OpenSprinkler (not OSPI!) Firmware 2.0.8 Released

[TechFan]

So is this a glitch in 1.1.7 on ios as well? Btw, since firmware update to 2.0.8, my station names don’t restore. The first station restored as Garden instead of “Garden 1” and all they following names didn’t restore. Seems it isn’t handling space in the name anymore? Once I downgraded to 2.0.7 last night, I could restore, but back to 2.0.8 today and again can’t restore.

[Samer]

Unfortunately, yes. I have already pushed out 1.1.8 to address this. iOS should be approved soon.

Thanks for your patience!

Also for station names I will see why that’s happening today.

[Ramias]

I use the MCV Vera to integrate with Open Sprinkler. It looks for certain fields in the HTML. For example, with 2.0.7 it shows all of these variables. I just rt click and say “view source” on the first web page.

var snames=;var ver=207,devt=1409135560;

var nbrd=1,tz=32,sbits=[0,0];var ps=0,0],[0,0],[0,0],[0,0],[0,0],[0,0],[0,0],[0,0],[0,0;

var en=1,rd=0,rs=0,mm=0,rdst=0,mas=0,urs=1,wl=100,ipas=0,loc="ZIP";

var lrun=[6,1,600,1409033431]

Can somebody confirm these also exist with the 2.0.8 UI?

[Samer]

They do however moving forward you should try to use http://ipaddr/jc, /jo, /jn, and /jp. These are more resilient methods since the syntax is reliable versus the homepage being variable.

If these don’t work with MCV Vera let me know.

Thanks!

[Ray]

@vinny:

Does it matter that i turned on the NEW ui in 2.0.7??

As Samer said, the new UI supports all firmware versions from 2.0.3. If you’ve upgraded your UI to the new one but for any reason need to go back to the old UI, you can click on the Settings icon (top right corner of the new UI), then select ‘Downgrade UI’.

@Ramias: Firmware 2.0.8 still supports the old UI (even though it’s not set as default UI anymore). To do so, type in:
http://your_os_ip/su
then change the script url to http://rayshobby.net/scripts/java/svc2.0.8
This will downgrade the UI. Note that 2.0.8 is the last firmware that will still support the old UI. From the next firmware (2.1.0) the old UI will be discontinued.

[Samer]

@TechFan wrote:

So is this a glitch in 1.1.7 on ios as well? Btw, since firmware update to 2.0.8, my station names don’t restore. The first station restored as Garden instead of “Garden 1” and all they following names didn’t restore. Seems it isn’t handling space in the name anymore? Once I downgraded to 2.0.7 last night, I could restore, but back to 2.0.8 today and again can’t restore.

Okay I looked into this and you are absolutely correct. I am able to recreate the issue and furthermore this is not a UI issue but rather a firmware issue. I will discuss with Ray but this is likely related to the fix for complex passwords (including passwords with plus signs which happens to be the encoder for spaces in URLs).

Thanks for the report and sorry for the inconvenience.

[TechFan]

I thought with 2.0.8 and 1.1.8 we could save settings? It appears I can’t get my station names to save when trying to re set them up manually.

[Ramias]

I did the backup, emailed it to myself but I can’t get it to restore at all. I have restored and restarted it via the browser but it still shows no station names and the location of Boston etc.

[Samer]

@TechFan Are you referring to the station names not having spaces in them or are you saying they are not changing at all? From my testing station names do save however the spaces get truncated due to a firmware bug in 2.0.8.

@Ramias Sorry for the confusion however presently the email configuration is for your personal reference however currently you cannot import the email contents. This will be added soon however right now the backup currently gets saved to the browser’s storage and gets restored from there as well (the larger export button to the left of the small icon for email).

[Ramias]

@salbahra wrote:

@Ramias Sorry for the confusion however presently the email configuration is for your personal reference however currently you cannot import the email contents. This will be added soon however right now the backup currently gets saved to the browser’s storage and gets restored from there as well (the larger export button to the left of the small icon for email).

ok. So I power cycled my open sprinkler and from one machine it still showed Boston and no sprinkler names, but now from another it shows my correct city and the name for sprinkler 1 (but no others).

Is this normal?

[TechFan]

I had used the browser with GUI 1.1.8 to try to add the names back in. Garden 1, etc. none of these names saved.

[TechFan]

I was thinking that this bug only affected the config restore, but it is really any space settings. I found that the first station name that has a space prevents any other later station names to be saved.

Btw salbahra, edit programs doesn’t display disabled programs in red until one of the programs gets saved.

[Ray]

So apparently firmware 2.0.8 has a bug which prevents station names and location to have the SPACE character in them. Sorry about not finding out the bug ahead of time. We will be fixing this right away. In the mean time the workaround is to use _ or . or – or , or anything that’s not a SPACE. Thanks!

