[Testing] FYI: all 41 still on the mesh, 19 of which chat successfully

[Samuel Klein]

So, what was the difference b/t this reboot procedure and the one you
followed previous to that -- when a number of machines would not show
the shared chat bubble?
Perhaps if we can zero in on that issue it will turn out to be causing
much of the discrepancies.  And did you keep a log of the Chat errors
that turned up?

--SJ

On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 3:08 PM, Holt <holt at laptop.org> wrote:
> Machines all appeared properly registered to "schoolserver.xs051.org" yet
> shared chat wasn't workable much at all 12+ hrs later.  And "olpc-xos"
> returned very low numbers all around, so I powered off every machine
> together, then started afresh:
>
> 40 machines were powered on, waiting 15-20 seconds between each boot.  1
> machine absolutely refused to show the shared chat bubble even after reboot
> etc, but eventually 39 machines successfully connected to a new shared chat
> -- hardly flawless but the vast majority of chat messages get through.
>
> "olpc-xos" however returned widely varying results:
>   * 9 machines showed a number between 35 and 40
>   * 21 machines showed a number between 30 and 34
>   * 7 machines showed a number between 20 and 29
>   * 3 machines showed a number between 10 and 19
>
> 2 hours later, not a single "olpc-xos" return value appears to have changed.
>
> Chat continued to work tolerably, with:
>   * 17 machines forcing me to the Home View at the very 1st keypress -- then
> all was fine, after I rejoined the Chat still in memory (from Home View)
>   * 5 machines had the Chat activity fail with errors; acknowledging &
> ignoring error did not work -- then all was fine, after I stopped Chat and
> rejoined the shared chat (from Network View)
>   * not every chat msg arriving on every machine, but perhaps this lossiness
> is the norm...
>
>
> Kimberley Quirk wrote:
>>
>> This is good information. One thought i had was that if the 12
>> troublemakers were not correctly registered to the school server, then they
>> would never share an activity properly.  I know I tried to register each
>> laptop to the school server... but it could be the case that I registered a
>> bunch of them while they were connected to the wrong AP, which might cause
>> this kind of problem.
>>
>> To figure this out, you can look at the control panel of the suspect
>> laptops, then click on network. They should all show the same server
>> registration as the good laptops, something like "schoolserver.xs051.org".
>>
>> If any of them are different, then you probably need to remove the school
>> registration and try registration again. Hopefully Reuben can help with
>> this.
>>
>> The second scenario you mention sounds like the case when too many laptops
>> (more than 10) are connected to a simple mesh (like mesh channel 1), and
>> then there is no way they will share anything. This can happen when you
>> reboot many laptops at basically the same time. If 20 laptops are all
>> booting about the same time, some (many?) of them will not connect to
>> desired AP, they will time-out from trying that and default to mesh channel
>> 1.
>>
>> And, there is the possibility that too many reboots in a short period of
>> time and not enough time for things to really settle might result in the
>> presence service being confused.
>>
>> When things are working well these things will all be met:
>>
>> 1 - each laptop will show the same number of other laptops when you type:
>> olpc-xos
>> 2 - each laptop will be registered to the same school server: control
>> panel, network
>> 3 - starting/sharing chat on one laptop, you will see the chat icon on all
>> other laptops and they can connect
>> 4 - typing in chat for each laptop can be seen by all other laptops over a
>> period of a few hours (not 24 hours later)
>>
>> I think you need to get to this level of performance before releasing
>> 8.2.1. What you describe below could be an important regression. Another
>> test would be to get all the laptops up and registered to the school server
>> and start the chat testing each new laptop against the ones already in the
>> chat by typing a bit... before adding the next laptop. If there is a
>> regression perhaps it shows up after the 10th laptop (or some such thing).
>>
>> I added the Testing group in case there are other thoughts (probably
>> should have been on this thread from the beginning).
>>
>> Keep us posted,
>> Kim
>