ePMP GPS rant

If in a future version of Firmware they remove the option that both Force 180,190 and 200 can only work PTP, no wonder it’s Cambium.
Their policy is to give us all the money you have and we will not give you what we promised in return.
I am also leaving Cambium due to an eternal GPS problem.
And as far as I can see, they can’t solve it.

Cambium is not going to remove PMP mode for F180/F190/F200/ePMP1000SMs.
Would you be so kind please and call what Cambium promised you that hasn’t been done?

Thank you.

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Of course GPS sync which should work constantly.
regards

I would be glad to provide you a comprehensive answer if you could point me to support ticket number or elaborate more on what radios are affected, are GPS pucks connected or not, are LTE base stations deployed nearby, etc.

Thank you.

No GSM, LTE, RADIO or TV transmitter.
GPS pack antenna to antenna Cambium loses sync and Ubiquiti does not.
I replace the SMA connectors from the pack antennas on the devices (active GPS antennas are compatible), without moving the antennas.
Ubiquiti never loses sync Cambium again unpredictable.
No one can convince me that it is up to the GPS antenna or interference from something else.
How is it possible to have a huge number of satellites on the list and all SNRs zero?
Why at least two don’t have 2 or 4 dB?
And so it lasts for an hour, a day or two, and everything returns to normal without any intervention.
It reads a huge number of satellites with brutal signals where the majority is above 35 dB.



Greeting

Is it 4.6 FW version?
I can see it’s ePMP1000 or ePMP2000.

Thank you.

The devices are AP2000!
Firmware version 4.3.3 or 4.5.6 and the latest 4.6.0.1 do not solve the problem.
I can watch the satellite board that the GPS hears for hours.
Do refresh pages and never but never any satellite to be heard with less than SNR 16 dB.
Something is not right with the sensitivity threshold I set.
An SNR above 6 dB and 4 satellites is enough for the GPS to work.
I don’t know if something worse changes in the atmosphere. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, all the satellites I hear in the picture will have a SNR of zero.
Those APs that maintain GPS sync during the incident hear all satellites by an average of 3-4 dB worse SNR, but stick with syncing.
After a few minutes, those who held the sync SNR returned as before the incident, and those who lost it took an hour, two, a day or two.
They don’t know how to come back without a rebot.
When the GPS works properly the Cambium is a brutal device but getting lost has caused me huge costs and loss of clients, what is left has become nervous and I am just waiting for the next incident.
As you can see I have also become nervous so I understand my clients.
I am forced to migrate to other brands of equipment.
This really doesn’t make sense anymore.
Regards

I apologize to the initiator of the topic for pushing the topic in the other direction.
Best regards

No worries Zica. We no longer buying Cambium gear, so you can use this thread however you need - not to worry. :+1:

Zica,

I’m sorry for the delay with the response.
Let me please describe the technical point of view on the GPS outage issue.

ePMP radios have 3 generations of embedded GPS chips that depend on the ePMP model and the date when it has been produced.
You can find the information with the recommended GPS firmware version in the following KB article:

1st Generation has been used on ePMP1000 GPS Sync radios,
2nd Generation has been used on ePMP2000 GPS Sync radios,
3rd Generation is currently used on ePMP3000, ePMP3000L and newer ePMP1000/2000 GPS Sync radios.

The issue with GPS sync on ePMP3000L has been discussed many times in different threads.
And the latest fixes were introduced in 4.6.
You can see that it resolved the issue for some users who had it on ePMP3000L:

Unfortunately, we still can see customers are reporting GPS sync outage issues from time to time and we are collecting information now. For now, we can’t confirm there is FW related issue there.
We can see in many cases the issue is caused by interference from LTE equipment.
In these cases, we propose to remove GPS puck, since sometimes, it collects more interference, than a built-in GPS antenna, or to use a GPS puck with better selectivity.
Cambium is already providing GPS pucks with better selectivity by default.

