Laird Sentrius LoRa Gateway not connecting

Hi
I have purchased a Laird Sentrius RG191 LoRa Gateway from Core Electronics. Since receiving I have spent a total of 24 hours reading the Quick Start Manual and the User Manual, trying to connect it to my wi-fi with zero results. I have carried out the following:

  • Connected an ethernet cable on 2 different computers, opening a browser page with the address 192.168.1.1 and using the command prompt to ping 192.168.1.1
    • The result is either ‘Request Timed Out’ or ‘Destination Net Unreachable’
    • I have rest the ethernet adapter with no luck, as per this website:

https://whatsabyte.com/windows/fix-ethernet-doesnt-have-a-valid-ip-configuration-error-in-windows/

  • I have had the same issue with a Dragino LG01 gateway and the supplier gave me an alternative ip address and ipv4 configuration details to enable ethernet connection. This worked extremely well.

  • I have searched for manual ethernet configuration details for the Sentrius gateway with no success.

I have multiple clients watching the outcome of this gateway setup who will want their own gateways, but right now I can’t recommend this unit to anyone willing to spend nearly $600 to connect to the LoRa network.

All help is greatly appreciated.

Regards
Heinz

Hi Heinz,

Given you’ve run into issues with other hardware, this does sound like a unique scenario that is triggering for your network. It could be a number of things, though given direct IP works, you have plenty of options to work with.

It would be best that both your computer and Laird are connected by Ethernet via a router (not directly together).

You should then be able to access the dashboard via (note, https protocol and the “xx” between rg1 and MAC address - as shown in the setup guide):

https://rg1xx123456.local/dashboard

Where “123456” is the last 6 digits of the MAC address of the Ethernet interface as shown on the Laird engineering plate.

If you can’t (which is where you depart from how this naturally works for everyone else with functioning DNS / DHCP), assuming you are using Windows, open cmd.exe

In the terminal, run this command:

arp -a

You’ll get something like this:

Interface: 192.168.86.38 --- 0x3
Internet Address Physical Address Type
192.168.86.1 70-3a-cb-14-11-7a dynamic​
192.168.86.45 98-90-96-B9-9D-61 dynamic
192.168.86.255 ff-ff-ff-ff-ff-ff static
224.0.0.22 01-00-5e-00-00-16 static
224.0.0.251 01-00-5e-00-00-fb static

This is every device on the network. Somewhere in the list, will be your familiar Dragino (if it is connected). Likewise, so will the Laird gateway.

You can tell which one it is by looking at the engineering plate on the Laird, each network interface on the Laird (Ethernet/WiFi) has a unique MAC address (the Laird Ethernet MAC address will be listed above in the arp results).

If it is not listed in the arp results (but IS connected via Ethernet to the same router as your Ethernet connected PC) then there is something up with your network config, well outside the normal. Often caused by an old/annoying router that doesn’t bridge Wireless and Wired correctly (hence use Ethernet for both PC and Gateway during setup), though there could be other reasons. You’ll be able to retrieve the IP address from your Router’s LAN settings (there’s usually a couple of status pages that list both IP addresses and MAC addresses for all connected devices).

From your computer, you can test the network path to the Laird by running this in cmd.exe (where 12.34.56.78 is the Laird IP as noted in arp or router status pages):

ping 12.34.56.78

If no ping results, then the issue is with your network and should be resolve there first. While not likely, it could be a bad ethernet cable or a bad port, etc.

If ping does get replies, then you can access the dashboard via:

https://12.34.56.78/dashboard

Once in the dashboard, update the Laird firmware first (as all settings are dropped).

Upon Laird reboot, setup LoRaWAN & WiFi (Ethernet isn’t needed once WiFi backhaul is setup). With that said, a lot of people prefer Ethernet, the choice is yours.

Success. Many thanks Graham. And so now to TTN connection…

I have set up the gateway in TTN and have the correct EUI and Gateway Key. I have read somewhere that I should set the Preset to Things Network US and the gateway should work out that it is in Australia from the Packet Forwarder details. Is this correct?

I have entered the Forwarder details as follows:

Mode: TTN Forwarder
Gateway ID: C0EE40FFFF2960DC
Gateway Key: As copied from my TTN Gateway Console for this gateway.

