expanseElectronics

Status page reference#

Last updated · 3 min read

The Status page is the device's live diagnostic dashboard. It polls the device once every five seconds and surfaces everything the firmware knows about itself. This article is a field-by-field reference for what each row means and what values are healthy.

Identity#

Field Meaning
Node name Short name (max 18 chars) the device advertises over Art-Net. Default dualETH-HALO.
Long name Free-form description (max 64 chars). Also broadcast in Art-Net's ArtPollReply.
Firmware Currently running firmware version (e.g. v7.2.1).
Uptime Seconds since last boot, formatted as Dd Hh Mm Ss. Reset by any reboot — soft, hard, or watchdog.

Status LEDs#

A three-cell row mirroring the three physical LEDs on the board (Port A RX, Port A TX, Port B TX). Each cell shows the same colour the hardware LED is currently displaying. Useful when the unit is in a rack and you can't see the front panel.

The cell colours pulse in the browser independently of the 5-second poll, so an LED pulsing at 1 Hz on the device will pulse smoothly in the browser too.

See the quick start for what each colour means.

Network#

Field Meaning
IP address Current IPv4 address. Tagged DHCP if leased, static if from EEPROM.
Subnet Subnet mask in dotted-quad form.
Gateway Default route.
MAC Device MAC address. Derived from the processor's factory address — unique per board.

If your IP shows the static fallback (10.0.0.1) when you expected DHCP, your DHCP server isn't responding — check your switch and DHCP scope.

Per-port#

For each of Port A and Port B:

Field Meaning
Status Mode + protocol summary, e.g. DMX out · Art-Net or WS2812 · sACN.
Packet count Total Art-Net or sACN packets received on this port since boot. Resets to zero on reboot.
Packet rate Rolling 1-second average — packets per second received in the last second.

A healthy DMX-out port being driven by a console will typically show a packet rate between 30 and 44 (consoles refresh at varying rates between 30 Hz and 44 Hz). A rate of zero with traffic expected means the console isn't reaching the board — see the troubleshooting article.

Memory#

The processor has limited RAM, and certain operations (especially serving the web UI under load) can fragment what's left. The Status page surfaces three numbers:

Field Meaning When to worry
Free heap Bytes of RAM available to allocate. Below ~8 KB the firmware shows a low-memory warning. Below ~4 KB you may see web UI failures.
Heap fragmentation Percentage. How scattered the free memory is. High fragmentation (>50%) with low total free memory means even small allocations may fail.
Largest free block Bytes in the single biggest contiguous free region. If this is small (<2 KB) but free heap is high, fragmentation is the problem.

Memory pressure is rarely a problem with default settings; it tends to crop up only on long-uptime devices serving heavy traffic.

Reset diagnostics#

Field Meaning
Last reset reason Why the device booted: Power on, External reset, Software reset, Watchdog, Exception, etc.
Soft reset counter How many times the device has soft-reset itself in a row without a clean power-on.
Watchdog reset counter How many times the watchdog has fired since the last clean reset.

These two counters are persistent across reboots — they get cleared only when the device boots cleanly via power-on. If either climbs into double digits, something is wrong: the brick-recovery dance will fire automatically once thresholds are hit (5 soft / 10 watchdog) and the device will reset to factory defaults.

Heartbeat#

A small dot in the status header pulses each time the browser successfully polls the device. If the dot stops pulsing, the page has lost contact — either the device has crashed, the network is down, or the browser tab has been backgrounded long enough for the JS timer to be throttled.