In your case, you are experiencing an issue with ePMP2000 and the 2nd generation GPS chip.
These radios were officially released 4+ years ago and we haven’t had mass reports claiming that GPS is not working.
Could you please confirm you are experiencing the issue from day one after you deployed those radios in a field?
Also, I would really appreciate it if you could provide the Tech Support file from one of the APs where the issue occurred. It would be awesome if you could collect it from AP running 4.6.0.1 firmware since the advanced GPS logging was added in 4.6. (If you could point me to the support ticket where I could find this information, that would work perfectly as well.)

Thank you and hope for your understanding.

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Fedor, I would beg you not to blame me for defending the intersection of Cambium and me for defending my small ISP companies. The company that Cambium equipment brought before the bankruptcy and since I am nervous about it.
There is nothing personal in this dialogue.
So I’ll be happy to cross spears with you.

My company lost a large number of users due to the loss of GPS synchronization because we were not able to switch APs to work without synchronization in time and return to the ability to broadcast. I blame Cambium for that because their GPS sync is not ok at all
Cambium knows about this problem.
Colleagues from the help desk asked how many AP 2000s you have a problem with without mentioning that they are the same ones in question.
But even that would not be a problem if Cambium intervened and wrote ifirmware that in case of loss of sync the radio continues to broadcast by some other settings until the return of GPS sync.
There is an alternative frequency al alternative setting no.
A few lines of code in the firmware solves the problem (if that doesn’t work for you, I have a man who knows how to do it).
This dialogue would most likely not even exist because it would not be left without a large number of clients.
I would most likely be one of the satisfied Cambium users, but I’m not.
I am defending my company, which suffered a financial loss of several tens of thousands of euros due to the problem of losing GPS synchronization.
A few tens of thousands of euros in my state is the difference between the rich and the homeless.
To hit the users, that sync was a lifeline, but as it collapsed, they became nervous about leaving. In many places, I couldn’t even get the equipment back because they were furious, I could have been beaten.
The problem has existed since the day I first installed AP 2000 three years ago.
Whether you want to admit it in Cambium or not, I am convinced that the problem is with the firmware, but you do not want to accept it.
With Agilent Spectrum Analyzer, we viewed the radio spectrum several times at locations where GPS crashes. And it crashed on each at least a few times in three years and there is no interference from LTE, TV or Radio transmitters.
A clear day, no clouds anywhere.
None of what you claim can crash GPS exists in the spectrum
I am ready to defend this position in court and prove it again by measuring it with an impartial measurer.
Why doesn’t the GPS in car navigation ever crash for me or someone else? And I know I’m a few feet from that famous LTE GSM antenna.
You say an external GPS antenna can do damage and not benefit, but even a few lines of code in writing the firmware can’t solve it.
Why does it work neatly with a Ubiquiti device or someone else in the same locations where the GPS crashes.
The same famous antennas side by side, replaced the SMA in place of another SMA and again the Cambium crashed until Ubiquiti did.
Wouldn’t that LTE bother him too?
The new firmware did not bring anything that fixed the GPS
And it didn’t fix it because the team that writes the firmware is doing everything but solving problems and radical changes that would make the device even better.
A different web layout and Spanish mean nothing to me.
And what about the list that the new firm fixes a hundred or so bugs that many didn’t even know about.
The spin in a circle is fixed a hundred but a hundred others are made.
I laughed but at the same time I regretted what he reported that he had a problem with version 4.6.0 with characters $% # @ and the like.
For example.
To start the spectrum analyzer you need to click on the Spectrum Analyzer option, save. Restart the device and scan.
And do it all backwards later :slight_smile: How long does it take? Few minutes.
Isn’t it easier to click on the icon (stop AP start Analyzer) to scan and click (stop Analyzer start AP or SM)
(It’s also a few lines of code in the firmware.)
And that’s a terrible omission to the firmware as well. And you are most likely aware of it but it is not being addressed. And what can I expect for GPS?
You need to understand that there are also parts of the world on the globe where power outages are commonplace
That SM can have a master and more glory AP.
When his master stops broadcasting, he migrates to fame. when his master returns to the ether on the ethernet he sends to all the APs in the network that he is online.
APs with beacs send information to all SMs that the AP is online and they return to the master.
If there was at least that option, this dialog would not exist and I would be a satisfied Cambium user, but I am not.
Today, a colleague from a company that expressed frustrations in a neighboring town and migrated like me complained that he upgraded the AP 2000 and AP 3000 to version 4.6.0.1 and got the flow blockage on Ethernet, somehow managed to access and return to the older version.
And report the incident and an urgent version 4.6.X.X can be expected.
I no longer have the patience and will die before version 9.3.X.X comes out
(GPS problem finally fixed).
As far as I’m concerned, I’m done with the purchase of a new piece of Cambium equipment.

