A feature that will reboot the device if there is no cellular connection or data traffic after a given period.
We have a fleet with almost 1500 Pepwave devices and the most common troubleshooting is a reboot. The automated once daily reboot scheduler is not adequate enough for the uptime our customers are requiring.
Would rebooting using an sms message work for you?
I don’t think so. When our units need a reboot it is usually because there is no Cellular connection for a remote reboot. I have tried the sms before, to no avail. We also only use one sim with one carrier., so we disable the smart check feature.
So it’s some kind of intelligent watch dog you are looking for, if there was no cell signal or data passed for say 10 mins then trigger a restart of the device
Yes, that would be great. We expect to have more than 2000 Peplink units in the field by the end of this year, and this would be a tremendous help. It will increase uptime and decrease man hours per unit.
Have you tried the Cellular Watchdog? It was originally designed to solve this kind of issue.
thats a good shout @MartinLangmaid
I do like the watchdog, but I feel it could do with a bit more config ability.
I will give this feature a try on some trouble units for testing, thank you.
However, being that this feature is in the support area I am hesitant to use this across the fleet. I have read that this is mainly for troubleshooting and temporary. I think a permanent solution via the Smart Check system or similar would be best.
Well. That is kind of the point. The idea that a router needs to be power cycled to keep it connected it completely foreign to me. Peplink engineers never want that to happen. They would want you to get a diagnostic report from a device with that issue before you power cycle it to work out what has happened.
Saying that I have seen it before, and every time this has happened to me in the past it was DC power source related. Normally vehicle installs. So I started to install buck/boost voltage regulators and all those issues went away.
The Peplink Smartcheck health check on a cellular connection marks the modem as unhealthy when it sees no responses to outbound traffic via cellular. With that HC set the router will change SIMS and then reset the module when it sees an issue.
So the root cause of your issue could do with deeper investigation I would suggest.
All of our units are used in a control panel. They are powered after a DC converter power supply, so the power is as stable as we can make it. They are also located in areas with varying degrees of Cellular signal, which can also cause a no communication state if the signal is bad for long enough. I have been working with our distributor and Peplink on this issue with no resolution. I was told this platform could get the issue to more eyes.
Inside a metal control panel?
Do you by any chance only have external antennas connected to some of the outputs perhaps just the cellular main? Maybe the Aux is using a stick antenna internally?
I don’t understand why you’re not getting a resolution from Peplink engineering - they are normally relentless when it comes to fault finding so long as you can get them the right amount of diag / logging data.
Please share the Peplink ticket number here and we’ll request their input on this.