RSP1B becomes deaf after broadband interference; SDRConnect continues to work normally

[odunova2004]

I downloaded v1.0.0 and initially had SDROxide working very well with my RSP1B. I was feeding the SDR from the DRV ANT output of a Kenwood TS-590SG and using it as a panadapter. I configured the sample rate, FFT, gain, etc., and was successfully watching the bands and using the built-in decoders.

During operation, there was suddenly some broadband interference. After this occurred, the RSP1B became effectively deaf in SDROxide. A persistent birdie also appeared across the bands. These birdies/artifacts do not appear in SDRConnect.

I checked the same RSP1B using SDRConnect with the same hardware and antenna connection, and it receives normally there. The TS-590SG itself also continues to receive normally.

Additional observation: SDROxide appears to be receiving no meaningful RF input from the RSP1B. With the antenna connected, the spectrum looks essentially the same as it does with the antenna disconnected; connecting the antenna does not produce an observable change in the noise floor or signals.

I completely uninstalled and reinstalled SDROxide, but the problem persisted.

One other interesting change: initially SDROxide identified the device by displaying the RSP1B's serial number. After the problem occurred, it no longer displays the serial number and instead shows "first connected" (or similar wording).

This makes me suspect that something about how SDROxide is identifying/configuring the RSP1B changed during the incident, although I don't know whether that is related.

Hardware: SDRplay RSP1B
SDROxide: v1.0.0
Host radio: Kenwood TS-590SG
Connection: TS-590SG DRV ANT → RSP1B
Comparison: SDRConnect receives normally with the same RSP1B/setup.

[dividebysandwich]

That's one weird bug. Unfortunately there's very little I can do because this sounds like it's a problem between the sdrplay API and the device. SDRConnect apparently uses their own driver while the sdrplay service is stuck in a broken state. What you could try to verify is to run SDRuno, it should also suffer the same problems as SDR Oxide.

To fix it, you'll have to restart the sdrplay service and re-plug the SDR. Or unplug the SDR and reboot.

What I can do on my end is to make a broken USB enumeration more apparent to the user. Unfortunately if the API returns no devices, there's not much I can do to unstuck the whole thing via software. I'm gonna examine SDRConnect however because I'm curious how they implemented their driver. Maybe I can sidestep the entire SDRPlay API thing because it's a pain anyway.

[odunova2004]

A restart and reinstall of the API didn't fix the issue, the spectrum displays similar behavior in N1MM. I can still hear audio coming through, but I have a persistent birdie and high noise floor the 590 doesn't see. SDRConnect still works fine. I might go to a backup state before yesterday to see if that fixes this. It doesn't seem to register the RSP1b serial anymore.

[odunova2004]

Update: I restored Windows to a restore point from before installing SDROxide 1.0. After the restore, SDROxide initially did not detect the RSP1B, but after reconnecting/restarting it now identifies the RSP1B by its serial number again. However, the persistent birdies remain and reception appears significantly less sensitive than it was when SDROxide was initially working. SDRConnect continues to receive normally.

[dividebysandwich]

Hmm... very weird. Are you able to try some other software like SDRuno as well, to see if it has the same issue as SDROxide?

[odunova2004]

I just downloaded SDRUno, it seems to work fine as well. Yesterday, SDROxide was performing fantastic, I suspected my RSP1b went south until I check it still works fine with other programs. It's still giving me that persistent birdie on all bands.

[odunova2004]

Deleting all config files and redownloading everything has fixed the API issue. After spending some time with the settings, this seems to be a decimation issue. I was running fairly narrow, setting to 2msps and zooming in has solved most of my issues, I just wanted to give an update.