Vega 1.1.41

[Turbojack]

Originally Posted by Don Houtz

I learned that one of the changes in 1.1.41 was to reduce the amount of messages going from the coach out to the Firefly data server. If you have an always on Internet connection such as cellular data model, These messages will eat up your data plan. I kept noticing that in the morning, I would check my ATT account to see how much data I had used and sometimes it would be over 1GB and we were asleep! Martin said they had reduced the number of messages sent and the frequency of sending which cut the data usage by over 50%. Just something to watch out for if you have a cellular modem connection to the internet.

I do not know what data it is moving over the internet but there is no reason for that much data to be moved in one evening. Even 500mb is still too much data unless it is sending new updated files but that should only be every once and a while.

[brobox]

Originally Posted by Turbojack

I do not know what data it is moving over the internet but there is no reason for that much data to be moved in one evening. Even 500mb is still too much data unless it is sending new updated files but that should only be every once and a while.

In my call to Firefly I am going to ask them about data usage and will post the response. Our PDI tech Woo, said that the VT did not push updates, therefore it should not be using data, but others are reporting that it does.
Having no experience with the VT, I hope I can get an answer

[Nowabeachbum]

I just updated to 1.1.42 and it has cleared up my previous error codes. [emoji106]

[Gary.Jones]

Well, here are some facts that I would go to court to swear....

1.) This morning, after reading this thread, I looked and my VegaTouch showed that Version 1.1.42 was ready to download. Now, I have done nothing to get the Vegatouch to look for a new version.... from yesterday to today, my coach "knew" there was another version available. It appeared to have downloaded it already and it was just up to me to decide if I wanted the coach to install it or not. I did install it so I am betting the farm that Gary Swindle is correct that it is less buggy than the 1.1.39 or 1.1.40. I only agreed to the upgrade as I am sitting in NIRVC's "campground" waiting for todays round of repairs.

2.) I did nothing to connect the VegaTouch panel or the PEPWAVE router to either the NIRVC WIFI or any of my cell devices, however, it was obviously connected to either someone's WIFI connection or one of my cell devices as it "knew" there was an upgrade, and either had already downloaded it or was going to download it if I said, "Yes, go ahead and do it". Soooooo, my VegaTouch is in touch with FireFly's servers somehow.

3.) Again, when I had the coach parked beside my house prior to this trip, something used up 9.2 Gigs of my purchased broadband from Verizon, when no one was using the coach at all...... A day or two after we departed from home, I got a message from Verizon that I had used 9.2 gigs of my allocation (and I virtually use nothing but the house's broadband when we are home) so something ate up 9.2 gigs in 3 weeks. The only broadband-using items on my coach when Dee and I are not on it are a WIFI Security Camera and the VegaTouch system. The camera is supposed to chew through broadband when I access it remotely. I have now disconnected the camera and there has still been an unusual amount of broadband being consumed. Maybe there is a teenager that has cracked my coach WIFI at night and downloads porn on my system at 3 in the morning, but its either that or something else.

4.) My FireFly software engineer told me that their server and our devices are set up to communicate but the communication was not supposed to be anywhere near 9.2 gigs in 3 weeks.....

5.) Remember, my system crashed when the coach was parked in an RV park which had marginal (1 bar) Verizon service. This is my guess now..... I bet my money that my system was trying to either upload or download software just before my system crashed and got an incomplete or garbled upgrade or communication (either direction) with their server and crashed..... That will be my belief until someone proves me wrong...

Gary

[Don Houtz]

Originally Posted by Gary.Jones

Well, here are some facts that I would go to court to swear....

1.) This morning, after reading this thread, I looked and my VegaTouch showed that Version 1.1.42 was ready to download. Now, I have done nothing to get the Vegatouch to look for a new version.... from yesterday to today, my coach "knew" there was another version available. It appeared to have downloaded it already and it was just up to me to decide if I wanted the coach to install it or not. I did install it so I am betting the farm that Gary Swindle is correct that it is less buggy than the 1.1.39 or 1.1.40. I only agreed to the upgrade as I am sitting in NIRVC's "campground" waiting for todays round of repairs.

