GoBox/GoPiGo WiFi Setup Issues

Hey Gary,

I’m not sure, I’m a little baffled by what’s happening on the network. Just to reassure you: you’re doing everything right! I don’t have a mac airport I can test on, but this must be really frustrating. Thank you for hanging in there.

The Pi is obviously working. If you can connect over ethernet or wifi and see the screen like your screenshot shows, it’s working.

I would like to suggest another option, if you’re up for it: we have a new operating system “Cinch” that tethers your robot to your computer over wifi. Rather than try to put the robot on the network, you will make a direct connection to it over Wifi. The only downside is that the Pi can’t get on the internet. If you want to give this a shot, you can download it here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/dexterindustriesraspbianflavor/files/Cinch/

Another final thing to try; you did the following up above:

  1. Connected Ethernet and pinged dex.local successfully using Terminal.
  2. Logged on to GPG desktop (dex.local) using Firefox successfully.
  3. Checked WiFi settings. It shows I’m connected but not with the usual 169. IP address. (See screenshot). I only see a 169. IP address when I look in my Mac Network Settings, and only when I am connected via Ethernet. Otherwise, on my wifi – all network devices have IP addresses that start with 10. A couple of things I noticed:
    – On my screenshot is nothing in the “Last Message” section of “Current Settings” unlike your example.
    – I hit the “Connect” button to reconnect and I noticed a lot of dialogue running through in the “Status section before it finally settled in with a connection.
  4. Used LXT to successfully ping dexterindustries.com and google.com

Go through these steps, but here, just disconnect the ethernet cable. Then try to ping.

The reason I’m asking you to do this at this stage: when you go on to reboot, your Pi may not be connecting to wifi again. Maybe it is, but I’m not sure. This way, if you ensure you have a connection, then un-clip the ethernet cable, we can be sure you have a connection over wifi. It might be that you’re both connecting to different networks.

One other shot in the dark: you might try to disconnect your range extender. We’ve read that these can mix things up on the wifi network. (Sorry if you said you already did this; this post is getting long!)

Best,

John

Hi John! Thanks so much for sticking with me on this…

I’m crossing my fingers (pending some testing) but I THINK WE GOT IT!

At first, I followed your suggestions without any luck. But the comment you made about being on two different networks turned on a light bulb for me. On my home network, I had the 2.4GHz and the 5GHz broken into separate individual networks. Even though I continually checked - both were on the 2.4GHz network but for some reason, breaking the network into two separate versions was causing the computer and the GPG to miss each other and not connect.

So, if this comes up again with another Apple user - the problem is splitting up an Airport Extreme Network. To fix, open Airport Utility, look under the “Wireless” header. Click on “Wireless options” and make sure the box next to the 5GHz network name is UNCHECKED. Leave the 2.4 GHZ and 5GHZ pulldown menus at “Automatic”.

Thanks to you and Cleo for helping me troubleshoot this - there is no way this could have been solved without your insight. I am happy to tell my 11-year old that this was a “computer” problem and not a “robots” problem and it has now been solved (I hope - again fingers crossed!)

Cheers,

Gary

Hey Gary, so glad you’re up and running now! This really opened our eyes about the 2.5/5 ghz network issue and we’re going to put it into our network troubleshooting questions. Your second paragraph is really, really helpful, so thank you!

Thanks for your patience working through this, we learned a lot along the way!!

Hi Gary,

All my troubles were fixed with software & firmware update! I just got my GoPiGo kit with a Raspberry pi included and although I could connect easily via ethernet and then later wi-fi (after setting that up) I would lose connectivity easily with no response from a ping. Over and over I could connect within a minute or two of a reboot but then a few minutes later it would see to disappear on the network even though the router reported it still there.

I am new to programming so quite stupid but I should have gotten smarter quicker! I just did the recommended Rasbian and firmware update that Dexter suggests and now it is rock solid on my home network and I can get into it from anywhere.

-Sean

Great info - thanks Sean!

I will definitely check that out…

Thanks!

Gary

I suggest you a way:
I had a same problem, so I installed the Dexter Industries software manually, and followed the steps in the booklet, and it worked!

Here is the way:
https://www.dexterindustries.com/howto/install-raspbian-for-robots-image-on-an-sd-card/