Sense app on iOS lost all devices

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Comments

  • KennethN
    KennethN Posts: 47 Enthusiast

    @FS_Simo wrote:

    A quick look at those app logs shows that the connection credentials are once again empty, which is supposed to be the exact problem we fixed, but seems like we have still missed some scenario or critical code path. We'll take yet another look at our code and try to figure out how we end up in this flow. We have not been successful in reproducing the exact problem so it's not 100% clear how we get there.

     

    Apologies and we understand your frustration, we'll keep working on this.

     

     

     


    I get that and I´m thankfull for it, but my subscription clock is ticking and I cannot use the product to its full in the meantime...

     

    I also did see how Canon did they integration, they got a certificate installed on my phone, but I guess the one you are talking about is something I cannot see as a user?

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0 Former F-Secure Employee

    Correct, this is the "password" which is generated during setup that is used to decrypt the traffic between the phone and the router.

  • KennethN
    KennethN Posts: 47 Enthusiast

    @FS_Simo wrote:

    Correct, this is the "password" which is generated during setup that is used to decrypt the traffic between the phone and the router.


    If the Sense removes given devices if they been offline for a while from the device list, would this also then remove the master phone it self?

     

    So, new reset once a day to make it work? 

    Or any Apple TestFlight project? 

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0 Former F-Secure Employee

    SENSE doesn't "remove" devices, the app only filters / organizes what it shows on the devices screen based on the timestamp attribute.

     

    We are speculating there's some issue in storing or reading the encryption password from the phone keychain. Because the system worked for a while at least it went there in the first place, but what happened to it later still needs to be investigated.  Without the password the app is unable to decrypt / encrypt the messages between the router. This is why the devices list appears empty and the settings do not work.

  • KennethN
    KennethN Posts: 47 Enthusiast

    @FS_Simo wrote:

    SENSE doesn't "remove" devices, the app only filters / organizes what it shows on the devices screen based on the timestamp attribute.

     

    We are speculating there's some issue in storing or reading the encryption password from the phone keychain. Because the system worked for a while at least it went there in the first place, but what happened to it later still needs to be investigated.  Without the password the app is unable to decrypt / encrypt the messages between the router. This is why the devices list appears empty and the settings do not work.


    Will there be a new version of the app, and is there a timeframe on the date this will be public?

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0 Former F-Secure Employee

    We'll make some improvements to the next update of the iOS app once we have investigated this issue further. If we can find a way to reproduce this then of course it helps us towards making a proper fix.

     

    I cannot give you a specific timeline yet, but our iOS dev lead is looking at this issue as a priority item.

  • KennethN
    KennethN Posts: 47 Enthusiast

    @FS_Simo wrote:

    If we can find a way to reproduce this then of course it helps us towards making a proper fix.

     


    Well that is easy, just ask me to use it Smiley Wink

     

    Joke aside, I will do another reset of Sense and app tomorrow, it should be back with the issue within 24 hours like last time, so on Friday we will see.

  • AragonMaverick
    AragonMaverick Posts: 9 Observer

    Hi guys,

     

    it worked great for a couple of weeks,  but alas the issue has returned...

     

    The app shows only 1 device connected, and 25 not connected, although some of them technically are

     

    F447D4BC-98B9-415A-AF08-416889C8B1C0.jpegF24952C4-1308-4C42-98BC-36EA99603972.jpeg

     

    The first picture shows the status on the sense app, the second is a screenshot from my iPad, which is supposedly not connected...

     

    I am running app version 1.1.2192 on iOS 11.1 (15B93) Beta 5

     

    I will also post the router logs in a minute.

     

    Hope this information helps with your bug hunting ;-)

     

    Cheers,

    Peter

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0 Former F-Secure Employee

    Hi, thanks for sending us feedback.

     

    Can you report the "last seen" timestamp from a device that is supposed to be online, but which is categorized as offline. Also can you check the time on your phone so we can see how far they are apart.

