Check Bobber App/Web Dashboard Status
You can use the Bobber App's Web Dashboard feature to remotely monitor the connection state of all of your miners!
Simply access the dashboard to check if your miner is online, regardless of where it is located!
Download the Bobber App in the Google Play Store or Apple App Store to monitor your miners!
If your miner shows offline status, you can try the following simple troubleshooting steps to bring it back online:
- Ensure the miner is powered on and showing normal LED status. For an explanation of LED status, check out our Miner LED article.
- Verify the internet connection is working and there are no ISP issues
- Reboot both the miner and the router it is connected to
- Test the WiFi connection using another device if your miner is connected via WiFi
- Unplug and re-seat both ends of the Ethernet cable if your miner is connected via Ethernet cable, and ensure there are activity lights on both ports
- If still not online, proceed to the next step to check your router's connected devices page
Check Router's Connected Devices Page
If your miner is not coming online, check to ensure it is detected by your router. Most routers will have a "connected devices" or "LAN device list" section which will show all devices on your home network that the router can communicate with.
Look for the miner in the list of devices:
- Bobcat Miner 300: Typically listed as bobcatminer
- Bobber 500: Typically listed as bobber-gateway
If you need assistance with logging into your router, or finding information in your router please reach out to your ISP. Due to the large number of possible routers and ISP specific settings, Bobber cannot assist with your particular internet connection. Some ISPs also require configuration to be accessed from an app or website while signed into your account, rather than the local router webpage. In these instances you should never share your login information with any support agent for assistance! Keep your credentials safe!
If your miner is shown in the list of devices but is still offline, try the following steps:
- Check to make sure there is not an error indicated by the LED color. For an explanation of LED status, check out our Miner LED article. If the Helium Miner software is not running properly, this can cause an offline state.
- Check the local dashboard of your miner for more information:
- Bobcat Miner 300: Check the Diagnoser by following our article on how to access the Diagnoser.
- Bobber 500: Check the local dashboard by following our article on how to access the local dashboard.
- Reboot both the miner and the router.
- Proceed to the next step to ping the miner from the same network. Submit a ticket to Bobber Support for further investigation and include the results of the ping test.
If your miner is not showing in the list of devices:
- Check to make sure there is not an error indicated by the LED color. For an explanation of LED status, check out our Miner LED article. If the Helium Miner software is not running properly, this can cause an offline state.
- Reboot both the miner and the router
- Test the WiFi connection using another device if your miner is connected via WiFi. Connect the miner with an Ethernet cable instead for the purposes of testing.
- Unplug and re-seat both ends of the Ethernet cable if your miner is connected via Ethernet cable, and ensure there are activity lights on both ports.
- Try plugging the Ethernet cable into a different port on your router.
- If still not showing in the list of connected devices, submit a ticket to Bobber Support for further investigation.
Ping Miner From the Same Network
A ping is a quick test to determine if the connection between two devices is working properly (in this case, the device you are performing the ping on (such as your laptop) and your miner.
A ping sends several packets to a destination address and requests the destination device to send back an echo. It then informs you if the responses were received and how long they took.
To ping your miner, the device starting the ping must be on the same local network as your miner (connected to the same router). For Windows devices, open a Command Prompt window. For MAC devices, open a Terminal window. In the window, type ping xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx where x is the IP address of your miner. For example, ping 192.168.0.250.
If you're not sure of the IP address of your miner, refer to the above section on checking your router's connected devices page to find this information.
A successful ping will show 0% loss and all pings having replies:
An unsuccessful ping will show a large amount or all packets lost and ping responses such as Request timed out or Destination host unreachable.
NOTE: It is normal to sometimes see the first one or two ping replies be lost. If this happens, run the ping command again and you should see 0% loss. This is because your computer needs to look up what device that IP address belongs to.
Move Miner to DMZ for Testing
If your miner is online but traffic is not working correctly to your miner (for example, Bobber Support can't connect, your miner can't receive OTA updates, proof of coverage is not working properly, etcetera) there may be a firewall setting or other packet filtering rule in place on your router which is interfering with traffic reaching the miner.
Turning off your firewall completely will expose your internal network to threats from the internet, so this is not recommended. The easiest way to confirm if a setting is blocking miner traffic is to disable all firewall rules and filtering for the miner only and see if the issue resolves. To do this, you'll need to place the miner in the Demilitarized Zone or DMZ in your router's firewall settings.
The DMZ is a separate zone in your router's firewall which it treats differently than your local network (LAN).
Typically, devices in your LAN are allowed to send traffic out to the internet without restrictions. Return traffic (responses to your requests) are allowed back in, but traffic originating from the internet is not allowed into your LAN (unless you set up a port forwarding rule to allow it).
The DMZ is a second internal zone which is treated similarly to the internet. Your LAN devices can send traffic to the DMZ and get return traffic back, however requests originating from the DMZ to your LAN are generally blocked.
Unlike with the LAN however, traffic originating from the internet is allowed full access to DMZ devices. Typically a DMZ is used for devices like Servers which must be accessible from the internet (outside of your home network) as well as inside your home network, however due to their exposure to internet traffic they have a higher risk of being compromised. Due to this, a DMZ zone is used so that if a device in the DMZ is compromised, its traffic is not allowed to send to LAN devices without first having been requested by the LAN device to limit any risks to your LAN.
Due to the free flow of traffic from the internet to the DMZ, placing your miner in the DMZ will allow you to verify if a firewall rule is causing your issues. Once moved to the DMZ, the rules are no longer applied to the miner and if the issue resolves, most likely one of the firewall rules was causing the issue. You can then either leave the miner in the DMZ or move it back to the LAN and try to determine the precise rule which is blocking the traffic which you can then disable specifically for the miner.
If you need assistance with logging into your router or configuring the firewall/DMZ, please reach out to your ISP. Due to the large number of possible routers and ISP specific settings, Bobber cannot assist with your particular internet connection. Some ISPs also require configurations to be made from an app or website while signed into your account, rather than the local router webpage. In these instances you should never share your login information with any support agent for assistance! Keep your credentials safe!
Allowing Specific Traffic Required for Normal Miner Operation
In cases where moving your miner to the DMZ and leaving it there is not feasible (such as when the miner is attached to an IT managed network), specific traffic can be allowed through the firewall to facilitate proper miner operation. The following is a list of connections that must be open for Helium IoT miners to function normally:
- http://entropy.iot.mainnet.helium.io port 7080 - this is the Entropy Oracle which randomizes beaconing events for added security and anti-gaming measures
- http://mainnet-pociot.helium.io port 9080 - this is the PoC Ingest Oracle, where witness and beacon receipts are sent to be validated and rewarded
- http://mainnet-config.helium.io port 6080 - this is the Configuration Oracle which applies Region and other configuration to the miner
- http://mainnet-router.helium.io port 8080 - this is the Helium Router, all valid Helium based LoRaWAN sensor packets are sent here to be routed to the appropriate customer's account
Additional connections must be open for Helium MOBILE miners to function normally:
- https://spectrum-connect.federatedwireless.com/v1.2 - this is the Spectrum Access System (SAS) server which handles configuration and authorization of various Magma Gateway and CBRS radio components
In addition, the following traffic must be allowed both to and from the miner to allow Bobber Support VPN access to the device for troubleshooting purposes:
- TCP port 1194