T-beam V1.2 persists saying "No sats"

1

Hi, new user here. I’ve got a pair of LILYGO T-Beam V1.2 boards and managed to make them talk to each other, but GPS never worked at first, always said “No sats” and “No GPS lock”, and the red LED under the GPS never blinked. I bought a couple of new GPS antennas, and soon after I replaced the first I got a blinking GPS led, and then 4 sats.

The second board, though, even though I get the blinking light, it persists saying “No sats” and “No GPS lock”. I have flashed both boards with 2.2.16, and it was sitting near the window for a whole day, where the other worked, but still nothing. Is there anything I can try other than plugging and unplugging the antenna? (this tiny connector freaks me out)

I had previously done the “GPS flash” thing on that board before, could this be a problem? It was also printing lots of “data too old” messages, but it seems this went away with 2.2.16.

2

Bonus question: I believe GPS initialization can be improved by providing the GPS module with an initial estimate of time and position. Is it possible to do this with Meshtastic? Is it worth trying something like that?

3

I have exactly the same problem with the same device

4

Head outside, the GPS module has been detected and is looking for a signal.

5

Any update? I have same issue. I though I had t-beam 1.1, though inspecting a bit more it has a smaller sticker stating v1.2.

I’ve searched multiple forums and solutions and I’ve tried (with no luck):

  • some reset GPS scripts (they did delete my meshtastics, afterwards I always had to load it back)
  • different version of firmware, 2.2.14 beta, 2.2.15 beta, 2.2.19.8f6a283 Alpha and older one 2.1.23.04bbdc6 Beta whish some clamed it should work.
  • tried switching GPS IO to TX on 34 and RX on 12 (since the board drawing I found in every place states such pins) - it failed on boot with “E (1633) uart: uart_set_pin(683): tx_io_num error”

Not sure what else to try. Is there some easy way to debug it? manually seeing GPS status via terminal?

Few people also noted that blinking red led indicates that GPS has lock - I have not seen any lock so far.

Here is log with latest firmware (2.2.19 alpha):

DEBUG | ??:??:?? 1 Read RTC time as 1
INFO  | ??:??:?? 1 Setting GPS power=1
DEBUG | ??:??:?? 1 WANT GPS=1
INFO  | ??:??:?? 1 Setting GPS power=1
DEBUG | ??:??:?? 1 Using GPIO34 for GPS RX
DEBUG | ??:??:?? 1 Using GPIO12 for GPS TX
DEBUG | ??:??:?? 1 NeighborInfoModule is disabled
<..>
DEBUG | ??:??:?? 1 [Screen] Screen: Started...
WARN  | ??:??:?? 1 [GPS] Warning, 1 new GPS checksum failures, for a total of 1.
DEBUG | ??:??:?? 1 [GPS] publishing pos@0:2, hasVal=0, Sats=0, GPSlock=0
DEBUG | ??:??:?? 1 [GPS] No GPS lock
DEBUG | ??:??:?? 1 [GPS] onGPSChanged() pos@0, time=0, lat=0, lon=0, alt=0
INFO  | ??:??:?? 1 [GPS] updatePosition LOCAL pos@0, time=0, latI=0, lonI=0, alt=0
DEBUG | ??:??:?? 1 [GPS] Setting local position: latitude=0, longitude=0, time=0
DEBUG | ??:??:?? 1 [GPS] Node status update: 2 online, 2 total
INFO  | ??:??:?? 1 [RangeTestModule] Range Test Module - Disabled
<..>
6

For a T-Beam with onboard GPS, you don’t have to set the TX/RX for GPS.

Did you leave the board outside with clear view to the sky for about 20 minutes? The first lock might take a long time, because it needs to download the almanac.

1 Like
7

I did not, but I did left it many times indoors for for a day or so. I’ll give a try to leave it outside.

8

I am running into a similar issue with the T-Beam 1.2 except I can’t get it to update it’s GPS position after the initial boot. I first noted this when they would not update their location while I was moving. I tried all the newest firmware from 2.2.15, 2.2.16, 2.2.17 and even 2.2.18. None worked. I rolled back 2.2.11.

If you can’t get a lock at all, go into Radio Configuration > Position and take a look at “Fix Attempt Duration (Seconds)”. Mine was set at 0. When I increased that value to the old default of 900 I got a lock…but again, the system will not update the location like all my other devices.

I watched multiple units logs and found that my two V1.2 with NEO M8N units both behave this way. They boot up, find a location and “lock” it. Then every 2 minutes they wake up the GPS and tell it to grab another reading. Each time this reading happens, it reports back the EXACT same position, which is highly improbable. , even when the unit is stationary.

When I monitor the logs of a V1.1 with NEO 6M I see the same boot behavior and again, every 2 minutes it wakes up the GPS to check it’s position, except this board reports back a current correct read, which is usually slightly different than the ones before.

I started a thread on Github, but no luck so far.

9

Correction. It looks like it is a known issue. At about the same time I made a post here, a reply came in over at Github.

10

Thanks for pointing out those threads, I have to take another look at what happens to my device. It’s pretty annoying that I got one board working but not the other. I must check this fix attempt duration thing

11

For my T-Beams, Firmware V 2.2.20 resolved the issue.

12

Thanks for the message, I just tried 2.2.21 and now I have multiple sats on both my devices! And thanks to the developers!

13

The great thing about the system being open source with multiple developers working on it is the consistent updates and upgrades. The worst thing about the system being open source and multiple developers working on it is the consistent updates that sometimes break things.

Double edged sword.