2.) I did nothing to connect the VegaTouch panel or the PEPWAVE router to either the NIRVC WIFI or any of my cell devices, however, it was obviously connected to either someone's WIFI connection or one of my cell devices as it "knew" there was an upgrade, and either had already downloaded it or was going to download it if I said, "Yes, go ahead and do it". Soooooo, my VegaTouch is in touch with FireFly's servers somehow.

3.) Again, when I had the coach parked beside my house prior to this trip, something used up 9.2 Gigs of my purchased broadband from Verizon, when no one was using the coach at all...... A day or two after we departed from home, I got a message from Verizon that I had used 9.2 gigs of my allocation (and I virtually use nothing but the house's broadband when we are home) so something ate up 9.2 gigs in 3 weeks. The only broadband-using items on my coach when Dee and I are not on it are a WIFI Security Camera and the VegaTouch system. The camera is supposed to chew through broadband when I access it remotely. I have now disconnected the camera and there has still been an unusual amount of broadband being consumed. Maybe there is a teenager that has cracked my coach WIFI at night and downloads porn on my system at 3 in the morning, but its either that or something else.

4.) My FireFly software engineer told me that their server and our devices are set up to communicate but the communication was not supposed to be anywhere near 9.2 gigs in 3 weeks.....

5.) Remember, my system crashed when the coach was parked in an RV park which had marginal (1 bar) Verizon service. This is my guess now..... I bet my money that my system was trying to either upload or download software just before my system crashed and got an incomplete or garbled upgrade or communication (either direction) with their server and crashed..... That will be my belief until someone proves me wrong...

Gary

Gary: Firefly told me yesterday that their data server would get lots of
CAN BUS messages from your coach if you had the coach connected to the internet. I saw these messages being transferred to the Firefly data server while we were debugging my VT issues.
Now with version 1.1.42, the number of these messages were significantly reduced. I believe that Firefly is using these CAN BUS messages to help pin point any issues with their system. After you installed 1.1.42, lets see how much data your coach uses.
By the way, if you are parked close to a WiFi hotspot that had previously been used to connect to the internet, Then your Pepwave router will automatically connect over WiFi to that hotspot and the VT will have automatic access to the internet. If you do not want this to happen, then you need to either turn off your Pepwave router or remove any previously saved WiFi hotspots from the Pepwave router.

[Gary.Jones]

Don

Well, I am delighted to get confirmation from another owner for something that I knew was happening but the "opinion" from firefly was that while their system was designed to do some talking back and forth to our coach's system, there was no way that it could be using up 9.2 gigs out of 10 gigs in 3 weeks. I reported elsewhere having a shouting match with some bozo at Firefly a couple of days ago because I had just found out that after I had gone to a Verizon Unlimited/Unlimited/Unlimited service plan because I was chewing through so much broadband. Now, I am going to do a separate thread on Verizons bullcrap advertising and mis-representing their service. My montly bill increased from ~ $175 to ~ $225 for this "all unlimited" plan. Guess what..... I have 2 iPhones and a stand-alone MIFI (Jetpack) hotspot. Now, here is the secret. Although I bought an 3xUnlimited plan (2 iPhones and 1 jetpack), the Unlimited Jetpack is actually limited to 15 Gb per month. The iPhones are supposedly truely unlimited broadband (4G LTE), the one device which I have only for internet access (broadband) is really not unlimited, but is limited to 15Gigs and at that point, the MIFI is de-rated to 700K. That is way, way, way slower than the speed on 4G LTE. Now, all of this is relevant in that my 15 gig allocation for the unlimited ??!!?? MIFI was practically used up fully on the MIFI in the coach. We were using the MIFI as the hotspot, but there is still no way that we used up 15 gigs in a couple of weeks total.... Something else was using up as much or more than we were using. So: Conclusions, 1.) Verizon's unlimited MIFI account is not unlimited. A Jetpack MIFI is unlimited to 15 gigs and then seriously de-rates the speed, and 2.) I now KNOW that the VegaTouch is really gobbling up my broadband allocations. If I was a gezzer on a pre-paid broadband account that added another gig of allocation at ~ $15 a gig, according to the use of ~ 500 Megs a day reported by Don Houtz, I would be getting charged an addition $15 every two days just to have my VegaTouch talk to their server. If Firefly is tapping our system for anywhere close to that amount of our data, that is truly outrageous.... and I am now really unhappy as the bozo at Frefly I got into an argument with who started the argument because he was insisting that their software did not use up any of my data allocation. Just from talking to him it was clear that he didnt know much about their software and then kept saying they would call me back with answers until enough time passed that none of their personnel were there to answer any questions. Incredible!! And when they did call me back, finally, it was just for a female employee (Sherri) tell me that everyone had gone home and they could not answer any questions until the next day.... which would have been fine if I was not needing to drive 450 miles the next day to get to my new location. They have never called me back. All in all, a VERY unimpressive company at this point.

