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Geoffg

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Joined: 06/06/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 3194

Posted: 04:39am 12 Sep 2023

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I have uploaded a new version of the firmware (V1.3) for the Garden Watering Controller.

This upgrade should be used for new builds and applied as soon as possible to an existing installation . This is because it corrects two serious faults:
- The firmware was not driving the correct I/O pins as listed in the schematic.
- An error in calculation could cause the controller to water on the wrong day.

Also, a new SMTP relay service for sending emails (SMTP2GO) has been added. There has been reported difficulties in opening a free account with SendGrid. Now SMTP2GO can be used and their account creation process is much easier to navigate. Finally a number of minor changes has improved the usability and appearance of the web pages generated by the firmware.

If you are upgrading an existing installation you can just overwrite the four files in the WebMite's internal filesystem. Then enter: RUN "RETIC.BAS". The BASIC program will automatically upgrade the "settings.dat" file.

Version 1.3 is available for download from: https://geoffg.net/retic.html#Downloads

Geoff

Geoff Graham - http://geoffg.net

Andrew_G
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Joined: 18/10/2016
Location: Australia
Posts: 847

Posted: 07:52am 12 Sep 2023

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Great Geoff,
I appears to be faster loading pages etc?

Andrew

Geoffg

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Posted: 08:06am 12 Sep 2023

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Might be your imagination?

Geoff Graham - http://geoffg.net

Andrew_G
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Joined: 18/10/2016
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Posts: 847

Posted: 12:11am 26 Sep 2023

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Hi Geoff,
Sorry to be a pain but . . .

Using my PC (connected via USB or not) I have full control of the system.
It works well.
Trying two iPhones and an iPad (separately, and with no PC WiFi connection) I can see the General and Index screens and move between them.
If a schedule is running it is shown correctly (greyed out) on the Index screen.

But using my iPhone etc:
- if I try to Run a previously configured schedule I get a "Sending error 404 page not found" error
- if I try to cancel a running program - same error.

Is it just me?
Cheers,

Andrew

(I'm using v1.3 preconfigured and I've also tried individual files.)

Geoffg

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Joined: 06/06/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 3194

Posted: 03:30am 26 Sep 2023

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Yes, it seems that all browsers are not created equal. I was careful to select HTML/Java constructs that were supposed to be universal and I tested the code on Chrome and Microsoft Edge. But I have since heard of one other browser that does not work and now, from your report, it seems that Safari on an iPhone has a problem.

I'm not sure where to go from here. There are a lot of browsers out there to test and on top of that I don't have an Apple platform to test Safari on and Apple no longer supports Safari for Windows. I think that I will just have to sit down and review all the HTML/Java constructs and see what can be done but that does not sound very positive.

So, sorry, if you can get Chrome or Microsoft Edge that night be the best short term solution and in the meantime I will do some head scratching.

Geoff

Geoff Graham - http://geoffg.net

Andrew_G
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Joined: 18/10/2016
Location: Australia
Posts: 847

Posted: 04:05am 26 Sep 2023

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Hi Geoff,
Thanks for that. I'm partially happy that it is not 'me'.
I'm happy to just tinker from my PC. I'll keep an eye out for updates if you do manage to solve the iProblem.
My next 'enhancement' is to get it to send an email each time it boots.
By the way, I have made up two x8 controllers as I need nearly 8 circuits for each of the front and back gardens.
I've got HC-12 messages from both units so I can work around some of the issues.

Thanks again,

Andrew

carlschneider
Senior Member

Joined: 04/08/2023
Location: South Africa
Posts: 158

Posted: 04:07am 26 Sep 2023

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Hi Goeff

I couldn't get POST to work with Safari on MacBook or on iPad. Wireshark showed the correct Headers from Safari but the Web Read buff%() on the Webmite would only see the full Headers around 1 in 13 to 25 times, the balance of the time only the payload was present in the buff%(). Chrome on MacBook worked but Chrome on the iPad didn't.

I resorted to using GET for everything, which seems to work reliably across Safari and Chrome on MacBook and iPad platforms. The only issue being the lack of security with the payload in the URL and the maximum length of the URL possibly limiting the volume of data.

This thread also has some insights into different browsers and similar issues.
link
Edited 2023-09-26 14:08 by carlschneider

Cheers Carl
Retirement is tough on Hobbies without a day job

bigmik

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Joined: 20/06/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 2914

Posted: 11:10pm 30 Sep 2023

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Hi Geoff, All,

I have only started playing with a webmite (bare no added hardware), thank you Geoff and Peter, this email sending with a webmite is very exciting.

Firstly SMTP2GO refused to let me set up an account on my Gmail address or my @bigpond.com (my actual ISP) acct.
However there is an alias of @bigpond.com, which is @telstra.com, Which was accepted by SMTP2GO.

Hopefully that helps others on the @bigpond.com domain.

Also I find that after setting up the email, sending emails to gmail accounts are not received (the retic program reports success) but emails to my bigpond.com account works well.

Do others have this problem sending to GMAIL.COM accounts?

Regards,

Mick

Mick's uMite Stuff can be found >>> HERE (Kindly hosted by Dontronics) <<<

Geoffg

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Joined: 06/06/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 3194

Posted: 12:01am 01 Oct 2023

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Out of interest, I reconfigured my Watering Controller to use SMTP2GO and send the emails to my Gmail address and it worked perfectly. So I'm not sure what is causing your problem.

However, it seems that these SMTP relays are very sensitive to people who might use them for spam. Maybe that is the problem somehow.

