PLS8-E with GPS disappears from the system | Telit Cinterion IoT Developer Community
November 16, 2017 - 10:41am, 2616 views
Hello,
We have a problem with gemalto pls8-e with gps.
When we activate the 4g connection and GPS, the modem disappears from the system (OS: centos). We use the usb line of the PCI module. It is necessary to turn off the PC's power supply so that it can be seen again on the system once it is restarted. The standby configuration is disabled. The module uses the pre-configured profile 2 of the gemalto modem. If the gps is not activated, no problem. The power supply of the module seems sufficient. Do you have any leads on this standby?
Thanks a lot,
Regards,
Hello,
So rebooting the module doesn't help. For the first glance it looks like this problem is more related to the system than to the module.
Could you answer a few questions?
What do you mean by disappearing - how do you check it? For example what does lsusb show?
Can you paste some logs to show what commands are sent and when exactly it stops responding?
And how about if you reboot the system without rebooting the module after that situation? Is it visible then?
Regards,
Bartłomiej
Thank you for your feedback Bartłomiej
When the system reboot , the pci-e module is always powered (kind of USB hub powered). the pls8 is not cut like on a motherboard.
If I make an lsusb when the system has lost its connectivity (no more interface on the system), the module is no longer in the list (I have its id when it is recognized by the system at startup when it connects to the 4g).
For the logs, I don't have anything very conclusive for the moment, we only have errors because of the disappearance of the network interface (I'm re-testing to try to locate the moment where we lose the pls8 and see if other logs are visible). We have noticed that we often lose it after a reboot of the system.
Example: the pls8 is powered and works (4g ok), we reboot the system, the pls8 remains energized, when the system is UP, no more modem (lsusb shows no more pls8).
The problem also appears after several hours of operation, without any action on our part. We log the disconnection and the 4g module remains connected until it disappears (there is traffic on the 4g). It really reacts like a complete standby. Is that possible?
If I restart the system without shutting down the power (your last question), the pls8 module is still not recognized. It is this element that prompts me to say that the problem would rather come from pls8 (and if the gps is not activated, we have no disconnection). The problem only occurs when the gps is connected (at boot, we send the AT^SGPSC="Engine","1" command because no automatic activation seems to be possible).
We will check the power consumption of the module but in theory it should only require 75mA.
Thank you for your help,
Hello,
Could you paste the ATI1 and AT^SCFG? commands outputs?
The module can consume much more than 75mA during data transmission or voice call.
If the module is completely not visible by the system maybe it just shuts down.
What hardware are you using - is it your design os some kind of developer board or something else? As I understand it's powered by USB.
Maybe you should also check some other USB interface or try to reproduce this with some other OS.
Regards,
Bartłomiej
Hello,
ATI1
Cinterion
PLS8-E
REVISION 02.011
A-REVISION 01.010.13
AT^SCFG?
^SCFG: "Audio/Loop","0"
^SCFG: "Audio/SvTone","0"
^SCFG: "Call/ECC","0"
^SCFG: "Call/Speech/Codec","0"
^SCFG: "GPRS/Auth","2"
^SCFG: "GPRS/AutoAttach","enabled"
^SCFG: "MEop****/DTM/****","1"
^SCFG: "MEop****/ExpectDTR","current","acm1","acm2","acm3","acm4"
^SCFG: "MEop****/ExpectDTR","powerup"
^SCFG: "MEop****/FastDormancy/****","Off"
^SCFG: "MEop****/FastDormancy/Timer","5"
^SCFG: "MEop****/NonBlock/Cops","0"
^SCFG: "MEop****/PowerMgmt/LCI","disabled"
^SCFG: "MEop****/PwrSave","disabled","0","50"
^SCFG: "MEShutdown/OnIgnition","off"
^SCFG: "MEShutdown/Timer","off"
^SCFG: "Misc/CId",""
^SCFG: "Radio/Band","2928787"
^SCFG: "Radio/CNS","0"
^SCFG: "Radio/Mtpl","0"
^SCFG: "Radio/OutputPowerReduction","4"
^SCFG: "SMS/AutoAck","0"
^SCFG: "URC/DstIfc","app"
^SCFG: "URC/Ringline","local"
^SCFG: "URC/Ringline/ActiveTime","2"
It is a custom board functioning as a USB hub (extension for an intel edison processor). The PCi module must be able to consume up to 1.5A. We have tested the current pick and we do not exceed 500mA in 3v3v (only the gemalto) when connecting to the 4g grid. It is very far from the consumption of 75mA.
The last test I did allowed me to see when when the 4G connection is active, the gps is activated and the PC is rebooted (intel edison), the pls8 module sometimes disappears (for the moment it is impossible to have the same behavior when I gps is deactivated).
We have a second 4G modem from another provider on the USB line (not connected to the 4g) and it remains available (lsusb) even when the gemalto disappears. So the USB line doesn't seem to be the problem.
During our tests, we also had an unstable behavior of the gemalto (disappearance of the modem and a few seconds after appearing on the system) in loop when it had established a 4G connection. the problem disappeared after about 20 minutes.
Is it possible to dump the logs of the gemalto modem to know what it executes as actions before the crash?
We test now on a standard computer with the same OS.
Hello,
As I understand the module is soldelered to some coustom board of your design. Is is a final and fully tested hardware? Do you have only one unit?
The firmware on the module is not the latest. But for now it looks more like the hardware issue.
Have you tried (is it possible) to connect the device to another computer when this happens to verify if the module is still alive? Or maybe use the module with some developer board for reference.
Maybe the test with PC will tell more.
Regards,
Bartłomiej
We did the tests on an arch linux system and the problem is the same (Usb/pci converter).
We did three different tests:
After these tests, we have an identical problem that occurs on two different operating systems and only when the reboot system and the gps is active. The usb hub is still active even when rebooting the machine (separate power supply) but the usb port closes when rebooting.
Only the USB pinout is connected to the pci module:
Is there a pinout recommended for the pls8?
Another lead?
Thank you very much,
Thomas
do the latest updates affect the stability of GPS?
Hello,
So you could also try to test without this converter to confirm this but you'd need some developer board or connect USB directly without PCI.
We have the reference design that you can find here: https://iot-developer.thalesgroup.com/documentation/example-schematic-ph... and we have Hardware Interface Description document that you should find here: https://iot-developer.thalesgroup.com/documentation/pls8-e-technical-doc... or here: https://iot-developer.thalesgroup.com/documentation/download-documentati...
As for the firmware I don't have such precise information about the changes but you could try the latest. Or the test with developer board will confirm that the problem is in the PCI converter or hardware design.
Regards,
Bartłomiej
Thank you for that information,
We put the PCi module directly on a USB converter and this is the same problem. I don't currently have the possibility to test on a PCI module integrated in a motherboard.We have redone all the tests with a card from another manufacturer and no problem. Unfortunately, I don't have time to debug this part for the moment. We will try to make the firmware update as the last test.
Thanks for the support.
Best regards,
Thomas
Hello,
I suppose that the problem with module visibility is that it's being switched off. And acccording to your report, as I understand it, this happens in two cases:
1. the device to which the module is connected is switched off when GPS is active and NMEA data is being sent to a physical interface
2. the data transmission is working together with GPS
I have tried to test these two scenarios with my PLS8-E REVISION 03.017 A-REVISION 01.000.05 (most extensively I was trying to close USB port or disconnected cable for some time, but have also tried to reboot the system and establish dial-up connection) but wasn't able to reproduce this problem.
Of course my test environment was a little different and also I don't know your detailed GPS configuration and what kind of data connection you are using. So this doesn't bring us much closer to the solution.
Regards,
Bartłomiej