maintenance

2024-08-16

compost was offline again this morning, network issues caused it to not be reachable for a while.

Not calling anyone (or anything) out, simply stating facts and saying that it was the repeater (again). Wifi access in general is probably the single thing causing the most issues, ever since starting to prepare compost for the wider world.

The repeater really helps. It helps because the attic is too far away from the main modem / router, and without the repeater there would be no wifi coverage to speak of at all. So the extra device is located on top of a cupboard (shelf?) in the neighbors' kitchen, almost exactly halfway between compost and the router. An Archer C7 v2, old enough to remember several different flats, running OpenWRT – notably another project run mostly by volunteers, keeping hardware running way beyond profitability.

And so this morning the repeater was gone from the network, frunreachable all of a sudden. Our neighbors needed their time to wake up, have breakfast and get their child to the nursery. When knocking later they couldn't open because a call they had while working from home didn't allow it.

As soon as we had physical access, the (temporary) fix was to connect an ethernet cable to the repeater, entering wifi into the prompt and hitting enter. Voila.

Unfortunately compost itself didn't reconnect, so it had to be physically rebooted, interrupting the one and a half month streak. This added a bitter taste to the daily ritual of unplugging and replugging the power cable.

The longer fix will require a deeper inspection of OpenWRT's wifi settings. They can be intimidating, and so it's something that you'd rather try to avoid. The root issue seems to be experienced by other people as well, that's at least something.