Geoff

Geoff Graham - http://geoffg.net

Andrew_G
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Joined: 18/10/2016
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Posts: 847

Posted: 04:15am 01 Oct 2023

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Geoff and Mick (the big one),

Quote However, it seems that these SMTP relays are very sensitive to people who might use them for spam. Maybe that is the problem somehow.

Fascinating how SMTP2GO can judge an email addressee so well.

Cheers,

Andrew (the cheeky one)

bigmik

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Joined: 20/06/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 2914

Posted: 04:28am 01 Oct 2023

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Thanks Andrew,

Now I am labelled a spammer.??

I think that somehow they SMTP2GO do an AI judgement on the GMAIL addresses.

I will set up a plain text gmail and see how it goes.

Mick

Mick's uMite Stuff can be found >>> HERE (Kindly hosted by Dontronics) <<<

bigmik

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Joined: 20/06/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 2914

Posted: 04:52am 01 Oct 2023

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Hi Geoff, All,

I have just created a new GMAIL acct and email, this time simply my name (as suggested by google) I can send to this email using my normal thunderbird email program but using the Silicon Chip Reticulation program I do not receive any test messages, I have attempted 3 or 4 times.

If I set my bigpond email address the reports come through within a few seconds.

I might email SMTP2GO and ask them if they block certain emails.

Regards,

Mick

Mick's uMite Stuff can be found >>> HERE (Kindly hosted by Dontronics) <<<

bigmik

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Joined: 20/06/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 2914

Posted: 05:00am 01 Oct 2023

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Geoff, All,

It looks like it IS SMTP2GO filtering emails.

See this `activity log' on SMTP2GO.com

As you can see, every GMAIL send attempt is either Rejected, Hard Bounce or Soft Bounce including to AndrewG's GMail accts.

I will do some reading on this.

It is strange that yours go through OK Geoff.

Regards,

Mick
Edited 2023-10-01 15:05 by bigmik

Mick's uMite Stuff can be found >>> HERE (Kindly hosted by Dontronics) <<<

Geoffg

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Joined: 06/06/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 3194

Posted: 07:40am 01 Oct 2023

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There is a huge amount of effort being put into reducing spam by Google and others. This includes AI scanning, blacklists, domain verification, etc. Any of this could be the culprit.

It looks to me that your emails have been rejected by Google so it is not the fault of SMTP2GO. In the past I have been tripped up by Email authentication protocols such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC and it sounds as if they are your problem. Check this paper by Google and this paper

Geoff
Edited 2023-10-01 17:54 by Geoffg

Geoff Graham - http://geoffg.net

bigmik

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Posts: 2914

Posted: 07:59am 01 Oct 2023

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Hi Geoff, all,

Yes, on reading SMTP2GO FAQ, it is most likely DMARC but I don’t think I would be able to change anything for that to work.

It isn’t a major drama, I will just create another email address on my Bigpond account.

I just wanted to know if everyone has this issue, what is strange is that your Gmail works.

Anyway, thanks Geoff and for your work on the Reticulation controller, now to work out how you do it so I can add that code to my code.

Regards,

Mick (the big one)

Mick's uMite Stuff can be found >>> HERE (Kindly hosted by Dontronics) <<<

Johnfd
Newbie

Joined: 04/08/2023
Location: Australia
Posts: 2

Posted: 12:41am 19 Jan 2024

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G'day all,
My watering controller mostly works well using 1.3 however on two occasions now it has stopped operating. Lock LED out.

After removing the lid I could see the flashing LED from the PICO-w. I turned power off for a minute then on, no luck, I tried pressing reboot, still no lock LED after a minute or two. I have the two LEDs mounted on the side of the box so I can monitor.

Using TeraTerm I did a <ctrl> C and I received the BASIC prompt. I typed RUN and everything came good.

Has anyone else noticed this behaviour? It's not super hard to restart using Terra Term but it just takes the shine off a little.
John

Geoffg

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Joined: 06/06/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 3194

Posted: 01:36am 19 Jan 2024

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There seems to be a circumstance where the TCP/IP protocol stack gets itself into a bad state and causes a CPU exception, which crashes the processor and causes a reboot. Unfortunately, when this happens, the firmware then cancels the OPTION AUTORUN which means that the WebMite will just sit at the command prompt waiting for something to be entered at the console. In a normal computer this would not be too bad but in an embedded controller, with nothing connected to the console, it essentially bricks the device.

I raised this with Peter and his response was to add the option NORESET to the OPTION AUTORUN command. So, you need to edit line 46 in retic.bas to read: OPTION AUTORUN ON, NORESET

Peter has sent the release files for V5.08.00 to me which I will be posting here soon. So I recommend installing that, then reinstalling the modified retic.bas and web pages. Don't forget to save A:/settings.dat first then restore that later so that you keep your settings.

In the future I plan to release a complete firmware package for the Watering Controller with this and some other minor changes.

Geoff

Geoff Graham - http://geoffg.net

phil99

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Joined: 11/02/2018
Location: Australia
Posts: 2135

Posted: 03:35am 19 Jan 2024

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Sub MM.STARTUP
RUN
End Sub

Seems more reliable than:

OPTION AUTORUN

Geoffg

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Joined: 06/06/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 3194

Posted: 03:56am 19 Jan 2024

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phil99 said Seems more reliable

How do you work that out?
Sub MM.STARTUP is only executed if the program is running (ie, OPTION AUTORUN worked).

Geoff

Geoff Graham - http://geoffg.net

Johnfd
Newbie

Joined: 04/08/2023
Location: Australia
Posts: 2

Posted: 04:23am 19 Jan 2024

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Thanks Geoff and Phil.
OK, I understand the issue and fits my observations.
I know what to do now. Will probably wait for the new V5.08.00 and do it all at once.
John

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