Best regards

Zica,

I’m there not to cross spears, but my mission here is to help you or other users to resolve issues.
I’m really sorry to hear the issue with ePMP had a negative impact on your company’s business.

But even that would not be a problem if Cambium intervened and wrote firmware that in case of loss of sync the radio continues to broadcast by some other settings until the return of GPS sync.

That option is already available. The hold-off timer stands exactly for that purpose.

Why doesn’t the GPS in car navigation ever crash for me or someone else? And I know I’m a few feet from that famous LTE GSM antenna.

Your car doesn’t get 1PPS from GPS as ePMP does. And if you will google for it you will observe that people are facing such issues with car navigators, smartwatches, other telco equipment too.

And what about the list that the new firm fixes a hundred or so bugs that many didn’t even know about.
The spin in a circle is fixed a hundred but a hundred others are made.
I laughed but at the same time I regretted what he reported that he had a problem with version 4.6.0 with characters $% # @ and the like.
For example.
To start the spectrum analyzer you need to click on the Spectrum Analyzer option, save. Restart the device and scan.
And do it all backwards later :slight_smile: How long does it take? Few minutes.
Isn’t it easier to click on the icon (stop AP start Analyzer) to scan and click (stop Analyzer start AP or SM)
(It’s also a few lines of code in the firmware.)
And that’s a terrible omission to the firmware as well. And you are most likely aware of it but it is not being addressed. And what can I expect for GPS?
You need to understand that there are also parts of the world on the globe where power outages are commonplace
That SM can have a master and more glory AP.
When his master stops broadcasting, he migrates to fame. when his master returns to the ether on the ethernet he sends to all the APs in the network that he is online.
APs with beacs send information to all SMs that the AP is online and they return to the master.
If there was at least that option, this dialog would not exist and I would be a satisfied Cambium user, but I am not.

The problem is that I can guarantee that there is Zica50 on the globe, who will say GPS is not the issue for him, but the biggest issue for him was one of the fixed from Release Notes.

We are always opened to customer’s requests and trying to satisfy as many as possible.
Unfortunately, we always have much more requests on the list, than resources.
The “Primary AP” feature you are referring to is there as well.
That’s why we always ask customers to open Support Ticket for defects reporting or feature requests.
It gives us the ability to understand what is required for users and their priorities.

The Spectrum Analyzer could be a good example. It has been re-worked and can be started even without switching the radio to the specific mode and service interruption in 802.11ac based ePMP product line from day 1.

We have gone really far away from the heart of the matter.
If you could provide Tech Support files or provide remote access I would be happy to support you directly.

Thank you.

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Fedor

How do you justify GPS sync coming back on its own without any intervention after two or three days?
No heavy rain that drastically weakens the radio signal never lasts more than two hours. It is simply impossible that there is not so much water in the atmosphere.
GPS can’t recover you. No matter the signal or watchdog timer at 864000 seconds or 10 day. Talk about how you solve problems. As the number of APs and the number of dropped out increases, this time decreases exponentially. Each oscillator slides to its side, so “virtual synchronization that looks ok on the web interface only for the eyes” has no purpose. The performance of the device is starting to fall passionately. They are getting worse as time goes on with this virtual posture.
Imagine a situation with a tower where 12 APs and three or four lose sync, and continue to work with that virtual hold the next day. In the end, none of them work properly.
You think a lot of it is perfect and it’s not.

Greeting

I ask the administrator of the forums to stop deleting or auditing posts.
It’s easier for him to block me.

Zica,

I don’t think any of your posts were deleted or edited.
You are still more than welcome to share Tech Support Files or the Support Ticket Number.

Thank you.

