Troubleshooting LightRules Gateways
The following guide will provide troubleshooting steps that will not only remedy several issues that can arise, but expedite the support process if initial troubleshooting is unsuccessful.
Gateway Status
The first step is to understand the status of the Gateway in question.
LightRules Status
In LightRules | Config | Network there will be a circular icon next to the Gateway name. Is the circle green, yellow, grey, or red?
- Green means the Gateway is communicating.
- Red means the Gateway is not communicating.
- Yellow means the status is unknown; click to ping and the circle will turn green or red.
- Grey means the Gateway has never communicated.
Gateway Status Lights
DLGW3-LR (serial number beginning in 0202)
If the gateway is a model DLGW3-LR (serial number beginning in 0202), then please refer to page 3 of the attached DLGW3 Gateway 3 Installation Instructions for status indicator information.
DLGW2 (serial number beginning in 0201)
If the gateway is a model DLGW2 (serial number beginning in 0201), there are four indicator LEDs on the Gateway (blue, red, green, and yellow from left to right) that provide information about the status of the Gateway. Some basic information regarding the blink patterns is as follows:
- A pulsing blue LED signifies the Gateway is receiving power.
- Simultaneous solid green and solid yellow LEDs indicate that the Gateway has acquired an IP address via DHCP.
- A solid green LED and no yellow LED indicates that the Gateway has acquired a static IP address.
- A flashing yellow LED indicates that the Gateway is attempting to acquire an IP address via DHCP but has not received an IP address.
- The red LED flashes to indicate network activity.
Network Connection
The Gateway receives power and communicates via a CAT-5 cable connected to a PoE switch, which in turn connects to your LRA. Are the LRA, PoE, and Gateway properly connected? Are all of the PoE switches powered? Are the ethernet cables damaged?
Environment
Is the fixture in a particularly cold, hot, or damp environment? These factors can often affect the Gateway and it helps to understand details about its environment when troubleshooting. Environmental information for gateways can be found in the attached LightRules Network Infrastructure guide.
Troubleshooting
Once the status of the gateway is understood, it becomes much easier to troubleshoot the Gateway.
Power Cycle
This is almost always the first step in the troubleshooting process. A power cycle is the process of removing power from the gateway for 30 seconds then restoring power, and will often resolve connectivity issues. A power cycle can be accomplished by unplugging the ethernet cable from the gateway for 30 seconds or disabling PoE on the switch powering the gateway for 30 seconds.
Line Connections
Confirm that the Gateway is properly connected to the PoE, receiving both a signal and power via your CAT-5 cable. Also ensure that the PoE switch is properly connected to the LRA.
Ethernet cabling contains several cable pairs. Faulty cable terminations at the end of an ethernet cable are the most common cause of gateway communication issues. Scenarios can occur where an ethernet cable is able to power a gateway but not transmit data.
Verify Communications with Gateways
The Discover Lighting Gateways feature is a tool for determining the serial numbers of all the gateways that the LRA is able to communicate with. The LRA will broadcast a discovery packet from the lighting network port and return the serial numbers of all gateways that are detected (including any communicating gateways that are not in the map file). If a gateway serial number is not returned in the output of the Discover Lighting Gateways feature, then LightRules is unable to communicate with the gateway.
The Discover Lighting Gateways feature is useful for determining if a gateway serial number may have been mistyped in the map file, for seeing if newly installed gateways are able to communicate with the LRA or for getting a general sense of how many gateways the LRA is able to communicate with. For gateways in the map file, clicking the status circle in the Config | Network page is a more targeted means of troubleshooting.
The Discover Lighting Gateways feature is accessible within the the Config | Network page beneath the All networks table.
In the above screenshot, the LRA can discover gateways 02010706 and 02010C31, but cannot discover 020204E9. This agrees with the gateway status circles as well.
Verify Communications with Lights
If the gateway has a green status circle in Config | Network and appears to be communicating with the LRA, there are a few useful steps for verifying that the gateway is able to communication with fixtures on its network.
The Lighting Network must be running in order for the LRA to communicate with the attached fixtures. In LightRules | Config | Diagnostics there will be a rectangular icon noting the lighting network status in the top-left.
- If the Lighting Network status is Running, then LightRules is operating normally.
- If the Lighting Network status is Verifying, then LightRules is establishing communications with the lights. The Verifying status always appears for up to 15 minutes after the LRA is rebooted or after a map file is uploaded. The Verifying status is normal and the status should switch to Running within 30 minutes.
- If the Lighting Network status is Stopped, then the LightRules is paused and not attempting to communicate with the fixtures. The easiest way to change the LightRules status is to restart the LRA.
If the gateway status is green and the Lighting Network status is running, then the next step is to verify communications with the attached lights. In LightRules | Config | Networks, there is a table listing all networks. Click one of the networks in the Name column to access the network page for that gateway.
Clicking the Verify Lights icon will attempt to ping every fixture on the network. Alternatively you can click the fixture status circles to ping individual fixtures. The fixture status circle will display green if the ping is successful. Hovering the mouse over the fixture status circles will display help text that may contain additional information.
Please note that fixture status circles will not automatically appear yellow until a fixture has not communicated for 24 hours. Therefore if you suspect a communications issue may have occurred within 24 hours, you can Verify Lights to determine the present communications status.
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