Error - data not transferring (DistoX / Topodroid)

christine

Active member
Hi Folks

Happy New Year  :beer:

We're hoping someone can help. Drawn a blank and are now at the stage of contacting the guy who wrote the software :(

We had a total failure of a day trying to survey and keep getting this purple error:

topodroid read 0 data (0 packets)

Data exists on the Disto (both calibration and legs) but even though the bluetooth is talking (and we can put it in calibration mode) the data isn't being seen/recognised. Using a Samsung Galaxy Note 4. Basically, data is not transferring.
If anyone can help please post here as it may help others.

We've spent 4 hours so far trying to find a solution so I'm guessing it isn't obvious.  :confused:

New phone, older Disto X310 - never used together before.
 

Benfool

Member
First thought is to try Sexytopo instead of Topodroid - that way you can work out if its the software or hardware thats causing the issue. Next thing I'd try is a different phone.

There is an issue with the Bluetooth chip becoming unstable on older boards (I'm guessing yours is from about 2015??), but hopefully this is not the cause of this problem as it would be unfixable :(.
 

christine

Active member
Thanks Ben

yeh, we're looking closer at the phone (I think it's circa 2015) but the first thing we're doing is updating the software (never a bad thing) to see if that helps but I'll definitely try the other programme if that doesn't fix it.

 

Benfool

Member
Another thing to try is updating the firmware on the distox. You'll need a Windows machine and PocketTopo to do it, but its pretty straight forward. Instructions here:

https://paperless.bheeb.ch/download/DistoUpdaterV25.zip
 

christine

Active member
Ok, so we have done the following and still no difference:

Updated phone to latest software.
Tried Sexytopo and no data would transfer to that either.
We can send and receive files from our macs to and from the phone so BT seems to be working.

It's looking more likely that it is Disto related.
We'll try and find a windows machine to do an update - everything in our house is mac ios  :unsure:
 

christine

Active member
So, Rich has reset the bluetooth on the Disto and now we're getting a different error which says Failed to Toggle Disto X and also Failed Disto X Memory Read and also Failed Disto X Read.

This is different so I think we're homing in on a BT problem...Just waiting for a reply on the Topodroid Google group.
 

Benfool

Member
It sounds like the Bluetooth chip on the distox board might be knackered - I've seen similar problems before on other older units. If this is the case then I'm afraid its game over as it cannot be replaced and you would need a new board - which are unfortunately now unavailable.

Anyway, Rich has been in touch and he's going to send it all to me, so I'll take a look and see what I can do.

B

 

alastairgott

Well-known member
It would be a frustrating way of sorting, but you could type out your results into a computer, and potentially save it as a file which you can pull back into topodroid or other way of using survey data.

A disto can recall almost all of the shots it?s made in its life (apparently) so as long as you can interpret the shots it should be ok.

Depends on what you want to do with the data afterwards.
 
Can you not toggle though the memory, ( push unit/memory button) then write down the numbers & input the data manually.
May take a bit of sorting but triple shots should show clearly then the rest should be splays. Also, remember the Disto X2 stores 1000 measurements so hopefully, your survey contains no more than this. If the survey has less than 1000 measurements then be careful as it may be difficult to determine the end of your survey due to the remaining memory being occupied by the previous survey data.
It's all a bit of a faff but it has to be better than no data at all.

Nick

Just noticed, Al's beaten me to it. :)
 

Benfool

Member
This kinda defeats the purpose of electronic surveying, as you'd either have to transcribe the data across to topodroid manually in the cave to sketch electronically, or sketch on paper and deal with everything afterwards.

Also, if there were any branches on the survey or you decided to mix and match forward and back bearings (maybe to avoid getting the disto out in wet sections), then you'd have to keep careful notes so you could recreate the survey afterwards. I'd of thought doing the entire thing on paper (using the distox instead of traditional instruments) would be way less error prone. Using the distox2's internal memory instead of Bluetooth as a solution to this problem wouldn't work in all but the most simply surveys.

B
 

andrewmcleod

Well-known member
There is a 'silent' mode on the DistoX (along with a way of turning Bluetooth on and off I think - or maybe they are the same thing?). I set my Disto to it once and took me ages to work out what had happened. Look in the Disto user manual for the correct incantations.
 

Benfool

Member
Andrew, good call! If its not already in the post, thats definitely worth trying.

Silent mode is MEM and FUNC for 2 seconds - see if that fixes things.

B

 

scurve

Member
I was just about to suggest that it's probably in silent mode (as mine once was for a very frustrating surveying trip) but I see I've been beaten to it.
 

christine

Active member
:eek: :eek: :eek:

Yes there are - - - in the top right....

WTF????

Hold onto all your horses.....please god let that be it.....

 

christine

Active member
Sadly not  :cry:

Never mind, we'll get it off to you Ben if that's ok and fix you some beer in your local watering hole...

Worst case I can get another X310 and we can switch the boards over. Rich wants another soldering iron anyway...
 
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