Don.... how can I see the traffic volume?

Gary

[H60DRVR]

Well I made the mistake of updating at a state park last week with shaky internet. As a new RV'r I have learned a-lot in the past month. One is I will never update while on the road again unless it's absolutely critical. I lost several items due to the G8 not reloading. Fortunately there are A/C bypass switches. Unfortunately there are no water pump bypass switches. Firefly has been doing their best to help me. The remote access did not work. They sent me a programmer and that did not work. Tomorrow I will be receiving a G8 circuit board. Plan on doing the installation myself. Does not look to tough.

[Gary.Jones]

I think that I now understand why Firefly had no time to talk to me on Friday and kept putting me off all day until they closed...... they are probably overloaded talking to coach owners whose software has crashed and left them helpless.... Sad.... Someday companies will beta-test all of their products before they distribute them to consumers, but I am not holding my breath.

David.... I feel your pain, and if you read earlier posts by me on my software crashes, I literally felt your pain about a 10 days ago.

Gary

[Don Houtz]

Originally Posted by Gary.Jones

Don

Well, I am delighted to get confirmation from another owner for something that I knew was happening but the "opinion" from firefly was that while their system was designed to do some talking back and forth to our coach's system, there was no way that it could be using up 9.2 gigs out of 10 gigs in 3 weeks. I reported elsewhere having a shouting match with some bozo at Firefly a couple of days ago because I had just found out that after I had gone to a Verizon Unlimited/Unlimited/Unlimited service plan because I was chewing through so much broadband. Now, I am going to do a separate thread on Verizons bullcrap advertising and mis-representing their service. My montly bill increased from ~ $175 to ~ $225 for this "all unlimited" plan. Guess what..... I have 2 iPhones and a stand-alone MIFI (Jetpack) hotspot. Now, here is the secret. Although I bought an 3xUnlimited plan (2 iPhones and 1 jetpack), the Unlimited Jetpack is actually limited to 15 Gb per month. The iPhones are supposedly truely unlimited broadband (4G LTE), the one device which I have only for internet access (broadband) is really not unlimited, but is limited to 15Gigs and at that point, the MIFI is de-rated to 700K. That is way, way, way slower than the speed on 4G LTE. Now, all of this is relevant in that my 15 gig allocation for the unlimited ??!!?? MIFI was practically used up fully on the MIFI in the coach. We were using the MIFI as the hotspot, but there is still no way that we used up 15 gigs in a couple of weeks total.... Something else was using up as much or more than we were using. So: Conclusions, 1.) Verizon's unlimited MIFI account is not unlimited. A Jetpack MIFI is unlimited to 15 gigs and then seriously de-rates the speed, and 2.) I now KNOW that the VegaTouch is really gobbling up my broadband allocations. If I was a gezzer on a pre-paid broadband account that added another gig of allocation at ~ $15 a gig, according to the use of ~ 500 Megs a day reported by Don Houtz, I would be getting charged an addition $15 every two days just to have my VegaTouch talk to their server. If Firefly is tapping our system for anywhere close to that amount of our data, that is truly outrageous.... and I am now really unhappy as the bozo at Frefly I got into an argument with who started the argument because he was insisting that their software did not use up any of my data allocation. Just from talking to him it was clear that he didnt know much about their software and then kept saying they would call me back with answers until enough time passed that none of their personnel were there to answer any questions. Incredible!! And when they did call me back, finally, it was just for a female employee (Sherri) tell me that everyone had gone home and they could not answer any questions until the next day.... which would have been fine if I was not needing to drive 450 miles the next day to get to my new location. They have never called me back. All in all, a VERY unimpressive company at this point.

