Why is Azure IoT Central Disconnecting My Clients Every 5 or 10 minutes?

Hi Jamie Fraser

Sorry for the delay in response.

Please check below steps and let us know.

1. Please make sure you are changing TLS 1.2 in client code.
2. Please adjust timeout to 1800 or higher
3. Please adjust TTL (time to live) param in your code.

Could you share sample code to replicate the issue. Going through this Device client as mentioned in this tutorial.

Thank you.

Hi Manas,

Thank you for your reply, but I don't think these are the issues.

1. TLS1.2 is selected, and would have to be to allow a connection to be made.
2. Not sure what timeout you are referring to here.
3. TTL is related to the number of hops rather than a 'time' as such.

Any additional help appreciated.

Regards

Jamie

Hi Jamie Fraser

Could you share any sample code to replicate and do the needed modification.

Thank you.

Unfortunately not, it is not a custom written routine. What on the client side can specify a disconnection time by the server though?

Hi Jamie Fraser

Sorry for the delay due to investigation time.

Below are supported retry policies for IOT hub client.

1. IOTHUB_CLIENT_RETRY_NONE
2. IOTHUB_CLIENT_RETRY_IMMEDIATE
3. IOTHUB_CLIENT_RETRY_INTERVAL
4. IOTHUB_CLIENT_RETRY_LINEAR_BACKOFF
5. IOTHUB_CLIENT_RETRY_EXPONENTIAL_BACKOFF
6. IOTHUB_CLIENT_RETRY_EXPONENTIAL_BACKOFF_WITH_JITTER

Can be set with below code

IOTHUB_CLIENT_RESULT IoTHubClient_SetRetryPolicy( IOTHUB_CLIENT_HANDLE iotHubClientHandle, IOTHUB_CLIENT_RETRY_POLICY retryPolicy, size_t retryTimeoutLimitInSeconds);

Reference - Connection and messaging Reliability

Please refer the below section to do the needed modification.

device_client = IoTHubDeviceClient.create_from_connection_string(
            conn_str, product_info=model_id
        )

I was proposing to use timeout, TTL as in below sample code

# MQTT client setup
client = mqtt.Client(client_id=device_id)
client.username_pw_set(username=username, password=password)
client.tls_set()  # Use TLS for secure connection

# Timeout and retry settings
timeout = 60  # Timeout for connection attempts
time_to_live = 3600  # Time to live for the connection in seconds
retry_interval = 10  # Interval between retry attempts in seconds

# Function to connect to Azure IoT Central with retry logic
def connect_with_retry():
    connected = False
    start_time = time.time()
    while not connected and (time.time() - start_time) < time_to_live:
        try:
            client.connect(hostname, port=8883, keepalive=timeout)
            connected = True
            print("Connected to Azure IoT Central")
        except Exception as e:
            print(f"Connection failed: {e}. Retrying in {retry_interval} seconds...")
            time.sleep(retry_interval)

# Function to send telemetry data
def send_telemetry():
    telemetry_topic = "devices/{}/messages/events/".format(device_id)
    client.publish(telemetry_topic, json.dumps(telemetry_data))

# Connect to Azure IoT Central with retry logic
connect_with_retry()

# Send telemetry data every 10 seconds
try:
    while True:
        send_telemetry()
        time.sleep(10)
except KeyboardInterrupt:
    client.disconnect()

Reference used - Connect a device using Python

Hope it helps.

Thank you