Watchdog and Spider

Archive
1

G’day,

Has anyone had issues with the Watchdog as per the Wiki Tutorial and the Spider?

My board just keeps rebooting when using the watchdog so as a good developer, I must be the problem! Is the following code actually incorrect?

Even if I move the Watchdog into the main() function in the partial class, I still end up with a rebooting device.

Create new gadgeteer project
Add LCD and MultiColor led to Socket 4
Add this code to the partial class:

// This method is run when the mainboard is powered up or reset.   
        void ProgramStarted()
        {
            GHIElectronics.NETMF.Hardware.LowLevel.Watchdog.Enable(5000);
            display.SimpleGraphics.DisplayText("Running", Resources.GetFont(Resources.FontResources.NinaB), Color.White,
                                              0, 0);
            Debug.Print("Program Started");
        }

        private static bool beRed = false;
        static Thread WDTCounterReset;
        static void WDTCounterResetLoop()
        {
            while (true)
            {
                Thread.Sleep(3000);
                if (beRed)
                {
                    led.TurnRed();
                    beRed = false;
                }
                else
                {
                    led.TurnBlue();
                    beRed = true;
                }
                GHIElectronics.NETMF.Hardware.LowLevel.Watchdog.ResetCounter();
            }
        }

Compile
Deploy
Run
Watch device boot, say running and then reboot :slight_smile:

1 Like
2

Damn what an idiot!

WDTCounterReset = new Thread(WDTCounterResetLoop);
WDTCounterReset.Start();

1 Like
3

You may have insufficient power,
could you please unplug your display and try again?

Or you could use a powered hub or a dc jack.

For testing purpose you can show your messages in the debug console.

4

Yeah, my big program reboots so was trying to go simple and got the same problem.

But my simple program had a huge flaw in that it was not resetting the watchdog :frowning:

So hardware works and verifies placement of code correct but my other program must have some other issue (essentially reading analog input but resets when trying to read from SDCard module - runs fine if watchdog code defined out)

5

Incase anyone suffers the same problem as myself when having a large multi-threaded application with WPF on a GHI spider.

I needed to perform two tasks after identifying that the Wiki code works for the Fez & the Spider (and my test program performed as expected)

  1. Increase the watchdog timer from 5s to 10s
  2. Change the watchdog reset thread priority to AboveNormal so it gets a higher chance of getting a slice of the CPU within the allocated time frame

These two changes have made my real application run with Watchdog support now enabled.

Hopefully, I don’t look like to much of an idiot and anyone reading this can have a laugh and say what an idiot :).

Thanks to Weiti for actually responding so quickly too!

Wayne

6

@ Wayne Mather - You think that’s being an idiot? You should see some of my daily gems :wink:

7

@ Wayne, welcome to the forums - in a big way :wink: But in all seriousness, welcome, and it’s great you tracked down your tricky one (and the lightbulb one :wink: )