[Samer]

@TechFan wrote:

I was thinking that this bug only affected the config restore, but it is really any space settings. I found that the first station name that has a space prevents any other later station names to be saved.

You are absolutely right. This is an awful bug and apologize for not weeding it out before release. Since this is a firmware bug, I have added a fix into the UI to replace spaces with underscores allowing the program to function. The next firmware release will fix this issue once and for all. The UI will be pushed out soon which should immediately fix everyone’s issue. The app will have an update to follow as well however that will need to be approved by the store, etc.
@TechFan wrote:

Btw salbahra, edit programs doesn’t display disabled programs in red until one of the programs gets saved.

Thank you for this. I was able to observe this bug and have fixed it. Should have it pushed out very soon.

Thank you for your patience as we address these issues!

[Samer]

@Ramias wrote:

@salbahra wrote:

@Ramias Sorry for the confusion however presently the email configuration is for your personal reference however currently you cannot import the email contents. This will be added soon however right now the backup currently gets saved to the browser’s storage and gets restored from there as well (the larger export button to the left of the small icon for email).

ok. So I power cycled my open sprinkler and from one machine it still showed Boston and no sprinkler names, but now from another it shows my correct city and the name for sprinkler 1 (but no others).

Is this normal?

This is the same issue that TechFan is having and we will have a fix for this very soon. Sorry for the trouble!

[TechFan]

Thanks for tracking down so quickly! So the GUI is auto updating or is hosted on the internet? I don’t like the idea that I can’t use my device if something outside my network is not accessible. In general, I don’t want my tools updating with my direct approval.

[Samer]

@TechFan wrote:

So the GUI is auto updating or is hosted on the internet? I don’t like the idea that I can’t use my device if something outside my network is not accessible.

Since conception, the OpenSprinkler has used Javascript files hosted on the Internet to render the UI. Version 2.x supported hosting those files on the SD card. This protects against the network going down since files are hosted locally. This also address your secondary point (discussed below) since the files can’t update unless you update them.

@TechFan wrote:

In general, I don’t want my tools updating with my direct approval.

I understand your point here but understand the UI is simply a front-end. The code executing your programs on the Arduino does not change unless you plug in via USB and update the firmware. Using the online method, you benefit for incremental updates and bug fixes.

[TechFan]

Thanks for the explanation. I’ll look into how I can put them on SD. My internet was really slow and up and down last night.

I hear you but I still want to be able to choose when changes are applied and have the opportunity to read about the fixes and enhancements. It would be great to be able to update SD from prompt in interface. I may be one of few, but I still want to control what happens on my devices locally.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Samer]

@TechFan wrote:

I’ll look into how I can put them on SD. My internet was really slow and up and down last night.

Not to ruin your plans but there are limitations. The new UI introduced in 2.0.8 cannot run off the SD card due to network issues. The controller has a hard time serving 10-12 simultaneously requested files (css, js, images, etc). As a result, you will have to use the older UI and 2.0.8 will be the last firmware capable of supporting it.

With this said, I understand the recent firmware introduced bugs but ideally this won’t happen again. This firmware had several moving parts but going forward things will be a lot smoother.

@TechFan wrote:

I may be one of few, but I still want to control what happens on my devices locally.

The thing is, you never lose control. The UI is like an app on the App Store. It is subject to change. Just like Facebook and every major website/app. The UI/UX adapts to usage patterns and improves over time. I don’t see how this improvement can be a bad thing. Now, if you want to argue from a poor connection perspective I understand and offer the “older” UI for now.

[Samer]

I have pushed out 1.1.8b for the UI which lets things work by changing spaces to underscores before being sent to the firmware. This should be a temporary fix until 2.0.9 is out.

Also, program headers update correctly now too. Dutch and Afrikaans are also included in this version now.

Thanks!

[TechFan]

@salbahra wrote:

Not to ruin your plans but there are limitations. The new UI introduced in 2.0.8 cannot run off the SD card due to network issues. The controller has a hard time serving 10-12 simultaneously requested files (css, js, images, etc). As a result, you will have to use the older UI and 2.0.8 will be the last firmware capable of supporting it.

So, 2.0.8 is the last version to allow storing the files on the SD??

@salbahra wrote:

With this said, I understand the recent firmware introduced bugs but ideally this won’t happen again. This firmware had several moving parts but going forward things will be a lot smoother.

The bugs I can work around, and help report, but when I buy a device to use for my own use at home, I want it to be able to operate by itself independently on my network, not be reliant on _anything_ outside my network to work. If my internet goes down (I live where only wireless internet service is available), I still need to be able to control my sprinkler system.

@salbahra wrote:

@TechFan wrote:

I may be one of few, but I still want to control what happens on my devices locally.