Have I got one of these details incorrect? I think I’ve been looking at this for too long and am missing the obvious.

Thanks

Regards
Heinz

What was the issue?

No connection to TTN

I highly doubt you are using the right settings as that Gateway ID is not accessible via the TTN NOC API.

http://noc.thethingsnetwork.org:8085/api/v2/gateways/C0EE40FFFF2960DC

For LoRaWAN setup, use the Gateway ID / Key as setup on TTN.

Worth noting, if within your TTN console you have setup the gateway as a legacy device, then that is wrong.

Then that is what the problem is. I ticked the Legacy device setting in TTN as that is what is shown in the Quick Start Guide on page 13 point d. Now, can I change this on TTN? I’ve searched and can’t find a way of doing this.

Woah, hold everything, TTN has seen the gateway but is showing it was last seen 5 minutes ago. How frequently should the gateway be seen?

Interestingly the Gateway dashboard is showing that it is not connected.

If I had to hazard a guess… From within the Sentrius LoRa setup choose “The Things Network - US” and on the following page paste your gateway information as provided from TTN console.

I suspect you have chosen “The Things Network Legacy - US” which is wrong.

As noted in the manual,

If the gateway is set to use “The Things Network Legacy” preset, be sure to check I’m using the legacy packet forwarder. Otherwise, the gateway can use the “The Things Network” preset and the checkbox should be left unchecked.

For total clarity - do not choose Legacy on either the TTN console or physically on the Laird Gateway.

Ok. I can’t find what my original setting was on the TTN console. Can I delete the gateway on TTN and start again?

Just seen on TTN again, but only after re-applying the following settings:

Presets: The Things Netowork-US
Forwarder: TTN Forwarder
Gateway ID and Key as per TTN.

Left side panel of Gateway page shows:

Gateway Connected: False
Gateway ID: COEE40FFFF2960dc
Region Code: US
Mode: ttn

Dashboard: Lora = Disconnected
TTN Console does not refresh ‘Last Seen’

I think I’m very close.

Your thoughts?

I’m not sure what else to say, other than TTN console and Laird need to be configured the same.

If you’ve broken your setup on TTN and can’t figure out whats-what, then perhaps on the Laird try use “The Things Network Legacy - US". It’s only one of two scenarios that you could have got yourself into. It’s not the end of the world if you are using the Legacy option, your nodes will work as-normal.

If the Laird Ethernet or WiFI LEDs are on and flickering every few seconds, then you have internet. The rest is entirely automatic if the Laird Preset, Gateway ID & Key are setup properly.

Despite the region code shown in Laird, it will physically use the one defined on your TTN console. Choose AS923 or AU915 as appropriate for how your community is setup.

Still having issues? Post a screenshot of your TTN Console page, just as I did, along with your Laird LoRa Forwarder settings page.

It’s working. I set the preset to The Things Legacy US and haven’t touched anything else. TTN shows it refreshing every 30 seconds or so. Is that what should be happening?

Yep, welcome to LoRaWAN.

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Excellent. Many thanks Graham. Sorry to be a hassle. I now know what is required for future Gateways.

Thanks again

Regards
Heinz

Thanks @Andrew57334 Andrew, I fear that you are right about Legacy mode. I only ticked it as that is what was shown in the Quick Start Guide, and now it seems that there is no way to un-tick it. I started to delete the gateway to start again but I got a warning that if I delete a gateway I can’t reinstall it with the same eui. Did you find a way around this?

I am seeing the same radio frequencies that you posted and can’t change them to the AU915 frequencies.

@Graham are you able to help with any of this, and also help me understand why there is a reply limit on a forum that exists to answer questions from noobs who are likely to need to ask or respond more than 3 times?

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Hi Heinz,

I can answer your forum directed questions. The three post limit is in place to prevent bots from spamming the forum. The unfortunate side effect is what you have experienced. All you need to do to lift the new user restrictions is read a few different posts, and read the community guidelines:
https://forum.core-electronics.com.au/guidelines

Hi Heinz,

There are a plethora of settings for Discourse (our forum platform) and we sometimes need to adjust beyond the default configuration to suit our needs. In this case, I have updated the setting that affected you - though kept a limit of sorts to avoid spam bots from going out of control.

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