openwisp: Failed to connect to controller while downloading new config

[smithbill17]

This morning, I noticed one of my Linksys EA8300 routers running OpenWRT 24.10.2 had rebooted itself & failed to come back online.

When I checked the System Log, it's full of this every few seconds:

Sun Aug 24 09:08:53 2025 daemon.info openwisp: Downloading configuration from controller...
Sun Aug 24 09:08:53 2025 daemon.err openwisp: Failed to connect to controller while downloading new config: curl exit code 22
Sun Aug 24 09:09:02 2025 daemon.info openwisp: Downloading configuration from controller...
Sun Aug 24 09:09:02 2025 daemon.err openwisp: Failed to connect to controller while downloading new config: curl exit code 22
Sun Aug 24 09:09:13 2025 daemon.info openwisp: Downloading configuration from controller...
Sun Aug 24 09:09:13 2025 daemon.err openwisp: Failed to connect to controller while downloading new config: curl exit code 22
Sun Aug 24 09:09:27 2025 daemon.info openwisp: Downloading configuration from controller...
Sun Aug 24 09:09:27 2025 daemon.err openwisp: Failed to connect to controller while downloading new config: curl exit code 22

The System Log on all 9 of my devices seems to be full of the same error. I think this only started happening after upgrading OpenSOHO to v0.5.1

[smithbill17]

It looks like this happens because in OpenSOHO I have all 9 devices set to 'disabled' (because I don't want OpenSOHO making any configuration changes because I don't know what changes it may be doing, i just want it to monitor connecting/disconnecting clients).

[rubenbe]

It is expected behavior (although, I do agree it's pretty dirty).
For disabled devices OpenSOHO will reply with a "404 not found" error to the AP when it tries to download its new config.
So the device will try a few times.
All logging happens to RAM in OpenWRT so, it will not ruin the storage of your device.
I should have a look how OpenWISP disables a device, maybe they have a smarter way of informing the AP.
This behavior was already there before the v0.5.x

[jpf91]

Would it be possible to just deploy an empty (no-changes) config instead?

[rubenbe]

The problem is that the openwisp daemons would remove the previous config. (e.g. if you had a wifi config set, it is now no longer there, so openwisp-config will remove that section from UCI.
HOWEVER, I just realized that there is the case where no config whatsoever has been set in opensoho. In that case the config would be empty, and then that same problem would not occur. I could have a look further into it when I have time. that would be an somewhat elegant solution for setups running in pure monitoring mode.