SDS100/SDS200: Debug File / Strange Issue

[Jake68111]

Can anybody tell me what a Debug file captures?

I'm having a strange issue that I hope to capture with a Debug file and I don't know if its possible to see what's happening with the scanner, with my issue, with a Debug File.

With the scanner plugged into the wall, charging while on, holding on a site, holding on a department and recording, the scanner (all by its lonesome) will emit a beep, go from a green "charged" light to a red light, un-hold the site, un-hold the department, stop recording and start scanning. This happens while using the Full Database (because I have no favorites lists). It has happened with beta FW's and its current FW 1.03.01. Its also important to note that the scanner doesn't "reboot" or power itself down and then back up again. It simply goes through the process explained above.

Any ideas why this may occur? Working on that debug file as we speak...…… I'm positive it will happen, just not sure how long it will take.

 

[troymail]

Can anybody tell me what a Debug file captures?

I'm having a strange issue that I hope to capture with a Debug file and I don't know if its possible to see what's happening with the scanner, with my issue, with a Debug File.

With the scanner plugged into the wall, charging while on, holding on a site, holding on a department and recording, the scanner (all by its lonesome) will emit a beep, go from a green "charged" light to a red light, un-hold the site, un-hold the department, stop recording and start scanning. This happens while using the Full Database (because I have no favorites lists). It has happened with beta FW's and its current FW 1.03.01. Its also important to note that the scanner doesn't "reboot" or power itself down and then back up again. It simply goes through the process explained above.

Any ideas why this may occur? Working on that debug file as we speak...…… I'm positive it will happen, just not sure how long it will take.

I know you said it is not rebooting but it sounds like exactly the kind of thing the radio does when crashing and rebooting...

Get the radio into a "expected state" - like, for example, disable all scanning, etc. or enable some specific fav list (maybe one with only a NOAA weather channel enabled) and/or turn the volume way up. Then, power the radio down and restart it. This stores a "known" status into the radio. In cases where my crash/reboots usually occur, the radio reboots to that last known status (what was saved at normal power down).

 

[Jake68111]

Yeah. I really don't know any honest reason the radio would experience this type of behavior.
Since I've had my radio, its gone with me on a few short trips but for 90% of the time I've had it, its been on, connected to the power cord in a temperate indoor environment. Besides being on pretty much since the day I received it, its physically been handled real gently.

4 or 5 hours now into "debugging mode" and it has not replicated the issue. I will continue to listen in debug mode until it exhibits this issue again or I deem that it won't replicate the issue while in debug mode. I just want to make sure that something will be "telling" should the issue occur within a debug file, should the issue occur.

 

[Jake68111]

Interesting observation here.....

After trying to capture what I've been experiencing for just a bit under 24 hours, I decided to disable debug mode. When I went to the MENU and looked, I could NOT turn it off as it no longer appeared in the menu. FWIW, I stopped recording after checking that and there were "0 files" it asked if I wanted to save.

I really don't know what this is all about and would lead me to believe that the radio wasn't actually recording anything, although it was showing that it was, which would almost lead me to believe that its that very function, RECORD, that may be causing my issue. One thing to note about this too would be that the REC icon on the screen (I have it set to the color red) would read REC with red text and when it records it inverts color with a red box and black text. At no time, while in debug mode with record enabled did the box ever invert but did display the REC icon.

At this point, I'm going to dump all the recordings and see if my radios "self undoing" issue improves or shows no change.

Perhaps UPMAN can weigh in on this with any idea he might have, moving forward to attempt to diagnose this issue.

EDIT: Thought I'd add, before removing the recordings, the scanner information screen says that I have used 81% of its memory leaving me with 1.36GB of unused space. There were 3 log files in the Debug folder, 1 rather large file at 221,646KB and 2 small ones, 20KB and 25KB, respectively. I'm pretty sure there is no need for those because the issue never occurred but for the purpose of this post and if needed after this posts acknowledgement, I did save them should they be requested.

 

[jonwienke]

Interesting observation here.....

After trying to capture what I've been experiencing for just a bit under 24 hours, I decided to disable debug mode. When I went to the MENU and looked, I could NOT turn it off as it no longer appeared in the menu. FWIW, I stopped recording after checking that and there were "0 files" it asked if I wanted to save.

That right there is proof the scanner rebooted. When you boot with the Avoid key held, the debug menu will remain accessible until the scanner reboots. If the menu disappeared, the only possible reason is a reboot. 0 audio files to save is additional confirmation.

Having a large number of audio recordings on the card can cause the scanner to reboot. Move recordings off the card daily.

 

[Jake68111]

That right there is proof the scanner rebooted. When you boot with the Avoid key held, the debug menu will remain accessible until the scanner reboots. If the menu disappeared, the only possible reason is a reboot. 0 audio files to save is additional confirmation.

Having a large number of audio recordings on the card can cause the scanner to reboot. Move recordings off the card daily.

What you say sounds plausible however, it DID NOT experience the beep, the un-holding of both site and department and it also, at no time, decided it wanted to scan on its own as originally experienced. What I was originally trying to replicate never happened, while in Debug mode, anyway.

 

[jonwienke]

Holds are retained through a reboot.

 

[jasonhouk]

Holds are retained through a reboot.

During a clean/user initiated reboot holds are saved but not during an unexpected reboot from an error.

My best guess is the radio is having issues like others with the recording function limits. A thread has been started in the beta group to ensure engineering sees that thread here on RR.

Houk

 

[Jake68111]

Excellent news, Jason and good to see it getting bumped further along.
I just hope that's the issue and initially, you're right, I think its pretty safe to assume that it is.

 

[jonwienke]

During a clean/user initiated reboot holds are saved but not during an unexpected reboot from an error.

If the hold was active the last time the scanner was rebooted normally, then the hold would be saved on the SD card, and would still be active after a crash/reboot.

 

[Jake68111]

I think we should define first, the difference from "Power Down", "reboot" and "crash".

For my issue, the scanner NEVER powered down or "rebooted". As I've outlined, the scanner emitted a single beep and in that moment everything (Site hold, Department hold and recording) all stopped and scanning immediately ensued. The green "charged" light goes from green to red for no longer than a few minutes before going back to green.The scanner DID NOT shut down momentarily, show my custom startup screen, then load the database as it would if I were to power it off then back on again. It simply started scanning the database at the moment of the beep (beep being the sound you would hear during a keypress without any key being pressed, of course). It is my opinion that the scanner "crashed" and recovered by going into a basic default state.