Native ESP8266 BrewPi Firmware - WiFi BrewPi, no Arduino needed!

[bluc]

I have been running fermentrack without issue for couple of years for use with ispindles within virtual box. Yesterday while trying to upgrade to current version as of 2021/09/05 something happened and the update failed. Fermentrack is no longer reachable. Is there any way to recover the system or do I need to reinstall fresh?

 

[DeanP]

Hello:

I know this thread is getting long in the tooth, but I need some guidance. Over the past week, I've read every post up through page 64. 24 more to go...... Today I finished my BrewPi Esp8266/Fermentrack build. As a test, I flashed and configured two nodemcu's. One serially tied to the Pi4 and the second as Wi-Fi. Everything seems great with both controllers. The fridge and beer sensors configured and work as expected and display properly on both the Fermentrack web page and the controller's LCD . But, regardless of what mode I try (and the temperatures I set), the system continues to Idle. It's probably something silly I've missed, but I can't figure it out. Both controllers act the same way. Always idling and I can't get the system to go into heating or cooling mode.


Any suggestions?

DUH.........Never mind. The system works much better if you configure the heating and cooling pins.

Sorry.

 

[DuncB]

@DeanP
Don't forget to stick the mains power in the wall. That caught me out for hours when the relays didn't seem to work.

 

[adrianoftyriel]

Well, this is interesting, apparently at 5:15PM local time every day my BrewPi loses all it's configuration, and I have to reset the pins and control modes. Anyone have any ideas?

EDIT: Here's a snippet of stderr:

 Oct 04 2021 23:15:35   Lost connection to controller on read. Attempting to reconnect.
Oct 04 2021 23:15:38   Unable to connect to BrewPi 172.16.88.31 on port 23. Exiting.
Oct 04 2021 23:15:40   Lost connection to controller on write. Attempting to reconnect.
Oct 04 2021 23:15:40   Serial Error: [Errno 9] Bad file descriptor)
Oct 04 2021 23:16:43   Error: controller is not responding to new data requests. Exiting.
Oct 04 2021 23:16:48   Refreshing dbConfig
Oct 04 2021 23:16:48   Connection type WiFi selected.  Trying TCP serial (WiFi)
Oct 04 2021 23:16:48   Connecting to BrewPi 172.16.88.31 (via 172.16.88.31) on port 23
Oct 04 2021 23:16:51   Successfully connected to controller.
Oct 04 2021 23:16:51   Notification: Script started for beer 'Gingerbread Porter Oct 2021'
Oct 04 2021 23:17:01   Checking software version on controller...
Oct 04 2021 23:17:01   Found BrewPi v0.2.4, running commit 00000000, running on an ESP8266 ESP8266 with a DIY shield on port 172.16.88.31:23

Oct 04 2021 23:17:01   BrewPi version received was 0.2.4 which this script supports in 'legacy' branch mode.
Oct 04 2021 23:17:01   Bound to TCP socket on port 2956, interface localhost
Oct 04 2021 23:17:02   Installed devices received: []

 

[LBussy]

Are you on WiFi or Serial?

 

[adrianoftyriel]

Are you on WiFi or Serial?

WiFi.

 

[LBussy]

Do you have a security product that might be scanning your network? Bitdefender or something like that? I’m having the same issue, I just haven’t had the time to trace it down. I believe something connects to the port and issues the command to erase the EEPROM

 

[adrianoftyriel]

Not BitDefender, but perhaps my UniFi UDM Pro router. I'll check its logs.

 

[adrianoftyriel]

Do you have a security product that might be scanning your network? Bitdefender or something like that? I’m having the same issue, I just haven’t had the time to trace it down. I believe something connects to the port and issues the command to erase the EEPROM

Looks like that's the culprit. My UDM Pro is scanning it at 5:16pm every day.

Now to see if I can exempt it from the scan!

 

[day_trippr]

Oooh! It is so gnarly that a "security product" can wipe the eeprom of a network device

 

[LBussy]

Looks like that's the culprit. My UDM Pro is scanning it at 5:16pm every day.

Great, then fix mine, please?

 

[adrianoftyriel]

Great, then fix mine, please?

Can you not exempt the IP from your BitDefender scan?

 

[LBussy]

Oh I’m sure I can. It’s not bothered me at the same time where I’ve had time to look at it.

 

[Thorrak]

Looks like that's the culprit. My UDM Pro is scanning it at 5:16pm every day.

View attachment 744667

Now to see if I can exempt it from the scan!

Thank you for confirming this! As Lee said, it's something that we thought was happening, but had trouble confirming.

Oooh! It is so gnarly that a "security product" can wipe the eeprom of a network device

Yeeahhhhh. This is not OK. I've got a fix in the works, but I also have not been spending nearly as much time on brewing-related products/projects as I should.

 

[DuncB]

I've just used my Brewpiless for first beer ferment and have reached the cold crash stage. What settings work best to get the temperature down quickest? Beer constant, Fridge constant or just turn it off and go flat out chill. I've found it's not that quick as the STC 1000 was when set to a low temp. Or is this me reading more into data I didn't have before?
Otherwise worked great.

 

[LBussy]

A PID will not cool as fast as a system controlled via hysteresis. You can set fridge constant which would be the closest to "leave it on," and since at cold crash the brew is not generating heat, it should be close enough.

 

[DuncB]

Thank you @LBussy I'll give that approach a try next time. I think I also need to position the fridge sensor a bit better as it's getting a blast of freezing air from the freezer ducting into the fridge which might also be confusing the algorithm.

