No Driver Station communication when apparently connected - whether with wireless, ethernet, or USB

[NWPat]

Hi,

I am a mentor with Team 3826, and we are having a problem achieving driver station communications. In our situation we have a V1 RoboRIO and a Lenovo E530 laptop running Windows 10. 

We were able to use the RoboRIO imaging tool (2023) over USB, where everything appeared normal. The roboRIO showed up and the app indicated success, for both "Update Firmware" (roboRIO_6.0.0.cfg), and "Format Target" (FRC_roboRIO_2023_v3.1.zip) operations. We also updated the radio, and the resulting unique radio name showed up as expected in the laptop's list of available wireless networks. The laptop successfully "connects" but that's as far as it goes - the driver station communications indicator stays red. In addition to connecting via wireless, we've also tried wired, both ethernet and USB separately, and neither of those lead to a green indicator for driver station communications either, so this roboRIO currently has no team code deployed.

When "connected" to the radio via Wifi, the laptop's network properties shows "Unknown Network" with two IP addresses, 10,38.26.201, and 10.38.26.129, respectively (I assume for the radio and the roboRIO). Both IP addresses can be pinged successfully from a command box.

When the roboRIO is directly connected via USB cable, network properties shows an "Unknown Network" with an IP of 172.22.11.1. That IP can also be pinged successfully from a command box.

When the roboRIO is directly connected via ethernet cable, network properties shows "Unknown network" again, but no IP is shown. IP assignment is listed as "Automatic (DHCP)", so from the docs I read, shouldn't mDNS have provided one? In any event, pinging any of the prior three IP addresses (from the wireless and USB cases) did not succeed.

During communication attempts, only one cable was connected to the roboRIO at a time - that is, either ethernet from the radio, ethernet directly from the laptop, or USB direct to the laptop. When testing USB, we tried disabling all wireless (including Bluetooth) and Ethernet devices using DevMgr, but doing that made no difference. All activity was performed using an Admin account, with laptop virus protection and all firewalls turned off. We did not reboot between every test, by did reboot frequently, both roboRIO and laptop. Finally, DevMgr reports no errors for any installed drivers, the laptop passes all built in diagnostic/ health checks, and all Windows update and Lenovo system update offerings are current.

Things we have yet to try, hopefully later today: booting to safe mode, and swapping in a different roboRIO (the one we have available is V2, though, so need to read up on how to image that first).

Any help to get this resolved would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Pat Volk

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[NWPat]

Hi,

I am a mentor with Team 3826, and we are having a problem achieving driver station communications. In our situation we have a V1 RoboRIO and a Lenovo E530 laptop running Windows 10. 

We were able to use the RoboRIO imaging tool (2023) over USB, where everything appeared normal. The roboRIO showed up and the app indicated success, for both "Update Firmware" (roboRIO_6.0.0.cfg), and "Format Target" (FRC_roboRIO_2023_v3.1.zip) operations. We also updated the radio, and the resulting unique radio name showed up as expected in the laptop's list of available wireless networks. The laptop successfully "connects" but that's as far as it goes - the driver station communications indicator stays red. In addition to connecting via wireless, we've also tried wired, both ethernet and USB separately, and neither of those lead to a green indicator for driver station communications either, so this roboRIO currently has no team code deployed.

When "connected" to the radio via Wifi, the laptop's network properties shows "Unknown Network" with two IP addresses, 10,38.26.201, and 10.38.26.129, respectively (I assume for the radio and the roboRIO). Both IP addresses can be pinged successfully from a command box.

When the roboRIO is directly connected via USB cable, network properties shows an "Unknown Network" with an IP of 172.22.11.1. That IP can also be pinged successfully from a command box.

When the roboRIO is directly connected via ethernet cable, network properties shows "Unknown network" again, but no IP is shown. IP assignment is listed as "Automatic (DHCP)", so from the docs I read, shouldn't mDNS have provided one? In any event, pinging any of the prior three IP addresses (from the wireless and USB cases) did not succeed.

During communication attempts, only one cable was connected to the roboRIO at a time - that is, either ethernet from the radio, ethernet directly from the laptop, or USB direct to the laptop. When testing USB, we tried disabling all wireless (including Bluetooth) and Ethernet devices using DevMgr, but doing that made no difference. All activity was performed using an Admin account, with laptop virus protection and all firewalls turned off. We did not reboot between every test, by did reboot frequently, both roboRIO and laptop. Finally, DevMgr reports no errors for any installed drivers, the laptop passes all built in diagnostic/ health checks, and all Windows update and Lenovo system update offerings are current.

Things we have yet to try, hopefully later today: booting to safe mode, and swapping in a different roboRIO (the one we have available is V2, though, so need to read up on how to image that first).

Any help to get this resolved would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Pat Volk

[NWPat]

One other obvious thing to try today is using a different laptop... will update with results.

[mshafer]

Could you try deploying a default project to the roboRIO?

At one point, I was under the impression that the roboRIO needs to be running code that is reporting a heart-beat regularly to show up as "communicating" in the Driver Station.

[NWPat · Accepted solution]

Cause still not completely clear. I thought we uninstalled everything (except for Package and License managers), but maybe some 2022 version stuff was still on laptop and interfered?

Anyway, just in case this might help others, what solved the problem was to uninstall all NI game support tools and then reinstall, after which the driver station now connects as expected using all three methods. Finally!

[NWPat]

You might be right, but until at least one communications method worked (and none were) no code could be deployed. A fix was found, see my other reply.