Gateway Mesh / Rx delay configuration

Viewed 91

Hi,

We are experiencing an issue with downlink ACK reception on LoRaWAN devices using Mesh gateways with ChirpStack.

Current configuration :

  • RX Delay set to 12s in the Device Profile
  • Network: ChirpStack + Mesh gateways
  • Uplinks are correctly received
  • Downlink acknowledgements are never received by devices

Issue:

  • Even with RX Delay configured to 12 seconds in the Device Profile, devices never receive any ACK downlinks.

Questions:

  • Are there other ChirpStack parameters (Network Server, Application Server, Gateway Bridge, etc.) that affect RX1/RX2 delay timing?
  • Are there any specific settings on the Mesh gateways (buffering, latency, scheduling, time sync, mesh routing, etc.) required for LoRaWAN downlinks?
  • Are there known constraints between:
    • High RX Delay values (12s)
    • Downlinks
    • Mesh gateways
    • ChirpStack

Possible causes we are investigating:

  • Mesh latency incompatible with RX windows
  • Time synchronization issues (NTP / GPS / PPS)
  • Downlink generated by ChirpStack but never transmitted by the gateway
  • Mesh network downlink scheduling problems

If anyone has already faced this setup (Mesh gateways + ChirpStack), any feedback or experience would be highly appreciated.
Thanks in advance for your help

Please note that changing the RX1 Delay in the device-profile only becomes effective after ChirpStack has sent a mac-command to the device, and the device confirms this mac-command. Please check the delay field in the downlink payload in ChirpStack if the downlink is using 12s or 1s.

1 Answers

The problem is that if you set it after the device has already been activated and the current delay is to short, there is no way to make this mac-command (or any downlink) reach the device. In that case you must let your device rejoin (the RX Delay is also sent as part of the join-accept message).