Shearwater Bluetooth still FUBAR

[mwerle]

Just updated my Perdix AI and Peregrine to FW81 - surprisingly that went off without a hitch.

However, trying to re-upload my custom bootup images after the upgrade, no joy.

Takes for-bleeping-ever (many retries timing it "just so") to even get the Shearwaters to connect to my PC (tried with 2 different PCs, both running Windows 10, Shearwater Cloud 2.6.2) and as soon as the image download starts, the Shearwater gets disconnected.

Seriously, how difficult can it be to get bluetooth working?!? No other DC (that I have tried) has had these issues.

Considering the price/pedigree, spending over 2 hours (and then giving up) on something which _should_ take 5 mintues is beyond ridiculous.

Conversely, my Perdix recently required repair and Shearwater support was _very_ quick to get that sorted, so definitely kudos on them for that side of things!

 

[davehicks]

I sometimes have problems connecting my Petrel2 and it can be very frustrating. (Teric is much more reliable connecting BTW) However I have found that it works much more reliably depending on where I try to connect. Basically, get about 10 feet away from any other electronics, cars, metal, etc. Go stand in the yard with your phone or PC and the Perdix. See if that helps. Good luck.

 

[mwerle]

Go stand in the yard with PC and the Perdix.

:-D :-D :-D And that's what we spent 1000USD on! (As an aside, I've had zero issues with "budget" dive computers...)

FWIW, I _finally_ managed to get the Perdix updating the logo using Yet Another PC and the old Shearwater Desktop software. Still working on the Peregrine.

 

[davehicks]

Try using your phone to sync, that also seems to work better most of the time.

 

[mwerle]

Try using your phone to sync, that also seems to work better most of the time.

That's all fine and dandy, but doesn't work to update the bootup image since the App doesn't have that feature.

But yes, for dive downloading, the mobile app seems to work more consistently than desktop.

 

[davehicks]

This instructional video on improving Bluetooth connectivity may also help.

How to make a tin foil hat - YouTube

 

[KenGordon]

I am a huge fan of Bluetooth, I have a professional interest and was a member of the Bluetooth SIG back when it was new 20 years ago. I am still astounded that I can join a conference call with people on three continents while driving my car.

However... Bluetooth has a big job, being compatible across very many devices of very many ages and over many generations is a properly hard problem. Your particular combination might never have been tested before.

For ages my (very mainstream) Lenovo laptop could not connect to my Perdix and then following a random Windows update it started to work. So while Shearwater is not perfect I think it is passable, especially considering the small scale. It has always worked with my iPad.

Having said that, can you be sure this is a Bluetooth problem? Can the PC download dives? If you can download dives and fresh firmware but not an image it sounds like it could be something else, maybe image format or an actual bug, and so worth talking to Shearwater support.

 

[mwerle]

Actual connecting is hit-and-miss which points to bluetooth issues. Once connected, dives (usually) download without problems. Firmware updates also seemed to go smoothly (may have required one or two attempts, but nothing "out of the ordinary" for this tech). Trying to set the startup-image always results in a disconnect shortly after trying to send the image; whether this is the Cloud software or the bluetooth stack I have no way of knowing..

Doesn't anybody else modify their startup image? Seems if this was broken for everybody there'd be more reports of it happning.

And yes, I know all about the fun of standards and how every manufacturer (both hardware and software) has its own interpretations of them which then causes all sorts of fun as the interoperability matrix expands.

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As an update, the PC on which I managed to set the Perdix startup image (using the old Shearwater Desktop software) seems to have another issue with the Shearwater Cloud software; when loading an image, the image preview remains grey and the filename remains blank (this part of it works fine on my other PCs).

Guessing it's some sort of software incompatibility (DotNet runtime?) but no way to troubleshoot it since there are no log files or debug output (that I could find). Reinstalled the software several times, applied all Windows updates; rebooted PC several times; still nada. Wish I had the time to add this as a feature to Subsurface instead...

 

[KenGordon]

I recall there are some quite detailed log files hidden away somewhere. Use filemon to figure out where.

 

[mwerle]

Holy Cow! Shearwater Cloud is a ... _Unity_ application?!? That is all sorts of bizarre. (For those who don't know, Unity is a 3d game middleware platform...not really an application middleware).

Well, well, well, seems I might be able to debug/modify this software

As for the log, found it, no clues in it which could help..

(For the records, it's in <User>\AppData\LocalLow\Shearwater Research - first time I've ever seen software put stuff into "LocalLow")