rooDial technical integration discussions

Hi Wim,
my situation is that I have a Pi4 here, that cannot be paired with bluetooth. I updated the boot eeprom but no change. The situation is unstable, so sometimes I see an error regarding bluetooth power, sometimes this works and it seems to pair but after pairing the connection is lost immediately.
I work on this issue and will report further advances here in this tread. Again thanks for your helpful input.

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Wim,
I like to get back to you regarding pairing with Pi4.
The issue are different revisions of the PI4s. I developed and tested all my things on Pi4 revision b03111. Now I got a Pi4 revision b03114 and pairing did work no more! I can’t tell about all the other revisons ( Raspberry Pi revision codes - Raspberry Pi Documentation). It seams they changed something regarding the timing between CPU and BT-controller.
In my lab I made it run for revision b03114 and will release it soon. In the new release there will be a readout of the revision number in http://rooExtend.local/service.html. Hope this will make things better in future.
I’l let you know…

Update: Today I put a fresh image (v1.30) in my RPI3B just to see what will happen. Connected it to LAN and started RPI3B, surprisingly RooDial pop-up in ROON. I enabled it and could easily get my 2nd Microsoft dial, that never connected before, connect via BT! Unfortunately, but ok the image was never suppose to work on RPI3B, rotating the dial or pushing the buttom ! of the dial is NOT reflected on the screen in ROON. My feeling is it has more todo with BT v4.* used in PI zero W & RPI3B versus BT v5.0BLE used in RPI4.

Please take out batteries, reinsert and report. In your screenshot I see “connected”. If you take out batteries you should see “Sleeping”. After reinsertion “connected”. My guess twisting and pressing will be reflected then. Please let me know.

My guess it It should work on 3B. I own one so I could not test…

Probably yes, but the behaviour regarding the version is also stable and can be reproduced…

Wim, I saw a messege “undervoltage detected”.
Your powersupply is too weak!!!

rooDial technical integration discusions - #107 by DrCWO Indeed it works on RPI3B removing battery , re-inserted dial is “connected” , removing battery “sleeping”. Roon reflect turning the wheel.

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rooDial technical integration discusions - #110 by DrCWO Due to added screen, but solved with 3A supply.

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This situatiion is still occuring, frequently, fortunately every time I turn my system on i check the roodial control for the problem. This really needs a solution or someone will blow up their speakers.

Paul,
I heared from this issue before but was never able to reproduce it. So you can imagine that I am very happy you can :+1:
Recently I found something in the code that may be responsible for this issue and solved it with the next release I will publish till end of this week.
Please update your Pi and report if the issue is fixed with my new release.
Thanks
DrCWO

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That’s great, thanks, I’ll report back.

@DrCWO
Some feedback on the new version RooDial V1.31 (RooExtend_v1.3.3.zip)

Good news: It’s has improved the BT pairing (chance of success)
Bad news: It’s not solved.

After the new RooDial V1.31 version came out I repeatedly did the following…

Steps:

  • In Windows Diskmanager removed all partitions, format SD-card Fat32
  • Burned image to SD-card (with Balena Etcher)
  • Start RPI4
  • Connected to RooExtend (hotspot)
  • Via http://10.0.0.5 connect to my country/ Wifi network
  • After RooDial showed up in ROON I enabled it
  • Try to pair via BT to Miscrosoft surface Dial
  • Noted nr. of time I was lucky to get Dial flagged as “Connected” in ROON

Results:

  • I repeated the above 15x!! on the same RPI4 and with the same Dial, roughly 40% of the times BT pairing was succesfully!
  • I did 5 trails on a RPI Zero W, instead of RPI4, with roughly 60% change of succes but still not 100%

Summary RPI4

  1. In roughly 40% of the trails, 6 out of 15 times, I was lucky to get the dial BT paired!
  2. If with a fresh SD-card image the FIRST time you don’t succeed to get it paired you never get it to work via “Reset to Factory defaults”
  3. In 20% of the try-outs the dial goes after a few seconds to “sleeping” (removing battery of Dial doesn’t resolve it).
  4. In 80% of the try-outs the dial stays “Unpaired” from which in 6 cases it “Connected”

Summary RPI zero W

  1. It’s NOT only a RPI4 issue I see the same, but less, happening with PI Zero W.(60% of times succesfull BT pairing)

Wim,
thank you for in depth testing.

Pi and bluetooth is a never ending story. There seems to be a bug in the kernel and a lot of people complain in the internet of not being able to connect their mice and their keyboard at all. Regarding this my non-kernel-fix is not so bad because people can make it run. :thinking:
Please call http://rooExtend.local/service.html and send mit the output of the “System Information” section for your Pi4. With V1.4 there was most trouble in the past…

I wonder about the fact that testing it here in my house and never got problems pairing the dial. But my house is far away from others beside the wood and except the Dial there are no other BT devices that may cause touble.

Best DrCWO

How can I sent PM to you @DrCWO with the requested log file ?

click on @DrCWO then click on “message” and paste your log in the message box…:+1:t3:

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Hi @DrCWO,

I’m looking to move my rooDial RPi to a different VLAN to the Roon Core. Inbound traffic to the Roon Core VLAN is blocked unless it’s a response.

Can you please advise what if any minimal rules / ports would be required?

Best regards,
Bruce

Bruce,
I am sorry but think here I can’t help here.

rooDial uses the underlying official Roon API ( RoonLabs/node-roon-api: Javascript Roon API (github.com)). So I have no idea what ports are used by it. I know they use Websockets and I expect they also use some UDP for discovery.

Maybee googling “Roon API Ports” may help. Otherwise please address aour question to the Roon support.

I keep getting the same error.
I go to rooextend.local and choose my wifi.
It reboots, but never connects to my wifi. It always hangs with the following error:

I’ve tried re-formatting the SD card, but always the same error.

Plese privide more details

  • which Pi did you use
  • what size of SD-Card.
  • At what point in time do you see that? What did you do before? Does it come right after booting the SD-card for the first time?

What I see there is a Kernel Panic because he cannot access the disk.