Losing All AOG when Cell Service drops

So we have been using Ag Open GPS with NTRIP over cellular hotspot.

The issue we are having is when cell coverage gets poor and the cell service drops all of AOG drops as well. The map screen goes black with the spinning AOG logo. Section control turns off sections. Rate controller quits applying. Everything stops.
This has happened with two different computers. Two different cell phones two different “Tractors”.

When we don’t use NTRIP we can go all day and have no issues with losing anything and AOG runs fine all day.

We have cell phone signal boosters on both of these tractors and they help with keeping signal but there are spots on the farm where the cell signal gets poor enough it drops. This should not kill everything it should just lose RTK temporarily.

What are you thoughts on why this is happening and what can be done to keep it from happening. We need to run RTK for planting if possible. We can’t run RTK it if it shuts off everything when RTK is dropped due to poor cell service.

We are running 5.7.2 with some minor modifications for field creation and application in/out of boundary.

I have seen similar thing happening. From what I seen, it is the ntrip client in agio that hangs when it can’t make connection to the caster. To get round this problem we don’t use the ntrip client in agio and instead use rtklib string server as the ntrip client.

I have the same problem. I don’t think 5.5 ever did it, just the newer release. When the reception gets bad, it starts the ntrip timer and gets to about 10 seconds then crashes

I had the same problem today when I used the hotspot on my iphone. I connected my sierrawireless modem to the system for ntrip and the problem went away.

I have noticed this when rtk2go is down. If you try to go into settings it crashes.

@SK21 @elmosindustries what do you mean by “crashes”? Does it show the crash window? If so you can copy/paste the content of the window, there is useful info in this.

Here is a video of it throwing a fit when RTK is lost.

I have seen it lock up when trying to change settings and rtk2go is down. Then it has to be killed with the task manager and restarted. Seems like there is an unhandled error. An error handler should allow it to fall back to no ntrip and continue.

Just like what was shown in the video. No error messages, but the error counter jumps up by a couple of hundred

I can confirm the same.
2 tractors both having the same board, same router, same tablet same sim, connected to the same base.

Difference was their location. 1 tractor was running happily but the other couldn’t get RTK Fix.
Based on the NTRIP code what I can see:
If our reception is bad that means the network connection of ours (2G) can’t keep up with the data flow we need. If we kill the message formats on the RTK base station we’re able to reduce the data the caster is sending to the tractor, then it works.

However when the age goes beyond 15-20 and there’s a hiccup I think the following happens:
10: AgIO doesn’t receive the data in time.
20: Builtin watchdog kicks in at 30 second and restart the ntrip client.
30: The old and new data both still try to arrive.
40: GOTO 10;

But for this to happen our 2G cell coverage + network timing have to be super bad.

Had similiar happen and was wondering what caused it. This makes sense as I was using a hotspot that was intermittent

I have fouund this to be an issue since very early days of AOG, Have mensioned it a few times in the group chat but think it was generally considered to be an isolated issue.

Either way, as said, the AOG NTRIP client hates it when data is lost / comes back, and will hang AOG every time, my fix is just to use strsvr as the ntrip client, and is 100% then / never had a problem since…

1 Like

A failed caster table request also causes a meltdown. Tablet power cycle sometimes the only option.
Mine seems fine with NTRIP data loss. Maybe this is system related? Or should I say, the AOG client not being universally accepted by windows setups? Not really very experienced with windows TBF. (…and don’t want to be!)

Maybe I am wrong here but should this not be handled. This is an issue that must be gracefully handled. The system can’t just stop working because of a bad “data” connection. I can understand throwing up a bunch of warnings about lost RTK and possibly turning off autosteer but it should not disrupt the entire system.

For me the biggest issue is that it kills all GPS and then turns off sections. I am in the middle of applying fertilizer or planting a crop and the planter just shuts off because of a poor caster connection is not acceptable.

I will be working on making multiple base stations now. I was hoping not to have to do this but alas it seems the only option to provide good RTK for my area as cell service is hit or miss especially in the hilly / wooded country we farm.

Edit: I don’t think that base stations are the fix for this problem. I think they are the fix for me loosing RTK. This problem needs to be resolved.

2 Likes

Can you elaborate on what you mean by using strsvr as the ntrip client? Does AOG then get corrections from this other program? Or are you just bypassing AOG and have ntrip off, going directly to the f9p some way? This is an important issue to me as well since we have several fields that do not have cell service everywhere.

1 Like

You can simply use strsvr as the ntrip client… Leave the AOG one turned off, and send it directly to the F9P over UDP. Works flawlessly then :slight_smile:

It’s part of RTKLIB.

You can simply use strsvr as the ntrip client… Leave the AOG one turned off, and send it directly to the F9P over UDP. Works flawlessly then

I am using a panda board. Does the ntrip data go to to the F9P directly or can I send it to the teensy? I don’t have UDP to the F9P directly.

Teensy relays it to the F9P

Just making sure there was not a hardware change I needed to make.

I will give this a test.