[Feature Request] Auto Reboot

[holdit]

It seems that from time to time, some repeaters benefit a bit from a reboot. Sometimes things go wrong and in remote nodes, waiting for it to restart would help. Things like that.

So I'd like to suggest a feature where we could set our repeater (chat room too?) to reboot every X days/hours (whatever you see fit, but I guess not too low).

Thank you in advance.

[dreirund]

Instead of just "sweeping the issues below the carpet", the code quality should be checked and improved, underlying coding errors found and resolved, maybe a code audit is needed.

Auto reboot because something hickups is fighting symptoms and not causes, and the causes can also lead to more problematic stuff. (Buffer/ memory overflows can be maliciously used, in some circumstances config could get corrupt, etc.)

AND:

If you really need auto reboot, ALSO add debug logging so that the things that go wrong can be captured and analysed to find the root cause.

[holdit]

From a user point of view, better code, fixes, better stability and security, etc, sounds great. The problem is, I don't know how to code, can't help with any of that, and can't force anyone to work more on the project.

I can reboot my repeater or companion though, and sometimes do so when something isn't working as smoothly as it should. For example, yesterday before writing this, I was having a few misses between my companion and repeater (Xiao nRF52 kit)... I rebooted it, and it was working better afterwards. Sometimes it's something else and a reboot does nothing... it's hard to say what it is when I'm a noob and the mesh itself isn't that reliable.

Maybe software will be better in this new era of AI/LLMs, but until that happens, the "have you tried turning it off and on" is still a tool to use. Hence the request. If a weekly or even daily reboot makes things run smoother, then why not?

In any case, it's up to the smart people here to decide.

[siren386]

It seems that from time to time, some repeaters benefit a bit from a reboot. Sometimes things go wrong and in remote nodes, waiting for it to restart would help. Things like that.

So I'd like to suggest a feature where we could set our repeater (chat room too?) to reboot every X days/hours (whatever you see fit, but I guess not too low).

Thank you in advance.

I fully support this.

[towerviewcams]

agree fully support this

[winnieXY]

Tbh I opose a auto reboot. If something crashes/ doesn't work as expcepted you can't rely that a configured "reboot" would work.

Instead a (optional) watchdog would be better. Watchdogs are commonly used in microcontroller to safeguard against possible faults.

[holdit]

Tbh I opose a auto reboot. If something crashes/ doesn't work as expcepted you can't rely that a configured "reboot" would work.

Instead a (optional) watchdog would be better. Watchdogs are commonly used in microcontroller to safeguard against possible faults.

Maybe a watchdog would be better, but I'm assuming that takes longer to develop correctly?

If so, then "don't let perfection be the enemy of good". Ship a dumb reboot feature now and replace it with something better in the future.

[siren386]

You can for example implemet an easy solution for this if you let the user set a variable for "reboot after every Xth advert" (and set a default value of 100 or so). The reboot takes seconds so it should not affect the network.