SBA 378: BACnet MS/TP Troubleshooting

In this episode of the Smart Buildings Academy Podcast we will be discussing troubleshooting BACnet MS/TP.
You will learn:
Common BACnet failures
The signs of each failure type
How to troubleshoot each BACnet failure type

[@OptigoNetworks]

Thanks for the mention Phil!
For those watching - Optigo's Visual BACnet software helps identify BACnet comm issues for MS/TP and IP networks and can help you avoid bifurcation. Scan your PCAP files for free and get insight into what's affecting the performance of BACnet networks.

[@JO-yp5jq]

Thank you for making these educational videos; they are very helpful.

[@SmartBuildingsAcademy]

You're welcome. If you have an idea for future videos let me know!

[@tristandamron2933]

Would a BACnet MSTP/IP portable router be a good tool in conjunction with something like Wireshark? Or are those more viable with "regular" BACnet scanners?

[@pook-pingyao3806]

Hi Tristan, if you mean a router that can also run packet capture, then yes.

[@slave288]

There are IP/MSTP routers out there that have Wireshark built in, but they are expensive. Running Wireshark external to the router (that is on your PC instead of in the router's processor and firmware directly) has issues because you will be capturing the IP traffic which would be packets that successfully went through the router from the MSTP network to the IP network and if the MSTP has issues then you will not be seeing the bad packets or corrupt data or packets that were good and successful that went from one device on the MSTP net to another device on the same MSTP net.
In my opinion, a better and cheaper solution is to get a USB to RS485 adapter and then use Wireshark to capture pickets directly on that COM port on your PC to see the complete and total bit data as captured.