting that volume of IP addresses but worth a try. Also looking at our contract, I see the line you indicated. I doubt they would let you do this as you don't own those IP ranges.

[Yano]

I agree they don't seem flexible. I'm not familiar with EC2 instance how did you set up the IP forwarding? Where in the project did you change to a static IP address and did you get Vodafone to update to that static? Sorry some many questions.