My Open Sprinkler has been having trouble connecting lately

[KSprinkler75]

I’ve been losing my network as well. I’m now running Firmware 2.1.9 (7) on Hardware Version 2.3 – AC. I upgraded the Firmware recently hoping that would help but the problem persists. Originally, I was plugged into a TP-Link Wireless Mini Router. It would go offline often so I thought it was because the WiFi signal was weak in the garage but the router never lost connectivity so it wasn’t that. I then ran a cat5e cable to the garage, added an access point and plugged OS in to the access point. Same issue. Offline every few days. I now have OS plugged directly into my switch but the problem persists.

When this happens, I still see activity on the OS NIC port. OS screen still shows as online with the correct IP address. It no longer responds to connections. Sometimes, I’ll start responding again on its own but usually, I just have to unplug the power and plug it back it in.

[mars]

Hello @Stefan, I have your OS2196_wifi_sleepmode.bin running since about a month. I could always connect via app or webbrowser. So seems this fixes the issue. Thanks a lot for this update!

[raaahbin]

I have also tried Stefan’s firmware. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to resolve the problem I’m having. I’ve now got a mesh system (before I had a single access point), and I think it’s a new variant of the problem (the unit drops off and back on randomly rather than just off and staying off like it did before) but it can’t complain about the strength of the signal now. Every other device in the house is rock-solid on the wifi, so it’s just an opensprinkler problem AFAICT. I still have a couple of things to try, but I’m not optimistic that this can ever be as reliable as something like this needs to be.

[robfish]

I have only had my OpenSprinkler working for a week and it has “disconnected” 3 times (twice while using the wired ethernet adaptor and today on wifi).

I was using a DHCP reservation on my EdgeRouter 4 so I have just set the address to Static in the OS to see what happens.

Firmware: 2.1.9 (7)
Hardware: 3.2 – AC

[robfish]

Today I could not “connect” with the app or via a browser even though I could ping the device.

I powered off then on to get “connected” again and then removed the address reservation in my router and will see how that goes.

Did previous posters resolve their problems?

[SpikeyGG]

Mine also drops off WiFi occasionally and I’ve found that if I power cycle it, it comes back online and works well. I’ve started a log to keep track of how often I need to reset it so I can speak more precisely about the frequency and symptoms but it feels like every couple of weeks I need to remove and restore power to the thing. There seems to be something in the programming that breaks over time.

I have an esp8266-based OpenSprinkler device running App Version: 2.2.4, Firmware: 2.1.9 (7) and Hardware Version: 3.0 – AC. It’s also hooked up to home assistant so I can monitor it easily. The last time I power cycled the unit to get it back online was 5/22/21. This morning I noticed from the home assistant logs that my OpenSprinkler device was dropping offline periodically, today, only dropping for a few seconds every hour or two in the last 24 hours. I kicked off the program without resetting OpenSprinkler from the OpenSprinkler webpage and noticed that the clock froze after counting for a few seconds. I refreshed the page and it was counting correctly and after a few seconds it stopped again.

I brought up the console and refreshed again. When the clocks stop I see this message appear in the console:
app.js:1 Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property ‘wl’ of undefined
at HTMLHtmlElement.n (app.js:1)
at HTMLHtmlElement.dispatch (app.js:1)
at HTMLHtmlElement.g.handle (app.js:1)
at Object.trigger (app.js:1)
at HTMLHtmlElement.<anonymous> (app.js:1)
at Function.each (app.js:1)
at x.fn.init.each (app.js:1)
at x.fn.init.trigger (app.js:1)
at i (app.js:1)
at Object.<anonymous> (app.js:1)

This was very repeatable! I did it five or six more times, even did a ctrl-F5 on Chrome to have it wipe all the cache away and that didn’t matter. This was a problem that the device was sourcing. I just went out and power cycled it and kicked off a sprinkler zone to see if I could get it to do that again and I couldn’t. It’s almost like the FW gets into a funk over time and needs to be power cycled to refresh some variables that get corrupted.

I suspect that this is an issue for a lot of people. I’ve googled for “OpenSprinkler wifi drop” and variations of that over the last year as I keep experiencing this problem and found a lot of threads on the subject but no solutions. One guy said that he put a WiFi-controlled relay in between OpenSprinkler and its power supply so he could reset it at will. I’ve been thinking about employing the same solution because if I’m away from my house and I can’t get to OpenSprinkler I have no recourse to get it back online.

@Ray, I don’t suppose you could add a feature into the firmware for a daily or weekly forced-restart option? I know that security cameras have this feature because they know that their firmware may become problematic and that’s an easy way to flush out any problems regularly. Obviously, it’s a bandaid and not a root-cause corrective action but from what I’ve experienced with the device having used it for just over a year, it works well for a few weeks and then the WiFi either disconnects or gets spotty and the device needs a restart.

Thanks,
-Greg
P.S. Also, I’m using a Unifi AP AC Pro and it’s located in my garage about 20 feet from the OpenSprinkler device with nothing but air in between them. I have four ESPHome smart home devices connected to the same access point which are all ESP8266-based, have run for over a year and they have no problems like this.

