Real-hardware finding: netwatch repeatedly reported 'home WiFi not found'
4 times over 13min while sitting right next to the router. Root cause:
a plain 'nmcli con up home-wifi' straight out of AP mode relies on NM's
scan cache for wlan0, which is stale/empty coming out of AP mode (the
radio can't scan while acting as an AP). A single con-up attempt didn't
wait for a fresh scan to land before giving up.
Fix: explicitly drop the AP connection first to free the radio, force a
fresh scan with a settle delay, and retry the connect attempt (longer
30s timeout) up to 2 times before conceding and restoring the hotspot.
Bumped the systemd unit's TimeoutStartSec to 180s to give the retry loop
enough headroom (was defaulting to 90s).
Co-authored-by: Copilot <[email protected]>
Root-caused a "GPS not working" report to the SIM868 module chip being
fully powered off (the HAT's 5V rail can be live while the chip itself
stays off until PWRKEY is triggered) - confirmed by getting zero AT
response at any baud rate while the app's GPS thread had the serial
port open normally.
Discovered this specific HAT revision has the "P4" GPIO power-on mod
wire installed (Waveshare FAQ / GSM_PWRKEY.rar script), letting PWRKEY
be triggered via physical pin 7 (BCM GPIO4) instead of a manual button
press. Verified live: pulsing it low for 4s then high brought the
module from zero AT response to responding immediately.
modules/app_gps.py: added _module_responds()/_pulse_pwrkey()/
_ensure_module_powered(), wired into _poll_loop() before the existing
GNSS power-on check. Checks AT first and only pulses PWRKEY if the
module isn't already responding, since PWRKEY is a toggle (pulsing an
already-on module would turn it back off).
Also fixed a related logging gap found while debugging: print()
diagnostics from app_gps.py were invisible in yaris-obd.log for
months because Python fully-buffers stdout when it isn't a TTY.
deploy/yaris-obd.service now sets PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1.
requirements.txt: added RPi.GPIO.
PLAN.md: documented both findings and the Pi deploy gotchas (systemd
unit file changes need a manual copy + daemon-reload; requirements.txt
changes need a manual venv pip install - neither is picked up by a
plain git pull + restart).
Co-authored-by: Copilot <[email protected]>
Squashed rewrite of the project revival work (replaces prior history on this
branch to remove personal data that had been accidentally committed - real
LAN IP, GPS coordinates, home WiFi SSID, and phone model). See PLAN.md for
full phase-by-phase details. Summary:
- Phase 2: adapt app_obd.py for a USB OBD-II adapter (was Bluetooth-only),
auto-detect /dev/ttyUSB*, fix several pre-existing crash bugs.
- Phase 3/4: make the web UI work fully offline (vendored Socket.IO/Leaflet/
Chart.js/FontAwesome, offline map tile downloader script, live GPS marker
tracking fix).
- Phase 5: systemd deployment/autostart on the Pi.
- Phase 6: WiFi hotspot mode via NetworkManager (auto-switch between home
WiFi and a local AP for in-car web UI access), mDNS hostname + port 80
redirect so the UI is reachable at a plain hostname with no port number.
- Phase 7: fix app_db.py/app_sql.py bugs, wire up local SQLite trip logging.
- Phase 8: brand-agnostic USB dashcam file retrieval (lsblk transport-based
detection, works with any dashcam brand/folder layout).
- Rewritten readme.md with a proper project overview.
Co-authored-by: Copilot <[email protected]>
