I keep getting malformed XML packet received from Indigo

Posted on
Wed Nov 23, 2011 6:02 am
rainman50 offline
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I keep getting malformed XML packet received from Indigo

I have been getting this off and on with my iPads running the Indigo Touch app. I have the newest Indigo 5 software running. I have both iPad 1 and 2 doing it.
It might happen maybe one time in a couple days or so. Any ideas as to what I should checkout. I have been getting this for several months now.


Thanks,

Dave

Posted on
Wed Nov 23, 2011 9:30 am
matt (support) offline
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Re: I keep getting malformed XML packet received from Indigo

Hmmm... I'm not sure. I've only seen this before when someone connects to the wrong Indigo Server (they connect to the Indigo Server port 1176, instead of the Indigo Web Server port 8176). Besides that, it sounds like some type of network problem is causing a corrupt XML packet to arrive. Is this over local Wi-Fi?

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Posted on
Wed Nov 23, 2011 1:16 pm
Otis offline
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Re: I keep getting malformed XML packet received from Indigo

I got malformed XML packet messages several times a week on my iPod Touches, but they went away about the time I upgraded to the beta version of version 5. There would be a number of other error messages relating to connectivity, but they are much less frequent now.

Posted on
Thu Nov 24, 2011 9:29 am
ckeyes888 offline
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Re: I keep getting malformed XML packet received from Indigo

Funny this thread would turn up. Just started seeing those as well a few days ago, maybe once a day. Indigo 4, iPod Touch 1.7.0

I just switched to the Demo server and back to mine and it seems to correct.

Carl

Posted on
Sun Nov 27, 2011 6:31 am
rainman50 offline
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Re: I keep getting malformed XML packet received from Indigo

Yes. it is over local WiFi. I have 4 Apple routers 2 airport extremes and 2 time capsules. 3 of then tie (via ethernet) into one of the time capsules which is assigning the IP's and connected to the cable modem. I have each Wireless router assigned different names (Airport West, East ,North and South). I'll try connecting them to the different wireless routers and see if that makes any difference.



Dave

Posted on
Sun Nov 27, 2011 6:48 am
Otis offline
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Re: I keep getting malformed XML packet received from Indigo

Likely a different problem, but I also get iPod Touch messages like "can't find file on local server" and "Reflector connection down" (I don't remember the exact wording). What's interesting is that these messages usually stop for a week or two whenever I install a new version of Indigo, and gradually return and are eventually a daily occurrence. I have very strong wireless signals and not much else is going on in the network when it happens. Is there a cache of some sort that gets cleared whenever I update the software?

Posted on
Sun Nov 27, 2011 10:05 am
matt (support) offline
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Re: I keep getting malformed XML packet received from Indigo

Otis wrote:
Is there a cache of some sort that gets cleared whenever I update the software?

Not really. Does an Indigo shutdown and restart get it working, or does it literally take an update/installer?

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Posted on
Mon Nov 28, 2011 2:15 pm
rainman50 offline
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Re: I keep getting malformed XML packet received from Indigo

more info:

When using an OS X computer MacMini, MacBookPro or a PC running Windows 7 I have never got the Malformed XML packet error. Also on an iPod touch and my iPhone I have not got it either. Just with the iPad using the Indigo Touch App. I'm testing now to see if I get it using the iPad with Safari instead of the Indigo Touch App.

Dave

Posted on
Thu Dec 01, 2011 6:00 am
rainman50 offline
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Re: I keep getting malformed XML packet received from Indigo

I keep getting this error message (malformed XML packet). It is happening more often, probably about 4 or so times a day.
I have a few questions:

Is this error message generated by Indigo or is it by the iPad's operating system?

Is there a way of just ignoring it and not displaying the message so I don't have to clear it and retry again? It always seems that when I clear the message and try again it works OK. Though one time I have it repeat it when I cleared it.

Is there anything I can check on my side to see what it might be? I never got it with my MACs (Mac Mini, Macbook Pro or Air) or PC computer running with any browser.

It's almost getting to a point where it's too annoying to have to clear it all the time. One thing I thought interesting is that I have about 9 iPads at home that are ON all the time displaying an Indigo server page. I might have one iPad display the error massage but not the other ones that are even displaying the exact same control page. Why would one get the error and the other not?


