Duckiebot FAQ Guide
Contents
Duckiebot FAQ Guide#
This FAQ page collects common roadblocks you might run into when setting up your Duckietown environment and operating your Duckiebot.
Each symptom and resolution are also available on the pages they relate to throughout the manual, so be sure to watch for troubleshooting sections and carefully complete checkpoints as you progress.
Attention
If you don’t find the solutions you need in this section:
search the Duckietown Stack Overflow – to receive an invitation (join the Slack community) and follow these instructions;
search the Slack community #help channels,
then post your own question following the Duckietown technical support guidelines.
FAQs: Booting your Duckiebot#
Troubleshooting
SYMPTOM
I pressed the power button on top to boot my Duckiebot but nothing happened.
RESOLUTION
Power on your Duckiebot using the button on the side of the Duckiebattery. The top button is only for powering off. You can also learn more about how to handle your Duckiebot in Handling - Duckiebot DB21.
Troubleshooting
SYMPTOM
My Duckiebot does not appear to boot after pressing the power button on the battery. I don’t see a green light on the HUT or the Jetson Nano.
RESOLUTION
Refer back to Assembly - Duckiebot DB21J, and check each of your cable connections. Confirm the start and end port of each power cable from the battery. The battery must be charged fully as shown in the first assembly step.
Troubleshooting
SYMPTOM
My Duckiebot is getting power but does not appear to be booting. The Wifi dongle is not blinking.
RESOLUTION
Make sure you flashed the SD card following the instructions in Setup - Duckiebot SD Card.
Troubleshooting
SYMPTOM
My Duckiebot is getting power but does not appear to be booting. The Wifi dongle is not blinking.
RESOLUTION
Make sure that you correctly specified the model of your Duckiebot when initializing the SD card.
If you have a Duckiebot with a 2GB Jetson Nano - the model is DB21M
If you have a Duckiebot with a 4GB Jetson Nano - the model is DB21J
If you are not using a Jetson Nano, the model is the model of your Duckiebot (ex. DB19 or DBR4)
Troubleshooting
SYMPTOM
The Duckiebot screen does not turn on even though it shows up in dts fleet discover, and the Dashboard is accessible.
The ToF sensor and the front bumper are not detected on the Dashboard Components page.
RESOLUTION
Disconnect the ToF sensor from the front bumper and use the long cable that originally connected the front bumper to the HUT to connect the ToF sensor directly to that same HUT port. Then reboot. This bypasses a known multiplexer issue on some bumpers.
Troubleshooting
SYMPTOM
My Duckiebot appears to be booted and the screen is on, but I can’t see it using dts fleet discover.
RESOLUTION
Your Duckiebot must be connected to the same network as the computer you are using to run the dts commands. Check
the networking section of the book to see if your network is set up correctly.
Troubleshooting
SYMPTOM
I am not sure whether my Duckiebot is properly initialized.
RESOLUTION
As long as the fleet discover tool shows ready, your Duckiebot should be ready.
You can also visit the dashboard to confirm that the Duckiebot is serving its status.
Generally as long as you see the Duckiebot dashboard is up, your Duckiebot should be correctly initialized.
Troubleshooting
SYMPTOM
I see a permissions error when trying to access the Duckiebot dashboard: Directory '/data/config/permissions' cannot be written.
RESOLUTION
Take the sd card from your robot (press in once to release the spring, then remove)
Put it in your laptop using the adapter that came with the card
Navigate to the root of the card in your terminal. Most OS have an option to right click on the drive when it appears on your desktop or in the sidebar and select a “open in terminal”, “new terminal at folder”, or similar
Run
chmod -R 777 ./data/config/permissionsEject the drive, place back in the Duckiebot, and power back up
FAQs: Operating your Duckiebot#
Troubleshooting
SYMPTOM
The power button on top does not shut off the Duckiebot.
RESOLUTION
The power button needs to be held for three seconds and then released. If this still does not work, run dts duckiebot update <your_robot> and then use dts duckiebot reboot <your_robot>. You may also need to re-flash your
HUT following the procedure described in Debug - Re-flash Microcontroller if you have not already.
Troubleshooting
SYMPTOM
My Duckiebot has a very low battery charge and is stuck in a boot cycle.
RESOLUTION
Unplug all cables from the HUT except port # that is used to charge the battery. Allow the battery to charge for at least 5 hours before plugging all cables back in their nominal positions.
Troubleshooting
SYMPTOM
When using the keyboard control GUI, I can see the commands being sent to the Duckiebot (e.g., through the
Dashboard > Mission Control), but
the Duckiebot does not move. My Dashboard > Robot > Components page shows a red alert for the HUT.
RESOLUTION
If you have a HUT v3.1 you will stumble on this problem the first time you try to move your Duckiebot. Re-flash your HUT following the procedure described in Debug - Re-flash Microcontroller.
Troubleshooting
SYMPTOM
I have reflashed the HUT but the joystick commands still do not work or the Duckiebot operates in a jerky manner. Additionally, the ToF sensor and front bumper are not detected on the dashboard Components page. I may also be having issues with the screen.
RESOLUTION
Disconnect the ToF sensor from the front bumper and use the long cable that originally connected the front bumper to the HUT to connect the ToF sensor directly to that same HUT port. Then reboot. This bypasses a known multiplexer issue on some bumpers that can cause other HUT misbehaviors.
Troubleshooting
SYMPTOM
I’m still having a software issue that the Duckietown team has pushed a new fix for according to StackOverflow.
RESOLUTION
You can pull the latest images to your Duckiebot by running dts duckiebot update <duckiebot_name>. This is always
the correct way to reset your Duckiebot’s containers. You will never need to reflash the SD card to get updates.
Troubleshooting
SYMPTOM
A lot of the hardware components on the Robot Dashboard / Components tab are not found on DB21-series Duckiebots. And their connector buses are all I2C (see the bottom line of each component card).
RESOLUTION
There could be 3 reasons typically:
Please make sure that both rows of GPIO pins on the Jetson are connected accordingly to the connection slots on the HUT.
A broken component along the I2C bus could lead to this problem. You could perform the following: turn off the Duckiebot, unplug one element from the HUT at a time and boot, and repeat this for other components. If most missing components appear connected at one test, it is likely the unplugged component has a hardware failure. Please contact the Duckietown team for replacement. Please also try to record videos of these tests.
If all individual component unplugging tests were performed, and the components along the I2C chain are still missing all the time. There might be a Jetson I2C issue. Please try
sudo i2cdetect -r -y 1after SSH’ed to you robot, to see if that returns a table of I2C addresses identified. Please report to Duckietown Team with the test videos of the previous step and the outcome of running thei2cdetectcommand.