Tempest Hub Keeps going Offline and Rebooting 😕

Owners
#1

The hub is literally 6 feet away from the AP (Unifi nano-HD) and yet it just crashed more than three times in the last hour or so:

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As a comparison, a $10 Shelly 1 switch, connected to the same AP, but at more than twice the distance has been up for almost 8 days, which is when I updated the AP firmware:

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The only consolation is that at least with the latest firmware @eric uploaded, the hub is now auto-restarting after each and every crash, but needless to say, after three months and one replacement, this doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.

#2

When you say “crashing” are you meaning the HUB is rebooting by it self or its getting disconnected from the AP?

Can you post a screenshot of the “Statistics” tab? two more down from the Overview.

#3

Prior to firmware 157 the LED would go from GREEN to RED and the only way to get the hub back online was to power-cycle it.

Now, with firmware 157, the following is the LED sequence I observe when it “crashes”:

GREEN → RED (~10 sec) → OFF (~10 sec) → RED (~10 sec) → GREEN

Sometimes it happens once a week, sometimes several times a day, seems completely random.

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#4

have you changed the power supply of the hub already, maybe it is not working properly or there is a bad connection ??

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#5

WiFi levels looks fine. I would try the @Eric power supply suggestion and if not open a support ticket. That led pattern seems like the HUB is rebooting by it self but not sure if there is a watchdog that restart it if something is not ok.

#6

I didn’t think of that. Would any micro-USB phone charger work?

#7

I use iPhone adapters since the Beginning and they do a nice job. 1A I think

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#8

The power draw on the hub is extremely low. I’d be willing to bet that any phone charger with a Type A USB port is going to work as I haven’t seen any with less than 1A output.

Until @eric mentioned it, I’d forgotten that I had a power supply go bad and cause the hub to do something similar to yours, except that it would power up and just about the time the green light should come on it would go dark. Changing the power supply fixed the issue.

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#9

@eric, it keeps happening.

I replaced the power supply (and cable) with this one:

and, as you can probably see on your end too, the hub is still crashing/rebooting:

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This is the second hub exhibiting the same behaviour so at this point I’m not sure what else to think. Anything else I can do/try to help you guys fix this issue?
The hub frequently crashing/rebooting like this can’t be good.

#10

What are your signal levels like? RSSI to TEMPEST?

#11

See the unifi controller screenshot in the third post above: -42 dBm

#12

That’s your wifi RSSI which is quite strong.

RSSI between TEMPEST and HUB is displayed in the status menu of the app.

What firmware are you running? Mine is 147 and is rock solid. I hear there are 155 and 157 versions too.

#13

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do you have a ubiquiti unifi nano-HD AP?

#14

Do you have an old or different AP you could use to test with? I can’t see how that would make a difference but at least it could eliminate the AP as a possible issue.

BTW, the Station ID is part of the URL to your station and there is nothing sensitive about the other items you blanked out.

#15

Unfortunately I don’t. And to be honest I have other 40+ devices that are all working well, so I’m not sure I want to change or modify my current AP configuration.

And while on the subject: the design decision to make the hub wifi-only (especially at this price point) was IMHO poor and misguided. Call me old school but a simple true-and-tried 100Base-T ethernet port could have made the product so much better while probably adding just a few cents to the COG.

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#16

There was discussion about the desire for that a couple of years ago on the first generation SKY +AIR system but don’t remember if there was a big cost difference or some other issue. POE to the hub would also make it easier to place where it would have a better line of sight to a sensor for low signal situations.

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#17

I see it has been up for nearly 3 hours. How long does it typically take to reboot again? Maybe you could test by tethering to a cellular device.

#18

It seems completely random and that’s what’s driving me crazy. Sometimes it works for days, sometimes it reboots several times a day. Can’t really find a pattern…

#19

I don’t have a spare cellular phone, but I do have an old Wireless USB adapter. Can I connect it to Windows 10 and put in in ad-hoc mode?

#20

I have 3 AC HDs and one AC lite.
I also created a specific WLAN that only broadcasts on the AP closest to the hub and only uses the 2.4GHz radio. I took these precautions because my Tempest is on top of a tower well out of reach and to bring it down is a major PITA. It was running reliably a few days on a chimney mast beforehand.

I also connected my hub to an Anker 15Ah power bank and use the original hub power brick to keep it topped off. This way I can move the hub around if needed without interrupting its power supply. My Tempest unit has almost 15 days of uptime (counting since it was switched on from taking out of the box on December 5th) and the hub just over 8 days now (counting from when I connected it to the power bank). I guess I’m lucky.

Your RSSI values look excellent. Not sure why your hub is rebooting, that would be annoying AF! You said it was your second one that’s doing the same thing?

Maybe time to move its physical location. Your signals have lots of headroom so moving it further from your AP as well as Tempest should not be an issue.

And yes a POE powered HUB would be outstanding! Especially if the POE ethernet connection was an active, wired interface eliminating the need for wifi.

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