General Information

The gateway contains the Kerlink OS called KerOS, and on top of that the Helium software (the Light Miner package).
The software is automatically and remotely managed, it is not user serviceable. You don't need to worry about it.

• The LoRa radio is constantly listening to nearby packets and sends them to the Helium network in two ways: either it's a paid packet, and your miner will try to sell it and get paid for it; or it's a beacon transmitted by another miner, in which case your miner will try to know who challenged it, try to contact it (and hope it's not relayed!) to tell it "I saw this beacon". Later, a validator will process the transaction sent by the challenger and all parties will get rewards.
• In parallel, the miner may receive a challenge over the gRPC connection to its validator, and send a beacon to the LoRa radio. Any nearby miner may receive it and process it (see bullet 1).

Sources of information

Blockchain Explorers (such as Moken) are immensely useful tools to self-diagnose and troubleshoot your miner.

You may use:

• An explorer for...

  • Beacons: see if you get challenged and witnessed challenges
  • All activity: see more detailed beacons information
  • Rewards: rolling 24h, 7d and 30d windows
  • Rewards: see individual reward transactions

• This onboarding dashboard for...

  • The last time the miner was seen alive
  • The current validator information
  • The latest radio/PoC diagnostic
• Any other online tool may be also as reliable as this dashboard or explorer. They are very good third party tools that can provide useful insights.
• You don't need to check for port 44158, relay, ping or any other connection. Your miner connects to a validator over a gRPC link, and it is not testable from the outside.

Troubleshooting

OK, now when is it time to worry or relax? 🙂

😎 Relax even if...

• Rewards change a lot from one day to another
• My miner "flatlined" for a couple of hours
• I have no witness in a couple of hours
• I have no beacons in a few of days

😱 Get help if...️

• I have about 10 miners around me, and I have zero witnesses in over 24 hours
• I have not sent a single beacon in over 7 days

Conclusion

If you fall in the 😎 list, please refrain from asking for support. You are obviously still free to do so, but the likelihood of your problem being solved by itself in a few hours is very high; your problem might be solved before anyone from support may even have time to look into it.

If you fall in the 😱 list, please contact your reseller for support.