ESPixelStick V4 SD card wiring & FPP connect

MartinMueller2003 said:
Interestingly enough, I just ran into this statement:
  • Cons: HTTP/S is not designed for transferring large files, and you may encounter timeouts or other errors when attempting to do so. It also does not natively support file resume.
With large files defined as greater than 10MB.
Shifting focus to see if an FTP transfer with file resume can do the trick.
Click to expand...

That's part of the reason that transfers to FPP now use PATCH and upload in smaller chunks rather than one giant transfer.
 
Ok back up and running, I usually do write the files out to SD card from computer. Like you said faster and reliable. I was just trying to see if loading with FPP connect would work reliably. My controllers will be buried under snow when show is playing so I was looking for something to load new sequences or change sequences around without having to get the SD cards out to load from the computer.
Thanks again for the great work.
 
Sorry for the confusion, that question was pointed towards how is everyone loading their sequences once the controllers are out in the field. I'm not a programmer so on the programming side I would be of no help. I really do appreciate all the time you have spent on this and my controllers run great so far with all the testing I've done. I'm just down to loading or changing a sequence once the controllers are out in the field. Sometimes they load fine and other times I have to retry 2 or 3 times. In the end they will usually load. Just a little problem if there is no other way to get around it. Thanks again.
 
MartinMueller2003 said:
Thanks. I will look into "patch". Do you have a pointer to the spec?
Click to expand...
It's not so much a spec.... We moved to using FilePond ( https://pqina.nl/filepond/ ) to handle the browser side bits of the drag/drop/selection of files. It has some options to break the files into chunks and upload in chunks that we decided to leverage. To support that, they have some sample code for server side to handle that, although we didn't end up using any of their code for that. Mostly examined what was happening in the HTTP headers. For the most part, it's just adding three extra HTTP headers (total file size, starting index for this packet, and filename) and using PATCH instead of PUT.
 
MartinMueller2003 said:
Or do you have non linux code running on the falcon controllers? FSEQ files are starting to get seriously large.
Click to expand...
For the ESP devices, it should still just be the channels it needs so a two output x 800 pixel setup would stll be 4800 bytes per frame. That hasn't changed. Yes, people's sequences are getting large as they drop videos on P5 panels and virtual matrices and such, but that shouldn't change what needs to get uploaded to any given controller.
 
For the ESPs, we are starting to see 8 port controllers which made the fseq files 8 times as large as those on the original single port version.
mel4853 said:
Sorry for the confusion, that question was pointed towards how is everyone loading their sequences once the controllers are out in the field. I'm not a programmer so on the programming side I would be of no help. I really do appreciate all the time you have spent on this and my controllers run great so far with all the testing I've done. I'm just down to loading or changing a sequence once the controllers are out in the field. Sometimes they load fine and other times I have to retry 2 or 3 times. In the end they will usually load. Just a little problem if there is no other way to get around it. Thanks again.
Click to expand...
Still working on the problem.
 
I think I have this solved in the latest version on my fork. I had to trade some speed (ok a lot of speed) for reliability.

You can flash your device and try it via the web flash tool or by downloading it from my release archive.

Here is a url for the online flash tool. Use the dist dated May 16 from the list of dists.

I have also added support for an FTP server running on the ESP. It allows you to connect to the ESP using FileZilla. FTP transfers are almost 2x faster than HTTP transfers. I have NOT tested with xLights.
 
I got the new firmware loaded and Xlights has errors see attached. I tried a few different sequences and they all return that error. I can't figure out how to get Filezilla to hook up. I'm using the IP of the ESPixelstick with port 21. I changed user name and password in ESPixelstick UI. I tried hostname as ftp://"IP address" and also just the IP address without the ftp://
 

Attachments

  • FPP Connect Error.JPG
    FPP Connect Error.JPG
    90.6 KB · Views: 2
  • Filezilla Error.JPG
    Filezilla Error.JPG
    23.7 KB · Views: 2
I was trying to use hostname and credentials on Filezilla start page. I finally got it.
1. Click on File
2. Then click on Site Manager
3. Then click on My Sites and click New Site at the bottom.
4. Protocol = FTP
5. Host name = IP address of ESPixelStick
6. Port = 21
7. Encryption = Only use plain FTP (insecure)
8. Logon Type = Normal
9. Fill in User name and Password
10. Click on the Transfer Settings tab and do as Martin said above.
Thank you again for working on this, seems to be working great. You are the man!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top