Troubleshooting & Diagnosis

Every way to actually reach a box, in order of how likely you are to need it, followed by common problems and fixes.

Connecting to the box

1. Normal Wi-Fi hotspot

The box broadcasts its own network, bikebox_hotspot_<N>, password datarecord. Connect to it from your phone, laptop, or any device, then reach the box's web control panel at http://10.42.0.1 — that address is fixed regardless of which box's hotspot you're on. This is the normal path for everything in Rider Operation and Data Uploading.

2. Backup hotspot

If the box's usual Wi-Fi hardware has a problem, its network may come up as bikebox_hotspot_<N> backup instead — same password, same http://10.42.0.1 address once connected. The difference is this mode doesn't share internet access, so anything in Data Uploading that needs the box itself to reach the internet won't work until the primary hotspot recovers.

3. Ethernet (last resort / remote diagnosis)

If neither hotspot is reachable at all, the box can be reached over a direct ethernet cable — but this depends on how its ethernet port is currently configured, since the same port is also used for a static link to the LiDAR unit. Whether a plain ethernet cable gets you a usable connection depends on which network profile is active; see Access & deployment for the actual commands to check/switch this. This path generally needs someone with SSH access already, so treat it as the escalation path once the two hotspot methods have both failed.

Common problems

The box's Wi-Fi network doesn't show up

• Give it a minute or two after powering on — the hotspot comes up after the rest of the system finishes booting.
• Check for the backup variant of the network name (see above).
• If neither shows up after a few minutes, power-cycle the box.

"Box not responding" / can't sync after connecting

You're on the box's Wi-Fi and a connection was made at some point, but nothing recent has come back — this usually means the box's own software needs a moment (or a restart), even though the network link itself is fine. Retry the connection from the app; if it doesn't recover, a box restart is the next step.

Wi-Fi scan is rate-limited

Android limits how often an app can scan for Wi-Fi networks. If you've tried connecting a few times in quick succession, wait about a minute, or connect manually via the phone's own Wi-Fi settings instead.

Clips stuck / won't sync

• Make sure you're still on the box's Wi-Fi.
• A clip that's failed to sync several times shows as "stuck" — this usually clears itself once the connection is stable again, and keeps retrying on its own.
• If it's been stuck a long time, reconnecting to the box's Wi-Fi (toggle it off/on) is often enough to kick the retry loop.

A recorded file has corrupted

Since the box starts recording on startup and stops when power is turned off, sometimes files can corrupt. This can sometimes be flagged during an upload — you can usually find the problem files by uploading the data in smaller sections to narrow down the issue. Usually it's at the start or end of a session's data.

Recording won't start

• Check the app isn't already mid-way through starting or stopping a previous recording.
• Low phone storage will block a new recording — free up space and try again.

Preview freezes for a moment after stopping

A short pause or frozen frame right as a recording stops is expected while the camera hands off from recording back to preview-only mode. If the preview stays frozen for more than a few seconds, backing out of the screen and returning resets the camera.

Still stuck?

Note the box number, roughly what you were doing, and what the screen showed, then get in touch with whoever administers the fleet.