Reset 1-wire Bus - DS18B20

[philipBC]

I have a Pi3 application built in NODE JS which samples readings from 4 DS18B20 temperature sensors.

The sensors are connected using all three wires Data, Supply & Ground. I use a single 4.7k resistor to 'pull up' the data line to the 3.3V power line used to power the devices. Initially I used a permanent 3.3V pin on the Pi GPIO header to power the arrangement.

Sometimes I find that the sensors disappear and my application fails to log their temperatures. Restarting my NODEJS app or soft rebooting the Pi does not fix the problem. Only a power off restart of the Pi allows the sensors to the found once again.

So instead, I am now using a GPIO pin (3.3V) as the source of power for the four sensors. When my application detects the sensors have vanished I switch OFF the GPIO pin to power down the sensors for 20 seconds and then switch the GPIO pin back on. The sensors re-appear. A GPIO pin can supply enough current at 3.3V to power my four sensors.

So this mechanism seems to reset the 'hardware' side of the 1-wire bus and allows my sensors to be found once again.

I have not been able to figure out why the sensors vanish, but at least I can now recover gracefully from the problem under the control of my NODEJS app and without requiring a power off reboot of the Pi.

Hope you find this tip useful.

[amatbrewer]

Thanks for the post. I am running into the same problem and find your solution really interesting. Right now I have mine set up to reboot when it detects it can no longer ‘see’ a sensor as a temporary solution. I am considering using your solution, but it will require some mods to my setup (my sensors are soldered to a proto hat) so I want to be sure there are no programming solutions first. Have you received any feedback or learned anything more about this?

FYI my device manages the irrigation and heating of my greenhouse protecting some valuable (at least to me) Bonsai and other plants, so I need this to be as reliable as possible.

[Gangelie]

Hi all,

I know this post is quite old but however I have exactly the same issues and the only "solution" for me is as well switch off the power for the W1 bus to reset and after a couple of seconds the bus is again online and sensors are available till next outtage.

Would be great if the problem could be identified.

[Nitrogen_Widget]

I'm having the same issue with Cayenne IOT.
Randomly my one-wire temp sensors seem to go offline.
Every temp reads 32 degs F.

The only way to get them back is to power down the RPI2.

They worked fine for months so i'm lost on what the issue is.

[soso8465]

I am having the same issue. So it seems like sensors gets out of sync. Because if you look at /sys/bus/w1/devices/ you can still see the exact number of sensors active it's just their ID's are messed and and obviously the data they are sending.

Don't know how to fix. And for me it started to happen like every few minutes... very annoying.

[1wire]

So instead, I am now using a GPIO pin (3.3V) as the source of power for the four sensors. When my application detects the sensors have vanished I switch OFF the GPIO pin to power down the sensors for 20 seconds and then switch the GPIO pin back on. The sensors re-appear.

I am having the same problem, since a bit more than one year,, and after a long search, this is a great solution, or at least a great workaround! (I needed a solution that can be performed remotely.) Thanks a lot!

In my case, the problem arises irregularly, about once every 2 or 3 weeks. I found that whenever it occurred, a power consumer (ice box) hanging close in the same power circuit had turned off very shortly before (e.g., 1 second). Sudo reboot does not (or very rarely) help, but shutdown with repowering the Pi helps. Plugging off the sensors (plug with all three wires) from the Pi and replugging them after a while also seems to help (tried only once so far).
Logfiles tell that "the maximum number of 64 sensors has been reached", and after that, a series of wrong sensor addresses appears in the log, one after the other every few seconds.

To advance this issue, which seems pretty common and barely understood, I would like to ask these questions:

- Where does the error come from? It looks as if quick power fluctuations can provoke it (though not reliably, of course). Does it come via power supply (then a power filter might help), or is it radiation from the power grid into the 1-wire-cable? (Then changing cables might help)

- Where is the error stored, once it hase arisen? If a reboot does not help, but repowering does, then which structures loose their memory only with power off but not with rebooting? Is the error stored in the Pi, or in the sensors?

- In this workaround, interrupting 3.3V supply for the sensors helps. But how should this reset the bus master? I rather guess that some memory within the sensors is (helpfully) lost, which solves the problem.

- I think, if actually the bus master would be reset by powering off the sensors, then plugging off (or grounding) the datapin should have the same effect.

I would so much like to understand what is going on, not just work around it.
Thanks.