 

[LBussy]

You can also just drop the probe in a cup of water to filter some of the spikiness.

 

[gromitdj]

I like to turn BrewPi control off, continue logging, and run the fridge normally to cold crash.

 

[DuncB]

Thanks @gromitdj that would be the best idea for me I reckon, especially as the ispindel is there as a second monitor and will alarm me when temperatures are hit.

 

[wd16261]

I have been running fermentrack without issue for couple of years for use with ispindles within virtual box. Yesterday while trying to upgrade to current version as of 2021/09/05 something happened and the update failed. Fermentrack is no longer reachable. Is there any way to recover the system or do I need to reinstall fresh?

I'm having the same issue I tried to upgrade my fermentrack from Github yesterday and now I'm having erro '502 Bad Gateway nginx/1.18.0' when I try to open the Fermentrack webpage.
Can someone tell we what I can try to do to fix is?
It is the Docker version and I don't have any experience with Docker.

 

[Thorrak]

I'm having the same issue I tried to upgrade my fermentrack from Github yesterday and now I'm having erro '502 Bad Gateway nginx/1.18.0' when I try to open the Fermentrack webpage.
Can someone tell we what I can try to do to fix is?
It is the Docker version and I don't have any experience with Docker.

The install script now also fixes issues like this. Just run
curl -L install.fermentrack.com | bash

From the same directory that contains your Fermentrack-tools directory. (Not from the Fermentrack-tools directory itself)

 

[wd16261]

The install script now also fixes issues like this. Just run
curl -L install.fermentrack.com | bash

From the same directory that contains your Fermentrack-tools directory. (Not from the Fermentrack-tools directory itself)

OK thanks @Thorrak this solved the problem but now I've got the following message:

Is it OK to update to the master code Branch? Can't remember that I've changed it to the dev branch?

 

[rkhanso]

I remember seeing that on my install. I clicked on the link to go back to the master branch and have not seen that message since.
You should be fine doing that also, I believe.

 

[wd16261]

I remember seeing that on my install. I clicked on the link to go back to the master branch and have not seen that message since.
You should be fine doing that also, I believe.

Thanks it worked!

 

[mcinnes01]

I also just bumped in to this issue when updating from the UI, however using: curl -L install.fermentrack.com | bash
still required me to use this before it would work: sudo apt-get update --allow-releaseinfo-change

I also got an error on the redis install, which I assume is because redis is already running?
*** ERROR: Port 6379 is required by Redis, but is currently in use. Installation cannot continue.

Seems the script doesn't stop the docker containers when it tries to run the update, so it was erroring. I manually stopped all containers and it allowed me to run the script: docker stop $(docker ps -a -q)

Also as the script progresses after stopping the docker containers to allow it to install, it then seems to get stuck on:
Waiting for PostgreSQL to become available...

It could just be me being impatient but it's perhaps been doing that for at least 10 minutes

Looking at docker it seems* to be running but I'm not sure what the readiness probe is testing for:

CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
3f4fcee59ed2 jdbeeler/fermentrack:latest "/entrypoint python …" 16 minutes ago Up 16 minutes fermentrack-tools_django_run_1
4f638f73035b fermentrack_postgres "docker-entrypoint.s…" 16 minutes ago Up 16 minutes fermentrack-tools_postgres_1
61f35551caac fermentrack_redis "docker-entrypoint.s…" 16 minutes ago Up 16 minutes fermentrack-tools_redis_1

Exec'ing in I can see postgrsql is running:
pi@brewerypi:~ $ docker exec fermentrack-tools_postgres_1 pg_isready
/var/run/postgresql:5432 - accepting connections

I updated the os with apt-get update, did a reboot and then re-ran the install script, it seems to get further now but I get this error:

::: Waiting for Fermentrack install to initialize and become responsive.
::: Fermentrack may take up to 3 minutes to first boot as the database is being initialized.
..........................................................................................missing.
*** ERROR: Unable to find an initialized, responsive instance of Fermentrack

Weirdly the application seems to be running despite the error :s

 

[Nateb]

I also made the mistake of updating last night.. I tried some of the updating commands in recent pages, but no luck. I have also reloaded the os and fermentrack, still no communication with the browser.

 

[mcinnes01]

yeah mine worked eventually using the script even though the script said it failed.

What I did was:

apt-get update --allow-releaseinfo-change
apt-get upgrade
sudo reboot
docker stop $(docker ps -a -q)
docker rm $(docker ps -a -q)
curl -L install.fermentrack.com | bash

It said it failed, I tried again and then it was actually working when I went to the ui.

 

[Nateb]

yeah mine worked eventually using the script even though the script said it failed.

What I did was:

apt-get update --allow-releaseinfo-change
apt-get upgrade
sudo reboot
docker stop $(docker ps -a -q)
docker rm $(docker ps -a -q)
curl -L install.fermentrack.com | bash

It said it failed, I tried again and then it was actually working when I went to the ui.

This worked after I reinstalled everything. Thanks

 

[Thorrak]

I just released my latest project - BrewFlasher Web Edition! Flash BrewPi-ESP8266 (amongst other projects!) to your controller, straight from your web browser.

This project took all the magic of BrewFlasher, and stuck it in a web app. Flash any ESP8266/ESP32 firmware supported by BrewFlasher, straight from your web browser. No downloads needed.

BrewFlasher Web Edition is available at: BrewFlasher Web Edition

The code is open source, and is available at GitHub.

Note - Due to the APIs required, BrewFlasher Web Edition only works in recent desktop versions of Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Opera. If you don't use one of those browsers, try BrewFlasher desktop edition instead.