1 Like

Fedor
Delete this and it is the least important to me because I ended up buying anything that has the Cambium brand forever.
You will never receive technical support cards or access to equipment again.
We did it a few times, chewed from to and nothing. For several years now, you’ve been pulling the same problem and switching to anyone but yourself.
But I will be loud on the forum because I have already spent money on Cambium equipment that has a problem with the GPS firmware.
I realized that.
Developers who have written GPS firmware or what you inherited from Motorola have no idea what they are doing.
You’ll get hit in the head sometime.

Best regards

The only real fix for ePMP onboard Sync is, and always has been, don’t use ePMP onboard sync because sooner or later it will fail you and then fail you again, and again and… as you point out, losing sync is really really bad when you depend on it.

With the 2000’s at least you can do Sync Over Power (CMM3 / CMM4 / CMM5) and never have GPS problems again, ever. We use Packetflux sync over power on all our Cambium gear. If the power source for your radios in on the ground you don’t even have to climb the tower. We have been using it for probably 14 years now (started with Motorola Canopy) and it has never failed us (well that one time GLONASS locked up 1/2 the GPS devices on the planet).

We are pretty fed up with ePMP these days also and I dream of the day I can say, like ninedd, “we aren’t buying any more ePMP radios”. But for now all I can say is we no longer use ePMP for Point to Point (well except for one PTP 550 that reboots pretty much daily so its days are numbered) and unless there is some real changes in ePMP land I have no intention of using them for any new expansions.

Zica - you’ve also asked forum members for help figuring out what’s wrong. If you refuse to provide Cambium with technical support files (as I told you in private message already) you are doomed to no solution then.

Cambium is trying to help and has asked you multiple times for:

  1. Your AP Support Files
  2. Your Support Ticket #

At the very least - take 2 minutes and provide them with the Support files. You are refusing everyone’s help. You are choosing NOT to provide anyone with the technical info they need in order to help you. There is no logic - there is no possible way for anyone to help you, if you don’t give them your Tech Support files.

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At this point I think it is clear that zica doesn’t actually want help and is instead pursuing a grudge against Cambium. That is not the purpose of this forum.

@zica49, reporting bugs is absolutely fine (and encouraged), but rants like these don’t help anyone. Please could you stick to constructive feedback.

Thanks.

I will never provide technical support files again, nor will I allow anyone to connect to my equipment remotely.
It all boiled down to exchanging emails and phone conversations that didn’t lead to progress.
Everyone has a problem, not just me. Maybe most didn’t understand it but I did. So I’m of the opinion that it should be made public.
Cambium’s policy is to give all the money they have and will earn in the future to them for equipment.
Any problem that is not fixed on time and that pulls 2k equipment says it is solved with 3k.
For example spectrum analyzer, etc.
Now I needed to throw 2k and buy 3k gear.
To solve GPS synchronization you should still buy something from CMM3 / CMM4 / CMM5 etc.
I was told when it was presented that GPS sync is what ePMPM has an advantage over the competition.
I weighed even though it was expensive and bought it and relied on that GPS sync.
Of course when doing this the cambium is brutal and the frequency repeatability is a boon that is invaluable.
They don’t know maybe they don’t know or it’s politics, we will torture them to spend money on CMM3 / CMM4 / CMM5, etc.
An internal oscillator that has an accuracy of 5 ppm and some even 10 ppm is not able to maintain a normal state with synchronization for more than 2 hours. If two, three or four are dropped and a tower with ten or more APs causes chaos.
In the old firmware version, artificial maintenance was configurable for up to 1 day (86,400 seconds). A very funny solution.
After one day, the two APs can split with synchronization in 400 ms, and now imagine 10 days (864000 seconds) as in newer firmware versions. A solution to die of laughter, which speaks to Cambium’s approach to problem solving.
The one who wrote does not understand that the two APs on the tower never have the same temperature and that they are never exposed to the same external influences. He may have been ordered to do so by the authorities in order to spend more money on new or additional equipment.
By allowing synchronization to be kept for up to 10 days, Cambium is aware that synchronization returns on its own after an hour, two, a day or three.
Nothing has been done in the last three years since I first reported the problem.
Best regards.