OP25 RTL-SDR went bad?

[krutzy]

I am getting this error and it crashing my whole raspberry pi.


FATAL: Wrong rtlsdr device index given.

Trying to fill up 1 missing channel(s) with null source(s).
This is being done to prevent the application from crashing
due to gnuradio bug #528.

I was working just fine then all of a sudden when I was way this error appeared. Only thing I can think of.

This has been working for almost a year. The RTL-SDR is probably going on 4 years old. Am I correct?

Kevin

 

[lwvmobile]

What's the output of

rtl_test -t

and subsequently,

rtl_test -d 0

increment 0 by whichever number of devices you have.


Any errors when you run those, or anything to indicate whether or not the device is in use by something else?

 

[a417]

That's the error I see when you start op25 w/o a dongle inserted.

is it physically showing up in the abstraction layer?

lsusb | grep RTL

 

[krutzy]

lwvmobile - I have played around. I have to boot without the RTL plugged in. As soon as I plug it in after stopping the op25 services, the pi locks up. So I think that answers the question unless the driver is some how corrupt, which seems less likely.
Thanks for your idea.
Kevin

 

[lwvmobile]

I really don't think its anything to do with the driver so to speak, probably just a completely dead dongle making the entire system lock up. I can't remember exactly, but I seem to remember one of my old dongles slowly dying and occasionally exhibiting the same behavior of making my computer hang when it finally bit the dust.

 

[boatbod]

lwvmobile - I have played around. I have to boot without the RTL plugged in. As soon as I plug it in after stopping the op25 services, the pi locks up. So I think that answers the question unless the driver is some how corrupt, which seems less likely.
Thanks for your idea.
Kevin

If the pi is locking up as soon as you plug the RTL in then it very much appears that the RTL device has died. Do you have access to a different machine you could try it in?

 

[a417]

If the pi is locking up as soon as you plug the RTL in then it very much appears that the RTL device has died. Do you have access to a different machine you could try it in?

considering how cheap they are, i would preferentially replace the dongle than wait for that thing to potentially kill another system.

 

[krutzy]

A quick check on a windows machine and seems ok but that was a quick. Test - thanks Boatbod!

 

[krutzy]

Well I guess this error pretty much answers what the problem is (highlighted):

pi@op25host:/usr/local/bin $ rtl_test -t
Found 1 device(s):
0: Realtek, RTL2838UHIDIR, SN: 00000001

Using device 0: Generic RTL2832U OEM
Found Rafael Micro R820T tuner
Supported gain values (29): 0.0 0.9 1.4 2.7 3.7 7.7 8.7 12.5 14.4 15.7 16.6 19.7 20.7 22.9 25.4 28.0 29.7 32.8 33.8 36.4 37.2 38.6 40.2 42.1 43.4 43.9 44.5 48.0 49.6
[R82XX] PLL not locked!
Sampling at 2048000 S/s.
No E4000 tuner found, aborting.
pi@op25host:/usr/local/bin

 

[lwvmobile]

Well I guess this error pretty much answers what the problem is (highlighted):

That's not an error, that just means you don't have an Elonics tuner, you have the Rafael Tuner instead.
If you had errors, you'd have tons of bytes lost and or USB write/read/demod errors going. Right now it looks like its showing up and no errors. Depending on which version of osmo you have on your system, you'll get different messages, my ARCH install doesn't have the messages about PLL not locking, or the E4000 tuner, but my LM install does.

Found 3 device(s):
  0:  Realtek, RTL2838UHIDIR, SN: 00000006
  1:  Realtek, RTL2838UHIDIR, SN: 00000005
  2:  Realtek, RTL2838UHIDIR, SN: 00000004

Using device 0: Generic RTL2832U OEM
Found Rafael Micro R820T tuner
Supported gain values (29): 0.0 0.9 1.4 2.7 3.7 7.7 8.7 12.5 14.4 15.7 16.6 19.7 20.7 22.9 25.4 28.0 29.7 32.8 33.8 36.4 37.2 38.6 40.2 42.1 43.4 43.9 44.5 48.0 49.6
[R82XX] PLL not locked!
Sampling at 2048000 S/s.
No E4000 tuner found, aborting.

All mine work perfectly fine.

 

[lwvmobile]

Try running

rtl_test -d 0

If it shows any errors, or continuous lost bytes then you might have an issue. Also, my last dongle that was acting up before dying worked for a while for a while, then had read/write/demod errors, then one day, just died entirely. Sometimes, I could set it to a CC frequency and let it run all day, no issues, but if you attempted to tune a different frequency with it, it would freak out and make everything plugged into USB go unresponsive and need a reboot.

 

[krutzy]

All I ran is rtl_test -t

 

[krutzy]

To elaborate. I had the RTL-SDR and the Pi plugged into a powered USB hub. In order to test the Pi I went and plugged into a normal adapter , with a HDMI monitor and keyboard. The Pi booted fine. When I plugged the RTL-SDR in to run the above test everything looked ok but then I ran the above test.
So then used the powered USB hub to try to boot the Pi. The monitor on flashed a color box on and off. Therefore I have concluded that something went wrong with USB hub and it took out the SDR with it.

 

[krutzy]

And bring full circle lwvmobile, then it hit me, based on what you said about the rtl_test, I went and plugged it in with the adapter and all is well.

Thank you very, very much!

 

[boatbod]

And bring full circle lwvmobile, then it hit me, based on what you said about the rtl_test, I went and plugged it in with the adapter and all is well.

Thank you very, very much!

I've had issues where the the USB connector became intermittent and dropped out if the dongle wobbled while running. Short adapter cables definitely help, but movement is the enemy!