Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting issues on a wall-ink-server may involve troubleshooting a wall-ink device as well. Please realize that some relevant discussion may be found in the wall-ink device troubleshooting article.
If you are experiencing problems with the device manager website, or downloading an image onto a wall-ink device, it is highly recommended to turn on the wall-ink-server "debug mode" in settings.cfg. This enables php to send error messages to a web browser. It is not necessarily a good idea to leave debug mode on permanently, because it can be used by hackers to help penetrate your system.
Do not confuse server debug mode with the wall-ink device debug mode, which enables the wall-ink device firmware to write detailed messages to the serial port.
Two types of logs are useful when troubleshooting issues with a wall-ink-server, the web server logs and the wall-ink-server logs. The web server logs on the web server that you are hosting hour wall-ink-server should keep a log of all page access and errors, what is logged and where it is kept will be dependent on what web server is hosting the wall-ink-server code. The wall-ink-server logs are located in the log directory of the wall-ink-server. The get_image.php script makes note every time a wall-ink device requests an image and it logs a timestamp, and all of the parameters passed into get_image.php into a log file. Each wall-ink device has a separate log file named with it's MAC address.
If images appear properly in the device manager for a device with a selected plugin and resource_id, but they don't appear on the device, it is highly recommended to manually download the wink file from a web browser.
The easiest way to see if a plugin is working correctly is using the device manager website and see if it can correctly produce images using the plugin, the resource_id, and the layout specified. See the instructions below for more details.
This can be caused by a number of problems. The device database might not be accessible, or perhaps a plugin is not working correctly. To find out what the problem is, either check your web server's error logs, or turn on debug mode in settings.cfg, or both.
This most likely means that your database has no table it it. Make sure you have created the appropriate device database table in the installation instructions.
There are a number of reasons why a wall-ink device is not getting an image. Several of these situations are listed below.
The first place to start when troubleshooting plugin issues is to bring up the device settings page for a wall-ink device in the device manager. This php page, edit_device.php will display a png formatted picture of the image as created by the selected plugin for that particular resource_id, layout, display orientation, etc. If this png is displaying properly, then the plugin is working properly. If the png file is not displaying first try other resource_ids within that plugin to see if the problem is associated to that particular resource. Next try a different plugin to see if it is a plugin problem. It may also be useful to check the web server logs and try turning on wall-ink-server debugging and then retry all of the steps above.
In the two images below, the resource on the left is displaying an image properly. This means that the plugin is working correctly for that resource_id. The picture on the right shows a plugin that cannot display an image for a particular resource for some reason.
Look in the device manager and check the "Last Checked In" time. If the device isn't checking in, look at the device to see why that device is not checking in. It may be experiencing WiFi issues, or perhaps it's battery is dead. Perhaps it is pointed to the wrong URL. See if there is an error on the console of the wall-ink device that may be helpful. See the troubleshooting article for Wall-ink devices for more information. It may also be useful to visit the wall-ink-server logs to see a history of when it has checked in and if any errors were reported.
Typically this is caused because the plugin is not working properly. Verify proper operation of the plugin in the device manager. It is also possible that the image has been damaged or altered in transit and does not match the verification test. Try manually checking the operation of the get_image.php script from a web browser. Look at the display of the wall-ink device to see if it contains an error code or error message that is useful in troubleshooting.