     

    The online/offline state in the app is determined if that timestamp is older than 15 minutes compared to current time on your control device. The online/offline state does not affect protection or device settings. It is merely a filter in the app to categorize devices. It seems that in some circumstances it doesn't work correctly, which is clearly confusing and annoying, but the issue is mostly "cosmetic" in the sense that it does not compromise your devices. Obviously this needs to be more reliable.

     

    We are working on some improvements that allows the router to keep time better between reboots / power outages, also we are looking into other ways of comparing the elapsed time than relying on the phone's time settings.

  • AragonMaverick
    AragonMaverick Posts: 9 Observer

    Hi Simo,

     

    The “last seen” time stamp for example for my iPad Pro is 27 October 2017, 03:29:05.

    The "last seen” time on my iPhone (control device) is 27 October 2017, 03:49:50. This is the only device that is shown as being online in the app.

    However, on my Apple TV, this time stamp is 27 October 2017, 03:49:49. This device is also reported as being offline...

     

    I understand the thinking behind filtering the list,but shouldn’t that be based on the time since the last activity of said device, compared to the current time on the Sense itself? For example, if a guest came over and got access to my WLAN, but hasn’t been back for more than 24 hours, I would expect that device to be listed as offline.

     

    I am pretty sure the Linux box inside the Sense can keep track of either IP-based activity or even MAC Address based activity.

     

    Anyway, let me know if you need more information, or if I can try something else to help the debugging. 

     

    Cheers,

    Peter

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0 Former F-Secure Employee

    The timestamp is based on those devices being visible in the kernel ARP table and our device discovery checks that every minute.

     

    Those timestamps you are reporting are pointing to october 27 sounds a bit fishy, but explains why they are "offline".  "Current device" is always shown online. Is the application status blue and you are indeed in the right network, so this is current information?

     

    Can you grab a diagnostics log (http://sense.router/diag.log) and send it to sense-feedback(at)f-secure.com with a reference to this discussion, don't paste it here. Maybe the device discovery is somehow malfunctioning / stuck and it's not updating the devices database.

     

    >> I understand the thinking behind filtering the list,but shouldn’t that be based on the time since the last activity of said device, compared to the current time on the Sense itself?

     

    Yes, this is exactly one of the improvements we are going to make.

     

    Thanks for providing this info!

  • AragonMaverick
    AragonMaverick Posts: 9 Observer

    My app status says: Threat blocked, and shows up in orange. 

    I only have 1 WiFi network (however, with the _5GHz named sister network also showing up).

     

    I have send a current log file to the e-mail address with the title of this chat in it’s subject line. 

     

    Cheers,

    Peter

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0 Former F-Secure Employee

    Thanks, I got your logs.

     

    I can see by looking at the log that the device discovery is indeed broken, it has crashed and there are multiple of them running (which means it's probably stuck somehow as there should be only one). This does explain your scenario where the timestamps have gone stale. Rebooting SENSE should recover from it. 

     

    We haven't been able to reproduce this exactly, but we have made quite a few fixes for device discovery based on code analysis. The next firmware release should have these fixes. I don't have a specific release date yet, but sometime during our next development sprint which starts tomorrow.

     

    I sincerely apologise for the trouble, hopefully we have this issue resolved permanently soon.

  • D-Fens2
    D-Fens2 Posts: 78 Enthusiast

    Hi,

    I lost my devices again. I already sent the logfile.

    I am resetting Sense again and hope for a new firmware before it happens again 😂

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0 Former F-Secure Employee

    Just to clarify:

     

    There are two different cases here: one where iOS loses all connectivity (and devices). We still haven't been able to fully reproduce this and it has to do with storing and reading the encryption key from the iOS keychain. We have another improvement coming with the next iOS app release that hopefully fixes this problem and adds some more logging to these functions that handle the keychain in case some people still have issues. Assuming I read the correct log, @D-Fens2 has a case of this one.

     

    Another case is that the SENSE device discovery somehow breaks and stops updating the device status, which in turn makes them appear "offline" in the app.  It does not impact protection directly but discovery of devices in SENSE network is impaired, based on the logs sent by @AragonMaverick

     

     

  • ConeyGreen
    ConeyGreen Posts: 4 New Member

    I have the same recurring problem.

