Unexpected Large Cellular Usage

I am running an RAK7268C with an LTE back haul. Typical data usage is between 1-2 MB per day. Yesterday the gateway consumed 76MB and I have no idea why. Fortunately my cellular provider paused the cellular service. This happened to me once before in August.

I am running version 1.0.1_RAK rRAK-96aa330. I have seen a couple of threads similar to this where the advice was to upgrade to the latest WisGate firmware, which I believe is WisGateOS v1.3.4. per the download site.

I have never upgraded the firmware before and want to be careful about it as I don’t want to brick the device.

If anyone has comments or suggestions about the unexpected very large data usage (and how to stop it) or how to safely upgrade the firmware, please let me know.

Thanks,
Mike Boucher

I own more than 10 RAK7268C and all of them are using LTE connections. Just from experience, data usage will increase sightly when the connection is unstable, since the device is sending more “ping” to check if the internet is up, also, can you check if there are more sensor sending uplink? Sometimes when a rogue device appear which spam OTTA request, the data usage will also increase alot. But since I got unlimited data plan for all gateway so I never thought it will be a problem.

I do recommand upgrading to the latest version if WisGateOS, they work find and stable.

thanks for the reply, chansheunglong.

My RAK7268C is connected to The Things Network and I’ve got about 10 devices configured for that network. I also have around 10 other sensors running on the Helium network via several Helium hotspots. All this is at my home. So to answer your question, there are definitely other sensors sending uplinks. I can’t prove this, but I don’t believe any of these other sensors have gone rogue as they are the same sort of sensors I am using on the TTN - i.e. Browan and Dragino sensors.

What is so odd is that this large data spike seems to happen once every 2 months or so, then things return to normal.

I’d prefer not to go with an inlimited data plan to keep the cost down for LTE usage.

I’ll give the firmware update a try. I know where to download the latest firmware (link provided in my original post) and I know where in the RAK7268C web interface to perform the upgrade, but I haven’t been able to find a set of instructions for how to perform the upgrade. I really don’t want to brick the device. Also, do you know if I’ll lose all my settings on the gateway if I do an upgrade?

Thanks again for sharing your experience with the gateway.

I upgraded all my gateway a few times but they comes with 1.3.1 anyway so I am not really sure about that. I think someone from RAK can answer your question, maybe contact them via email directly?
Let me report back if I can see bi-monthly data spike.

@dangermikeb you can find the latest firmware for the RAK7268(C) here: https://downloads.rakwireless.com/LoRa/WisGateOS/WisGateOS_V1.3.5.zip
A guide to how to update here: Backup / Restore | RAKwireless Documentation Center
The settings will be not affected if the Keep settings are selected during the update procedure. If you want to be double-sure you can always make a backup: Backup / Restore | RAKwireless Documentation Center

Also, can you provide all the sys logs from your gateway to [email protected] to look closely into the issue with the cellular data spike? Here is how to locate and download the syslogs: File Browser Explanation | RAKwireless Documentation Center

@velev thank you for the detailed response and references on how to upgrade the firmware on the gateway.

Thanks also for the guidance on how to extract sys logs from the device. Unfortunately, it looks like I waited too long to download the logs as the earliest log file is from the day after the large data spike event.

On the bright side, I do have sys logs from a similar event that occurred at the end of August. I have sent those logs to [email protected]. The subject of that email is: Large Cellular Usage Data Spike in RAK7268C