Don.... how can I see the traffic volume?

Gary

Gary: The normal user cannot see the traffic volume being sent to Firefly.
This was only possible for me to see because Martin at Firefly was
using my Laptop remotely to log into the VT. He brought up a window
that was showing the CAN BUS messages being sent over the internet. They were scrolling by very fast.
He did tell me that reducing the number of these message and the
frequency at which they are sent was addressed in version 1.1.41.
His statement to me was that it was entirely possible to use 1 GB
of data in a 24 hr. period based on the previous VT versions. He also
stated that going forward with 1.1.41 (and greater), this usage should
be significantly less. I am not sure exactly how much less.
If you have updated to 1.1.41 or 1.1.42, you should be able to
check your MiFi data usage for a 24hr. period on your Verizon account.

[Gary.Jones]

Don

We have experienced almost exactly the same things in the past 10 days. My software engineer was Austin and he took over my laptop via my cell phone while parked in a truckstop just so I had decent cell phone coverage with Verizon. He used my laptop to connect to my PEPWAVE and then into the Firefly path to the VegaTouch hardware. I was able to watch everything he was doing, but there was nothing that he was doing that showed me packets of information being uploaded in real time. What he seemed to do the most was look at directories and delete files. He and I were talking the whole time. Took about 2 hours total access to my system to get it all functioning again. While talking, it was acknowledged that the system was designed to pass some data but supposedly was not supposed to be passing the quantities of data that I was reporting to him (9.2 gigs in 10 gig allocation). That was earlier this month. This month I upgraded to 15 gig "unlimited Verizon MIFI" (see the amazing definition of "Unlimited" discussed above) and had burned through ~ 14 gigs of that data with us using the MIFI but apparently the VegaTouch also using the MIFI too. I would guess maybe 13 gigs of it in several weeks. So much that I had to stop using it as it was giving me very slow de-rated service. If you have been told that it could account for as much as a Gig a day, that is incredible!

Now, I am going to have to figure out if my VegaTouch is connected to my PEPWAVE router. I think I can log on to the PEPWAVE and dump it as a connection and figure out what the Pepwave IDs on the VegaTouch and instruct it to disconnect from it.

My VegaTouch is telling me that I should also upgrade my G8 software or board, whatever the heck that is, but I am doing nothing until the crisis passes on all of this.

Gary

[hdgoldie]

Gary, I don't have a pony in this race but FWIW we burn through over 25 Gigs/mo. on Verizon without having a VegaTouch and without streaming. Just normal internet stuff - and we use a campground wifi connection whenever it is not too slow. The Winegard WiFi Extender really helps with that but nothing will make most campground WiFi usable in the evenings. And...FMCA has a deal with Verizon that you can get an "Unlimited" MiFi that doesn't downgrade until 25 Gigs for 49.99/mo. Your current MiFi can be transferred to the program. It was cheaper for us to move the MiFi to the FMCA program and decrease the measured allowance on our phones and iPads. You might want to check out that possibility. Wish I had our Mobley with us but until my neighborhood gets access to high speed internet, the Mobley needs to stay at the house so we can access our security system and cameras.

[Gary.Jones]

Version 1.1.42 has been running for ~ 30 hours with no problems.

Gary

[brobox]

UPDATE 7/2
1.1.43 is out this morning. I just got off the phone with Jerry at FireFly, they are still having problems with the updates. If you are "not broke don't fix it". His advise was to let the updates go until the numbers stabilize for a week.

[gswindle]

Originally Posted by brobox

UPDATE 7/2
1.1.43 is out this morning. I just got off the phone with Jerry at FireFly, they are still having problems with the updates. If you are "not broke don't fix it". His advise was to let the updates go until the numbers stabilize for a week.

My 1.1.42 has also been working good. I agree with letting the numbers stabilize before doing any further updates.


Gary