The thing is, you never lose control. The UI is like an app on the App Store. It is subject to change. Just like Facebook and every major website/app. The UI/UX adapts to usage patterns and improves over time. I don’t see how this improvement can be a bad thing. Now, if you want to argue from a poor connection perspective I understand and offer the “older” UI for now.

I hear you about the app comparison, but in my perspective, this is not the same thing. . .in this case, I am trying to control a device that is local on my own network. With apps, I never update them without reading the release notes and I definitely don’t have auto-update enabled. Frequent updates are nice, but I should get to choose when these updates take place for my local system and should be able to operate completely independent from an “internet service.” Also, I don’t want my devices reaching out to the internet without my direction to do so. Definitely less than ideal since I really feel OS should be able to operate on its own, but I guess an alternative would be to host the needed files on my own internal web server.

[Ray]

@Techfan:

Thanks for tracking down so quickly! So the GUI is auto updating or is hosted on the internet? I don’t like the idea that I can’t use my device if something outside my network is not accessible. In general, I don’t want my tools updating with my direct approval.

You misunderstood the way html works. When you access OpenSprinkler, it returns two pieces of information to your browser: the controller’s internal variable, like time, sprinkler station status; and a pointer to Javascripts which are responsible for rendering the webpage. OpenSprinkler itself is never reaching out to the Internet, it’s the browser, upon receiving the pointers from the controller, goes to remote server to retrieve the Javascripts. It’s a pretty standard approach. Again, OpenSprinkler does not rely on the Internet to run; however, to see the webpages on your browser, your browser needs to access the Internet.

If you use the OpenSprinkler mobile app on your phone or pad, the app embeds the Javascripts so in that case the app doesn’t need to access Internet either.

You can also serve the Javascript files directly on the SD card. But this is a lot slower due to the transfer speed from the SD card.

[TechFan]

Thanks for the kind explanation. As an college grad CIS major and IT admin of over 15 years, I do not believe I have a misunderstanding of HTML.

The way you are describing it, I would be unable to access and configure my OS if the pointer to the java scripts were not accessible. Yes, OS would still run, but couldn’t be configured/managed. Most websites I have coded and managed have had the JavaScript and CSS, etc, local on the same web server, not somewhere else on the web. Which, in this case, since everything would be on my local LAN, an internet connection would be unneeded.

Glad to know the apps have the JavaScript built in and thus don’t need the internet connection.

Please continue to consider offering a web interface that can at least still function without outside connections. I like the new GUI much better than the old, but one of the reasons for choosing OS was because it could function completely independent of other outside network connections. Continuing to be able to host the needed files off the SD card would at least make a good backup method.

Also, consider, treating OS as a local device, allowing individuals to decide when/if they want to upgrade.

Thanks for providing this tech toy for controlling my sprinkler system. It surely makes it more fun! I am happy to help, I just need to find the time to study the code.

[Ray]

Please continue to consider offering a web interface that can at least still function without outside connections. I like the new GUI much better than the old, but one of the reasons for choosing OS was because it could function completely independent of other outside network connections. Continuing to be able to host the needed files off the SD card would at least make a good backup method.

That’s why the app is provided, which won’t require Internet access. Any reason not to use the app? The app has the same UI as the web UI, but provides more functionality like scanning OpenSprinkler device.

Also, since the beginning OpenSprinkler has always used the scheme of referring to Javascripts stored on remote server. Whether the old UI or the new UI, both use this same scheme.

Also, consider, treating OS as a local device, allowing individuals to decide when/if they want to upgrade.

The firmware is the part that you, as a user, can decide whether you want to upgrade or not.

Frankly I believe most users would prefer an automatic update as opposed to scrutinize every update. Most updates have to do with improving the user interface, fixing bugs. Websites update all the time without the users being aware of them, for applying critical security patches etc. That being said, it’s certainly possible to make UI upgrade also an option that the user can choose. But I honestly think it complicates the decision making, and most users probably don’t want to have this extra choice to make. If you look at commercial products, like Nest, many of them don’t give you any such option at all.

For a technical person like you, you can also find ways around it, such as by replicating the scripts on your local server or internal SD card, which are both supported.

[TechFan]

I do use the app on my phone and iPad. It seems strange to me that a device inside my networks should need something outside my network to function in the most direct method (browser straight to device). I was considering starting my wife on the web interface, but it sounds like the app might be a better approach at this point.

I agree that giving users the option to not upgrade would be more complicated, especially when files are accessed outside the OS. If they were kept local, it would be simpler to offer the choice.

The idea that accessing the internal web server of the OS is like accessing an outside website controlled by another entity that changes without your knowledge doesn’t seem like the right comparison. Like I said, I may be unique in my attitude that my internal network tools/toys shouldn’t need assistance from the outside.

Thanks again for the open dialog.

[Author]

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