    I cycle the power and everything comes back - for couple of days.

  • ConeyGreen
    ConeyGreen Posts: 4 New Member

    I have the recurring problem where my app is telling me that I have 1 device connected and 41 devices that are not connected - all of the devices are accessing the internet perfectly.

    Cycling the power rectifies the problem - for a couple of days.

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0 Former F-Secure Employee

    a new iOS app has been released to production that should further address the scenario where all connectivity between the app and sense is permanently lost. We have not been able to reproduce the issue, but we have added more checks to protect the keys in the iOS keychain as well as more logging to debug the issue further if it is still not resolved.

     

    Those of you that have this situation, please reset and run the installation again. Apologies for the inconvenience.

  • ConeyGreen
    ConeyGreen Posts: 4 New Member

    For me, it is not the loss of the sense by the app, but the loss of the connected devices by the sense. It ony shows the IOS device, opm,itting the other 25+ devices that are on the network and connected to the internet, that some hours earlier were all listed as connected.

     

     

  • KennethN
    KennethN Posts: 47 Enthusiast

    @FS_Simo wrote:

    a new iOS app has been released to production that should further address the scenario where all connectivity between the app and sense is permanently lost. We have not been able to reproduce the issue, but we have added more checks to protect the keys in the iOS keychain as well as more logging to debug the issue further if it is still not resolved.

     

    Those of you that have this situation, please reset and run the installation again. Apologies for the inconvenience.


    I case of doing a jinx, I have not had any issues since the last reset.

    The different thing I did this time, was resetting the app and also removing the app from my iphone. It worked better after removing the app, and removing the cloud data as asked when uninstalling the app.

     

    This have worked good for a long while now.

  • AragonMaverick
    AragonMaverick Posts: 9 Observer

    Hi All,

     

    I lost all devices (from the list, they were still connected) a couple of weeks ago. 

     

    I just left it there and didn’t take any action, but either after the new firmware release on or around November 3rd, or on its own a week ago all devices suddenly came back. 

     

    @FS_Simo, if you want another log, just let me know ;-). 

     

    Cheers

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0 Former F-Secure Employee

    Thanks for all the feedback,

     

    A comment on this one, thanks for bringing it up:

    "The different thing I did this time, was resetting the app and also removing the app from my iphone. It worked better after removing the app, and removing the cloud data as asked when uninstalling the app."

     

    We try to disable cloud backups for the SENSE app configuration during development time, but possibly that configuration has stopped working (maybe during iOS11 transition) so it still sends some stuff into the icloud. We will investigate this issue.

     

    If the app is deleted and re-installed by restoring the cloud data, this will lead in a state where SENSE app can find the router, but cannot talk to it.  This is because mostly everything else BUT the encryption keys are restored from icloud. They are not backed up from keychain. It is important to clear the app data from app settings if the app is re-installed to avoid getting into an inconsistent state.

     

    I'm not sure if this is the root issue for the loss of connectivity between the SENSE app or the router as it did not come up in the discussions here, but I want to highlight that this scenario is not supported and doesn't currently work.

  • KennethN
    KennethN Posts: 47 Enthusiast
    @FS_Simo

    Just wanted to share what I did not the other 3 times I did a factory reset, and this time it have been working for weeks now, and I did the other thing, that was to remove the app, and answer yes to remove cloud data. I did clear the app as well before removing it.
  • ConeyGreen
    ConeyGreen Posts: 4 New Member

    I've tried all of that.

    All that is needed to get everything back to normal is to cycle the mains power - off for 10 seconds then back on. Everything is working again - for a couple of days.

    The main question is "When the devices disappear from the "Connected" list - are they still protected?

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0 Former F-Secure Employee

    Yes, even though they are erroneously shown as 'disconnected' they are still protected assuming they remain in the SENSE network.

     

    We are working hard to wrap up a new firmware release that has various bugfixes for device discovery also. We have not been able to reproduce this problem but we hope that the situation improves.

This discussion has been closed.