Issue with an app that calls sntp_get_time() periodically using a worker thread

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Anonymous
Not applicable

[WICED-SDK-2.2.1]

I want to create a simple program that calls  sntp_get_time() periodically.

I attempted to register a timed event, similarly to the UDP timed event which works fine.

/* Register a function to process received UDP packets */

wiced_rtos_register_timed_event( &process_udp_rx_event, WICED_NETWORKING_WORKER_THREAD, &process_received_udp_packet, UDP_CHECK_PERIOD, 0 );

/* Register a function to update the time */

wiced_rtos_register_timed_event( &process_ntp_event, WICED_NETWORKING_WORKER_THREAD, &process_ntp_time, TIME_UPDATE_PERIOD, 0 );

The above timed event called the function below around 8 times and

then stopped. If I commented out the UDP timed event it would run OK.

Why doesnt this work?

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2 Replies
Anonymous
Not applicable
For convenience purposes, WICED provides two worker threads dedicated to doing asynchronous work.

One for networking activity (WICED_NETWORKING_WORKER_THREAD) and the other for non-networking activity (WICED_HARDWARE_IO_WORKER_THREAD).

The network worker thread pulls function pointers out of a message queue and executes them in order of insertion.

Functions that may take a long time to complete eg. sntp_get_time(), which has a five second receive timeout, can cause situations where the message queue fills with other jobs such as process_received_udp_packet().

As a general rule you should NOT register a timed event at a rate faster than the longest time the function will take to execute/timeout.

If you want to ensure responsiveness to multiple timed events, you can either setup shorter timeout periods for each event and call them regularly, or create additional worker threads.

Is there a particular reason you need to poll the NTP server once a second?

Once or twice a day should be sufficient assuming the microprocessor clock isnt too far out.
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Anonymous
Not applicable
You are correct, I only need to execute the sntp_get_time() function one or twice a day.

I was executing it more frequently just for test purposes.

So it looks like I do in fact need to use the second worker thread.
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