HOW TO ACTIVATE THE MLAT FOR RADARBOX24

[chemitox]

Welcome.
This is my station: https://www.radarbox.com/stations/EXTRPI015003
I noticed that my MLAT is not working:



It used to work normally for me:

How can I fix this?
Best regards.

[AndreasWarby]

In my case, I have given up trying to help AirNav RadarBox with my station's MLAT data.  I had contacted support and, after some back and forth as I re-installed the MLAT package and the problem remained, I was then asked whether I am also providing MLAT services to any other organizations.  I replied that, yes, I am providing MLAT for FlightAware and ADSBExchange.  After I sent that reply, AirNav RadarBox stopped communicating with me.

Perhaps RadarBox has gone the route of FlightRadar24, who have explicitly requested that feeders providing MLAT to other orgs disable MLAT to FR24 (which I did)?  At this point, I've been left to guess that RB detects other MLAT feeds and then intentionally disables any synching.  That may protect RadarBox from some bad data, but the methodology (no explanation, poor communication) shows low respect for us feeders.

[anorak]

chemitox, have you read the mlat thread on the forum, where ABCD1234 goes through it step by step?

[Runway 31]

MLAT has not been disabled and Airnav has not disabled it if you are feeding elsewhere, MLAT seems to be working fine for all feeders with it on apart from you Andreas  They would communicate any requirements to turn off MLAT etc

You just need to look at all the feeders with MLAT set, I myself am showing 47 synced at this time and as you stated a few posts back your friends is working ok,  it must be something wrong with your MLAT client set up

Alan

[chemitox]

rbfeeder.ini is configured like this:

[Runway 31]

I see you are using Buster which is very old version and will probably be your issue, needing to upgrade your o/s

Alan

[AndreasWarby]

Alan, as a moderator do you represent / speak for AirNav RadarBox?  There is at least one other high-performing station in my area that is exhibiting the same characteristic as mine, namely EXTRPI618751.  The friend that I mentioned does not have the same setup of feeding to other organizations.  Is there a log file I can check to try to trouble shoot from my end?  I realize problems and misconfigurations can arise, but the real lament is with the sudden drop of support that I described.

[Runway 31]

Hi Andreas

 I so not represnt Airnav in any way ans am not employed by the,  I update the database and moderate the forum on a voluntary basis and can contact some Airnav people on specifics

I do not belive the support personel have much in the way of technical knowledge especially in Linux

I note the feeder you refer to has other as his FW version and appears to located in the proximity of abcd1234 or at least is located in the same town.  abcd1234 has tried to assist and if anyone can help its him

Alan

[chemitox]

I see you are using Buster which is very old version and will probably be your issue, needing to upgrade your o/s

Alan

This is true, but I want to use all the possibilities before updating the OS.
Is this file correct? It looks like there is an entry about it.
" Not starting mlat-client daemon, disabled via /etc/default/mlat-client ... (warning)."

[Runway 31]

I dont have the knowledge to answer that query.  However I note the lat/lon entries are blank, have you deleted them for the post as they are required for MLAT

Alan

[chemitox]

No, this file [/etc/default/mlat-client] was like that.
Additionally, it seems to be turned off:
"START_CLIENT="no"".

[abcd567]

This is my station: https://www.radarbox.com/stations/EXTRPI015003
I noticed that my MLAT is not working:

How can I fix this?

The mlat-client should NOT run on its own, and that is why it its systemd service is disabled. What you are seeing in your screenshot is normal. On all of my many RPis I see the same thing.

When the rbfeeder runs, it issues necessary command to run mlat-client directly, and not through systemd service.

If you check the status of rbfeeder by command "sudo systemctl status rbfeeder" you will see following three lines.  Below the line starting with "CGroup", you will find two more lines. The first one shows that rbfeeder is started successfully. The second one shows that mlat-client has been started successfully.

Code: [Select]

CGroup: /system.slice/rbfeeder.service
             ├─1322 /usr/bin/rbfeeder
             └─1358 /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/mlat-client --input-type dump1090 --input-connect 127.0.0.1:32457 --server mlat1.rb24.com:40900 --lat 43.5xxxx --lon -79.6xxxx --alt 155 --user EXTRPI000008 --results beast,connect,127.0.0.1:32004



[chemitox]

Exactly, that's what I used to have.
I don't see it at the moment.

[abcd567]

Exactly, that's what I used to have.
I don't see it at the moment.

Seems existing mlat-client package is corrupted.
(1) Purge it
(2) Clean apt to remove saved corrupt package, else apt will again use it when you issue command to install mlat-client
(3) Update
(4) Install mlat-client
(5) Reboot (important step after installing mlat-client)
(6) Check status of rbfeeder.

Code: [Select]

sudo apt purge mlat-client 

sudo apt clean   


sudo apt update

sudo apt install mlat-client   

sudo reboot   

sudo systemctl status rbfeeder   



[chemitox]

Thank you for the detailed descriptions, but unfortunately nothing has changed.  MLAT still doesn't work for me.
I think there may be a problem with Python, because when I change the entries in etc/rbfeeder.ini, I get different logs.  As you can see at the top, it recently worked for me with the Python 3.7 entry.
 Maybe one of the Moderators should delete my entries and move them to a new thread so as not to clutter this topic?