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Witty Pi 4 mini, missing scheduled startups

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(@lightcuber)
Posts: 2
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Topic starter
 

Hi, I'm working on my first raspberry pi project with wittypi and a zero 2w, and it seems to be randomly missing scheduled startups. Recently I got a Voltaic Systems v25 battery and solar panel ( https://voltaicsystems.com/v25/) to hook up with the wittypi. Before this, I was just using a generic power bank that seemed to work fine, the only limit being the battery running out.

Now with this new system I'm having a hard time troubleshooting. There's no indication of anything going wrong in the logs (schedule for 5mins up every 20 mins):

[2025-02-01 20:20:20] Current Vout=4.77V, Iout=0.45A
[2025-02-01 20:20:20] System starts up because scheduled startup is due.
[2025-02-01 20:20:25] Schedule next shutdown at: 2025-02-01 20:25:00  
[2025-02-01 20:20:26] Schedule next startup at: 2025-02-01 20:40:00   <-- next startup at 20:40
USB mounted successfully
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/media/data/images/2025-02-01’: File exists
[2025-02-01 20:22:03] Send out the SYS_UP signal via GPIO-17 pin.
[2025-02-01 20:22:03] Pending for incoming shutdown command...
[2025-02-01 20:24:58] Shutting down system because scheduled shutdown is due.
[2025-02-01 20:24:58] Halting all processes and then shutdown Raspberry Pi...  <-- doesn't startup until I press button much later
[xxxx-xx-xx xx:xx:xx] Witty Pi daemon (v4.21) is started.
[xxxx-xx-xx xx:xx:xx] System: Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm), Kernel: Linux 6.6.31+rpt-rpi-v8, Arc>
[xxxx-xx-xx xx:xx:xx] Running on Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W Rev 1.0
[xxxx-xx-xx xx:xx:xx] RTC offset register has value 0x77
[xxxx-xx-xx xx:xx:xx] Seems RTC has good time, write RTC time into system
[xxxx-xx-xx xx:xx:xx] Writing RTC time to system...
[2025-02-01 21:02:40] Done 🙂
[2025-02-01 21:02:40] Firmware ID: 0x36
[2025-02-01 21:02:40] Firmware Revison: 0x05
[2025-02-01 21:02:40] Current Vout=4.71V, Iout=0.32A
[2025-02-01 21:02:40] System starts up because the button is clicked.

 

Once I press the button it starts up and will resume a normal schedule for a while. I haven't found any evidence of the battery losing power/connection at the critical startup time. I simply watch the startup time come and go and the Pi just pretends like nothing's happening.

My main questions at this point are:

1. To install the wittypi I used a kit from Adafruit where you can push in the header pins without soldering. I assumed that this was an alternative to soldering because it worked for so long but now I'm questioning if that is causing some sort of poor connection. This was before I realized you can buy a zero 2w with header already soldered.

2. I'm wondering if there's a possible workaround, such as being able to try multiple startups in a row or something? it's very fragile because if a single startup is missed, then the whole system breaks will never start up again automatically.

Any thoughts on my issue here would be greatly appreciated.

 
Posted : 02/02/2025 5:46 am
(@lightcuber)
Posts: 2
New Member
Topic starter
 

After looking a bit more in past forum posts, while I haven't seen something exactly like my issue as I understand it, I noticed this post from last year regarding guaranteed wake mode might be useful to me ( https://www.uugear.com/forums/technial-support-discussion/high-reliability-mode/paged/2/). Is this feature released/documented in more recent firmware than I'm using? (looks like I have version 0x05) Even if it doesn't specifically solve my issue this would be a very useful feature to have for systems we plan on installing 1.5 hr drive away. Thanks.

 
Posted : 03/02/2025 3:10 am
(@admin)
Posts: 535
Member Admin
 

@lightcuber As mentioned in the topic you referred, the garenteed wake mode is included in the firmware version 0x07 (it is currently the latest version on GitHub). Although there is no document for this mode yet, the usage of this mode has been described in the topic you referred.

https://www.uugear.com/forums/technial-support-discussion/high-reliability-mode/paged/2/#post-952

https://www.uugear.com/forums/technial-support-discussion/high-reliability-mode/paged/2/#post-978

 

 
Posted : 03/02/2025 9:39 am
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