Failing to pair to homekit after updating from 1.7.0 to 2.0.5

[shuffle2]

I updated my ratgdo which was working fine (...) from 1.7.0 to 2.0.5
I saw that ratgdo no longer was responsive to homekit. sometimes the ratgdo web interface would claim homekit was connected, however ios home app never showed it as being present on the network.

Thinking I just needed to re-pair, I removed the device from home app, and un-paired ratgdo on the web interface.
Now, when attempting to pair ratgdo, the ratgdo thinks it has paired successfully:

I (00:01:31.163) HomeKit: Got new client 1073704156: local 192.168.x.x:5556, remote 192.168.x.x:51760
I (00:01:31.832) ratgdo-main: Free heap dropped to 14824
I (00:01:32.831) ratgdo-main: Free heap dropped to 13480
I (00:01:33.831) ratgdo-main: Free heap dropped to 12136
I (00:01:35.859) HomeKit: [Client 1073704156] Pair Setup Step 2/3
I (00:01:35.876) HomeKit: Call s_mp_exptmod in integer.c, original winsize 6
I (00:01:55.805) HomeKit: Call s_mp_exptmod in integer.c, original winsize 5
I (00:02:05.614) HomeKit: [Client 1073704156] Pair Setup Step 3/3
I (00:02:05.638) HomeKit: empty block 0
I (00:02:05.675) HomeKit: Added pairing with xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I (00:02:06.049) HomeKit: Free saved_preinit_pairing_context
I (00:02:06.053) HomeKit: [Client 1073704156] Successfully paired
I (00:02:06.159) HomeKit: [Client 1073704156] Disconnected!
I (00:02:06.222) HomeKit: [Client 1073704156] Closing client connection

However homekit always gives some error, like unable to add accessory, make sure your iphone is connected to wi-fi, then try pairing again.

I saw #300 , but that seems like a different issue?

iphone is on 26.0.1, homepod is on 26.0.1

I tried also disconnecting the ratgdo and powering it close to the wifi AP, to increase signal strength. the strength when located by the GDO is a bit flakey.

I also saw https://thenewwazoo.github.io/bye-bye-ratgdo.html and the new ratgdo hardware; maybe it's just a sign to upgrade the board(s)....

[shuffle2]

Sending the 1.7.0 firmware over http (web interface or upload_firmware.sh) doesn't seem to work.
The "usb" flasher seems to only offer sending the latest version.
Before digging in - is there an easy existing way to downgrade?

edit: was able to downgrade by unplugging/replugging ratgdo to power, waiting a bit for network traffic to settle, then sending fw with little script:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
import requests
from pathlib import Path
import sys
from hashlib import md5

addr = sys.argv[1]
fw_path = Path(sys.argv[2])
fw = fw_path.read_bytes()
digest = md5(fw).hexdigest()

r = requests.post(f'http://{addr}/update',
                  params={'action': 'update', 'size': len(fw), 'md5': digest},
                  files={'content': fw_path.open('rb')},
                  timeout=300)
print(r)
# then reboot

it seems even the act of having web interface open was causing enough sideband http traffic that was causing the fwu to be unreliable. also, retrying to send fw after one timed out would never be successful ( i guess some state isn't reset upon new fwu request).

I was able to re-pair with homekit after downgrading.

[dkerr64]

Thanks for sharing your script. I do have an upload firmware script in the repo, which is documented in the readme... it uses curl and yours looks simpler.

I have not found a way to have the browser-based serial port firmware flash tool allow selection of version, it just lets us select one specific version (which we always update to be latest on each release). If necessary you can flash over serial port using esptool utility, also documented in readme.

Okay, but, why are you having issues? We've actually done quite a bit to try and improve stability so in theory 2.0.5 should work better. But 1) we've done nothing specifically to improve WiFi, and 2) we may be using more memory than before.

Both of these seem to be weak areas of the ESP8266. We have jumped through hoops to squeeze HomeKit into the available space, but I still see memory-related crashes from time-to-time. And I have also run into WiFi issues for no explainable reason (symptoms being e.g. very poor response to pings). I don't believe any are to do with whether we have web page open or not. And I have found that forcing the WiFi to a specific version, like 802.11g, helps.

[shuffle2]

yea i did try the existing scripts first. i think they failed because the crc check failed (for the bash one), and uploading took too long (for the existing python one). the crc check did succeed on the web interface, so i'm not sure what was wrong - didn't really look into it.

if i want to update i'll probably wind up just getting an esp32 device.

[dkerr64]

Can you please test with 2.0.9 and advise if you still have problems

[mdreizin]

@dkerr64 Sorry to bother, but it seems I’m experiencing a similar issue to #311 on the 2.53 device.

[dkerr64]

Please see my response to #311... need to confirm 1) web page is responsive / you have good WiFi connection. 2) you erased on the HomeKit side as well.

If you have same problem, we should move all discussion into the one issue.

[mdreizin]

@dkerr64 Thank you for the quick response! I’m not sure if both issues are related at this point. I’m going to leave some comments in my issue, but if you’d prefer to continue the discussion there, that would be great.

[dkerr64]

Either is fine by me. What I need is debug logs.