Thanks for any input you can offer.

Dave

Posted on
Thu Dec 01, 2011 9:23 am
Otis offline
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Re: I keep getting malformed XML packet received from Indigo

For what it's worth, I'm wondering if the iTouch messages that I've been getting are happening when the amount of Free Memory becomes very small. Is Indigo's communications timeout short enough so that swapping data on and off the hard drive could cause the errors?

I saw the errors very often with my old (early 2005) Mac Mini, which usually ran with a tiny sliver of green in the Activity Monitor's pie chart. With my new, faster, bigger Mini, errors are very infrequent until WeatherSnoop has been running for a couple of weeks and its real memory usage creeps up to over 500MB so that Free Memory again becomes very small. (I need to ask WeatherSnoop people about this. Has anyone else seen memory leak symptoms with WS? ).

And by the way, I often see malformed XLM packet errors when I restart the Mini. I assume this is because a packet was cut off in the middle of transmission.

Posted on
Thu Dec 01, 2011 10:38 am
matt (support) offline
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Re: I keep getting malformed XML packet received from Indigo

The Malformed XML error is specific to Indigo Touch. It is thrown when the app gets a completed packet back from Indigo but the data received isn't the valid XML that is expected. I can force it to occur, for example, by entering an address that isn't really an Indigo Server. There is not currently a way to have Indigo Touch ignore it (since it really shouldn't occur often).

I'm not sure why you are seeing it so much more frequently. I wonder if your Wi-Fi connection is periodically dropping out on that device for some reason. Note that if you are leaving Indigo Touch running and connected for long periods of time and there is a Wi-Fi drop at all during that time it will show the error alert.

It would be nice if Indigo Touch would automatically reconnect in the background and if the connection ever succeeds to have it automatically clear the error message. Indigo Touch already does that for some types of communication failures, but not for the malformed XML case. We'll investigate adding that to a future Indigo Touch release.

Indigo Touch uses a timeout of 15 seconds for small (XML) requests and 1 minute for larger (image) requests. So unless the Mac is really bogged down I don't think the timeout is an issue.

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Posted on
Thu Dec 01, 2011 12:13 pm
jay (support) offline
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Re: I keep getting malformed XML packet received from Indigo

@Otis - are you by any chance using Screen Sharing (or VNC) to access your server?

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Thu Dec 01, 2011 1:44 pm
Otis offline
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Re: I keep getting malformed XML packet received from Indigo

Jay: No screen sharing or VNC connection, just the client on the Mini plus (often) a client on my Mac Pro, plus 4 iPod Touches running 24/7.

Your time-outs certainly seem plenty long enough — I'm not aware of any Wi-Fi outages anywhere near that long, and the Mini never hangs up for that long, as far as I know.

I see three different error messages as I mentioned in as earlier post in this thread.

I'm really looking forward to automatic reconnection and message clearing someday. In addition to the mysterious comm problems, every time I restart for any reason I have to go around to all the iPod Touches and reset them, needing to clear up to three error messages on each and/or reselect the database. Still love the system, though!

Posted on
Sun Dec 04, 2011 5:42 pm
rainman50 offline
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Re: I keep getting malformed XML packet received from Indigo

I'm trying out a few things to see if it improves the situation with the XML error code.

I still have to wonder why an error message has to be generated and displayed on the screen until someone clears it. I'm a programmer of real time control systems and in my software i always have orderly recovery of errors without being obvious to the user. Like I said before, the vast majority of the time I get this message I just clear it and it restarts OK.


Dave

Posted on
Sun Dec 04, 2011 6:51 pm
jay (support) offline
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Re: I keep getting malformed XML packet received from Indigo

I believe you've got some other problem - for the last 3 years we've had nobody report continuous errors like this so I have to think you've got a problem in your environment. I believe Matt's stated that we'll look at making Indigo Touch's retry mechanism a little more forgiving in a future release, but when that error happens in 99% of the cases it's something fatal.

Indigo Touch, and iOS apps in general, aren't real-time control systems. As a programmer that's worked on that type of system before, you have experience with how much time and effort goes into making an control system bulletproof. An iOS app just doesn't fit that description, particularly when the problem is external to the app and pretty much beyond our control.

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