Top light will not stay green! Please help.

[cberglof]

I just picked up a SkyTrak on Friday. I have a nice net and mat set up in my garage along with a new PC and a 55" monitor. Golf season is just starting here in ND and I'm itching to hit some balls.

I got everything all set up. Downloaded the SkyTrak app on my PC along with the app on my iPad Pro. I also made the plunge right away and purchased the Golf Club Sim software (one time pay) got everything installed and hooked up. I tried the SkyTrak app first and hit about 50 balls with various clubs. Disappointed in my yardages, but no big deal, made a few adjustments and got comfortable with my distances.

As it got later in the evening, I wanted to try to play a round on TGC, but suddenly the laser would not stay on. Bottom two lights green and top light would NOT stay green, kept flashing from red to green. I was thinking that it might be the lighting. No sunlight coming in the windows anymore. Gave up for the night.

I called SkyTrak the next day from work and they were no help and said to call back when I was in front of my unit. I did a lot of reading over the next few days and had a day off today and called them. They again were not much help and wanted to blame my network. That is NOT the problem. More on that later.

I wasn't having the same problem anymore (2 green lights and top light not staying green), but instead I was having disconnects. I would hit anywhere between one and four shots and then I would have to reconnect in the TGC interface. Everything would work for a few more shots and I'd have to do it again. Very frustrating. What seemed to fix this for the most part was disabling the USB power saving features and shutting off the firewall. Played a whole round and didn't have any disconnects. I did have some lag (shots would take more than a minute to register)...but progress.

Then this evening, thinking I had it all figured out, went to the garage to test it with another 18 and same problem as Friday night. Top light won't stay green allowing me to even hit a single shot. Both in SkyTrak app and TGC app. So I thought maybe it is a network problem (even tho I am connected via USB, TGC uses internet). So I went offline on TGC, and same thing...TOP LIGHT WILL NOT STAY GREEN, hence no laser on the mat, and no way to play golf. If I can post a video below, I will.

Has anyone else had this issue and successfully fixed it? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

[cberglof]

I have eero and just wondering if anyone else uses it with their SkyTrak? And whether or not they've had any issues? And the laser starts blinking at 8:15 whether I swing a club or not.

[SkyTrak_Seth]

It's has to be that then. The SkyTrak doesn't know what time it is

[penrose]

where do you live? If anywhere near Louisville Kentucky - we can use my skytrak and hitting studio as a test.

[cberglof]

Not close. North Dakota.

[cberglof]

Seth, what does my network have to do with the SkyTrak when it's connected via USB? And if it's my network, how come I can get it to work with a DIRECT connection?

[SkyTrak_Seth]

I see you solved it below, but just to answer this - it doesn't have anything to do with it.

[cberglof]

UPDATE: I came home from work and hit a few balls in the garage with my son and at 8:15 or 8:16 it stopped working in the garage. I went and dug out an old cheap laptop. I switched to Mac quite a few years ago and only bought the PC in the garage specifically for TGC and SkyTrak. Mostly forgot about this laptop or I would have tried this weeks ago. Anyway, I downloaded the SkyTrak app (certain that TGC won't run on this laptop), hooked up my SkyTrak in the house to it and it worked fine. Right away. Didn't take multiple tries to connect like it sometimes does on my new PC in the garage. Light stayed green. So I took the laptop out to the garage thinking a) if it works on the laptop in the garage, it's definitely not the lighting and definitely something to do with the PC or b) if it doesn't work then it's definitely the lighting or something in or around the garage that is causing interference. So the verdict is......A....something up with the PC in the garage. Now I really need some help. Any idea what it could be? One other thing of note, on my laptop, which runs the same OS, windows 10 (ok, so it's not that old, just cheap Intel Celeron N2840, 4GB DDR3 L RAM, Intel HD Graphics, 500GB HDD), I didn't see the driver loading up on the task bar like I do on my new PC every time I turn on the SkyTrak? Any thoughts?

[cberglof]

SOLVED!!!! Long story short...it was the outlet in my garage. Not sure why. I might ask my electrician to explain it next time I see him, but that was it. Why at 8:15? That's a mystery still. Somehow it dawned on my that it worked with my laptop out there....what was different? I tried uninstalling programs that were different between the two. Then I tried updating drivers. Best I tried installing the same virus protection on both computers to see if I could recreate the problem on the laptop. I couldn't. Then I figured it out. First I brought my computer inside, it worked. So I knew it had something to do with the garage, but what? I tried them both out there?!?! Then it hit me, only thing different that I could think of was where it was plugged in. All the outlets on that side of my garage caused the same problem when my laptop was plugged into power out there. Tried a different outlet on the other side of the garage and it worked. Crazy. Thanks for everyone's help and suggestions, but it was the outlet who would have thought?

[andygg1986]

You can get an outlet tester really inexpensively at Home Depot or online. If multiple outlets have the issue, the problem is probably at your electrical panel. I would guess that the earth ground wire isn't connected on that circuit.

https://www.amazon.com/Power-Gear-3-Wire-Receptacle-50542/dp/B002LZTKIA/

[penrose]

glad it is working now - crazy. Just like my example with the UPS truck - most computer problems no matter how complex they seem at the time there is a very simple solution. Great job in finding it.

[SkyTrak_Seth]

I will say this is the most bizarre resolution to a problem I have ever encountered with SkyTrak. Kudos to you for sticking with it and figuring that out, because I know I surely could not have

[wbond]

Now, why does it start at 8:15?????? that's the crazy part.

[Lgnir]

Man, that's nuts! Glad you finally figured it out! I had a similar experience when I could not figure out why I kept losing network connection playing TGC. It was at random times and would go out for 2-3 minutes. Finally figured out it was my wife making popcorn in the microwave. For some reason, the microwave messes with my WIFI.

I now have a big sign I put on the microwave that says "DO NOT USE" whenever I am in the garage playing.

[Rob Gamache]

UPDATE on my Skytrak:
The top light did not stay green when connected to USB. But the device worked in network mode. So I went about using the unit in network mode, and charging only when the unit was off. Then a few weeks ago the unit started losing connection regularly in network mode. I have now sent the device in for testing but haven't heard anything on the devices status. The unit arrived on Tuesday, I am hoping to hear back soon.

[Mandragora]

I just hit this issue on Wednesday. I turned out, I had chrome cast streaming to a TV. . I guess this was using all of the bandwidth. Once I stopped the steaming it started working properly.