There are issues with every piece of software that was every made available to other people. InqPortal is no different. Some companies don’t know, don’t tell. Others may know and still don’t tell. Here are all the ones we know are in InqPortal. There are some issues that can’t or won’t be fixed. Some fall under the category… Well, Dah! All others tend to be extreme edge cases that you will never experience. However, maybe you’re an extreme kind of person. Of course, if you find something that doesn’t work for you, please let us know.
Compile Error
- It compiles and uploads, but I don’t see any initialization and I can’t browse to the Admin. – Do you have the Serial Output set to 115200 baud. Another issue can occur if you have not set the Erase Flash option in the Arduino IDE to: “All Flash Contents“. This is required the first time so that the flash memory is cleared. Otherwise, InqPortal thinks any existing data in the flash memory was meant to configure it. In certain circumstances, this can cause long delays or even infinite loops.
Other Issues We Know Of
- I get an exception/reboot when adding a lot of files – As an Application server, we really don’t expect InqPortal to need more than 20 files or so. It’s routinely tested with 50 files just to make sure its reliable. There are no hard limits and speed should not noticeably drop for hundreds of files. It depends a great deal on the length of your file names, but we’ve been able to upload over 500 files. However, the system is nearly unusable at that size. This is regardless of “disk” space available. We know what the issue is, but are currently not working it. If you have a use case where this is an issue, you are certainly an extreme kind of person. Please reach out to us.
- For the Inquisitive and technical people in the audience – InqPortal‘s file system builds the file system dictionary in memory at startup. This allows it to be fast and completely fail safe when a power failure occurs at any point in the upload. Unfortunately, it takes up memory. With 500 +/- files, its running out of memory and blowing chunks!
- All the solutions are sub-optimal. They’ll require multiple KB of program space and will be significantly slower.
Other Issues That Can’t or Won’t Be Fixed
- Compile error – not enough program space – InqPortal is big! However, there is at least 100 KB available for your app before you have to bump up the program space from the 512K to the 1MB version.
- I can’t upload more files to my server –
- Maybe it needs to be Defragmented or old files need to be deleted first. But the Admin would have already told you this.
- Maybe you’re trying to upload 1MB to ESP-01 or 5MB to a WeMos.
- Maybe you created the wrong size file system when using the Arduino IDE menu option Tools / Flash Size:
- You can gzip files and add them to InqPortal. This may get you down to where you need to be to fit.
- You can get an ESP8266 with more flash memory – say from a 512K/1M ESP-01 to a 4MB ESP-07, 12, WeMos, NodeMCU or from a 4MB WeMos to a 16MB WeMos D1 Mini Pro.
- What happened to the spaces in my file name? – URL’s can’t have spaces in them and since InqPortal is a web server, we don’t allow them. If you try to upload one, spaces are replaced with underbars.
- InqPortal is tested extensively in Windows Chrome and Edge browsers. It also has been tested in Windows version of FireFox. We also have tested it on Linux Chromium. It also is fully tested on Android Chrome on various phones and tablets. We have found out from some users that it will not work on MacOS Safari, but will work with MacOS Chrome. To our knowledge so far we have not been able to get it on any browser on iOS devices. It appears that the lack of secure communications (SSL) is not allowed on these devices even considering that these servers are typically behind our home’s router and is not exposed to the Internet and can not be hacked. If some real iOS user gets it working, please contact us and let us know how.