[Ray]

@SpikeyGG: I am actually considering adding a feature to the firmware, that makes use of a program, to reboot the controller at some designate times. Basically the idea is that if the program name starts with :> then what follows it is expected to be a command (e.g. reboot etc.). This way it can make use of the existing program scheduling structure to execute, say, a reboot command. The advantage is that this requires no UI changes (thus avoiding the annoying iOS app store approval process); the downside is that it does waste one program.

[SpikeyGG]

@Ray, I think that’s a solid plan. I wouldn’t have thought of using a program to handle the reboot (or other system-related things) but that would make it much simpler to integrate. Thanks for the quick response. By the way, the OS project is my favorite home-made device in my smart home arsenal. Thank you for building, maintaining, and making it available to the masses.

[Val]

For what it’s worth, I found the most stable configuration on the latest firmware by disabling DHCP (uncheck) and setting a static IP address on the opensprinkler unit and assigning (reserve) it on the router too. I now have two OpenSprinklers (one at home and one at the beach house) and they have been quite stable. On the unit at home, I run it via a tp link Wi-Fi extender next to the OpenSprinkler as I don’t believe it has enough wifi power to transmit to the wifi router some of the time (even though the wifi router shows good strength). Cheers. Val.

[cybergrimes]

I’m a few weeks into owning my unit and have had this happen about once per week. It doesn’t connect via app or web UI, requires reboot etc. I just went to run a manual program and noticed it in this state. I’m finding it ran programs this morning but did not run a program this evening. I’ve put an extra Zigbee plug at the power plug and will come up with some schedule to reboot overnight…

[SpikeyGG]

Alright, I started really keeping track since the last time I posted a few months back and it does seem to be on a regular weekly cadence.

– Gone 06/22/21 @ 2:43am – Reset 06/22/21 @ 8:00am
– Gone 06/29/21 @10:43am – Reset 06/29/21 @10:30pm
– Gone 07/09/21 @ 7:14am – Reset 07/09/21 @ 7:41am
– Gone 07/17/21 @ 5:33pm – Reset 07/18/21 @ 8:45am
– Gone 08/01/21 @ 7:06pm – Reset 08/02/21 @12:30am
– Gone 08/09/21 @ 2:15am – Reset 08/09/21 @ 7:08am

I’ve found that when it goes into this state, the sprinklers seem to still run so the unit isn’t completely offline but it is inaccessible via WiFi. I might try the static IP method that Val suggested to see if that breaks the cycle.

[SpikeyGG]

I updated to the latest version 2.1.9(9) which includes the optional reboot schedule and I set mine up for twice a week. So far, I’m over a week and a half and I haven’t had it disconnect on me (knock on wood)! I know it’s a bandaid for the underlying issue but at least for me, it’s working.

[pfurrie]

@SpikeyGG, just found this thread and your experience sounds a lot like mine. Our setup is OpenSprinklery v2.3, firmware 2.1.9(9).

I set up OpenSprinkler integration with Home Assistant (not easy). After doing so, I figured everything was good. Until we started noticing plants looking sickly, and then figured out they weren’t getting watered. Trying to logon to the OpenSprinkler app would fail. A recycling of the power on the OpenSprinkler controller would restore app connectivity and get the sprinklers to work again… for a few days. Lather, rinse, repeat. At the end of October, submitted a ticket with OpenSprinkler support, but have only received the automated “we have received your request” message, but that’s it. No follow-up. Since that time, I’ve disabled the OpenSprinkler integration, and right away the problem seems to have gone away… not locking up (or very rarely).

Now I’m getting back to working on Home Assistant, and trying to decide if I want to continue with OpenSprinkler or change to a different controller (would have to find one that can handle 12 zones). Our plants weren’t happy about the watering problems, and some will need to be replaced, so we want something we can rely on.

Pat Furrie

[robfish]

I found early on that the Home Assistant integration was unreliable so I uninstalled it.

I also had lots of disconnection problems with the ethernet wired adaptor so I went back to WiFi and with the latest firmware I have had no issues for a long time.

I might try reconnecting with the wired adaptor and see how it goes.

[robfish]

After only three days the wired adaptor went off line so now back o wifi.

I cannot find how to set up the “optional reboot schedule”
Where do I do that?

[raaahbin]

The reboot is set up as a watering program.

Go to the Opensprinkler web interface or app, Edit Programs, create a program named “:>reboot”, and schedule it to run whenever you want the OpenSprinkler to reboot itself. I have mine scheduled at 1:01 every morning.

[SpikeyGG]

@pfurrie, if you’re using Home Assistant check out the HACS Integration for opensprinkler. There’s also a HACS Frontend opensprinkler-card that makes the interface VERY nice! Those two things make hooking OpenSprinkler up to Home Assistant a BREEZE! I’ll attach a snapshot of my Home Assistant interface for OpenSpinkler so you can see how it looks.

Now that we have the reboot program, I ran OpenSprinkler during summer 2022 with absolutely no issue!

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[robfish]

I haven’t been able to get the reboot program working yet.
I have tried with the program name :>reboot >reboot and reboot
with a time a few minutes in the future (of the current time)
and tried clicking the Run:>reboot button too.

Edit: Actually I think it may be working after all.
It seems that the reboot is quite fast and I missed the skipped pings earlier.

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   Screenshot-from-2022-11-07-09-55-52.png
   

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