Ethercat random jitter fix

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11 Apr 2026 21:28 #345427 by rodw
Replied by rodw on topic Ethercat random jitter fix
Thought I'd ask here. User has upgraded from Debian 10 to latest Debian 13.3 and 2.10pre RIP config. Now Running grandixximos Ethercat driver but have not set syncToRefClock yet.

He reports:
With the same xml file, i/o and drive configuration, Debian 10 kernel 4.19 with ethercat 1.5.2 works fine, it has no latency at boot and hasn't given any problems. The current system has kernel 6.12 with ethercat 1.6.9 and has synchronization problems at boot, sometimes it doesn't see some drives on the bus, I'm forced to turn it off and on again. Would it be possible to use the current 6.12 kernel and linuxcnc 2.10, with ethercat 1.5.2?

I copied the lcec_conf and lcec.so files into the respective bin and rtailib folders from the Debian 10 version that I have and which works well on my machines, with linuxcnc 2.9.0 pre1 and etherrcat 1.5.2. At boot time, the drives are now seen within 1-2 seconds of booting and are always found on the bus.

This has 5 axis servos and a few Beckhoff modules attached to EK1100 

Next step is to add syncToRefClock

It seems odd to me that today's Ethercat hal driver is not performing but rolling back to an older version of it works. It seems to me his problem is the driver, not the version of Ethercat.

Any ideas or advice?

 

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12 Apr 2026 00:03 - 12 Apr 2026 00:13 #345429 by grandixximo
Replied by grandixximo on topic Ethercat random jitter fix
Ethercat 1.6.8 is the previous stable release, have you tried that? 1.6.9 is a bit new I think, maybe they changed something?

Do you have the code for lcec version that works on your debian 10? Can you share the .so ? 
Last edit: 12 Apr 2026 00:13 by grandixximo.

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12 Apr 2026 01:10 #345430 by rodw
Replied by rodw on topic Ethercat random jitter fix
1.69 was released two weeks ago. Its what you get from their repos with a current version of Debian Trixie.
gitlab.com/groups/etherlab.org/-/packages

The code should be here.
gitlab.com/etherlab.org/ethercat/-/tree/1.5.2?ref_type=tags

From 2013. wow! that's old! From that, I would think it was built from source from Sourceforge. But well before my involvement.
Just checking Etherlab's gitlab releases, the first version on gitlab repo was 1.53 in 2024 so must be from Sourceforge

From what I can see, its not an Ethercat issue because the Debian 10 version of  linuxcnc-ethercat (with Ethercat 1,52) works with no problems  on Debian 13.3 with Ethercat 1.69.

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12 Apr 2026 05:35 - 12 Apr 2026 05:36 #345433 by grandixximo
Replied by grandixximo on topic Ethercat random jitter fix
Yes sorry, because your post was a bit all over the place.

about ethercat master, 1.6.9 is pretty new, so I was asking to double check with 1.6.8

But I agree linuxcnc-ethercat seems to be the issue, so I was asking about the code for lcec aka linuxcnc-ethercat
You moved the lcec_conf and lcec.so 
But do you have the code for the linuxcnc-ethercat that works? or can you at least share approximately where this working version could have come from? Without that, it is really hard to understand what is happening, and get to the bottom of it.
Last edit: 12 Apr 2026 05:36 by grandixximo.

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12 Apr 2026 07:12 - 12 Apr 2026 07:13 #345436 by Hakan
Replied by Hakan on topic Ethercat random jitter fix
It would be helpful to see the messages in syslog from when there was a problem.
journalctl --since=2026-4-5 | grep EtherCAT 

from 5 April as an example. And cut to a reasonable length.
Last edit: 12 Apr 2026 07:13 by Hakan.

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12 Apr 2026 08:52 #345437 by endian
Replied by endian on topic Ethercat random jitter fix

Thought I'd ask here. User has upgraded from Debian 10 to latest Debian 13.3 and 2.10pre RIP config. Now Running grandixximos Ethercat driver but have not set syncToRefClock yet.

He reports:
With the same xml file, i/o and drive configuration, Debian 10 kernel 4.19 with ethercat 1.5.2 works fine, it has no latency at boot and hasn't given any problems. The current system has kernel 6.12 with ethercat 1.6.9 and has synchronization problems at boot, sometimes it doesn't see some drives on the bus, I'm forced to turn it off and on again. Would it be possible to use the current 6.12 kernel and linuxcnc 2.10, with ethercat 1.5.2?

I copied the lcec_conf and lcec.so files into the respective bin and rtailib folders from the Debian 10 version that I have and which works well on my machines, with linuxcnc 2.9.0 pre1 and etherrcat 1.5.2. At boot time, the drives are now seen within 1-2 seconds of booting and are always found on the bus.

This has 5 axis servos and a few Beckhoff modules attached to EK1100 

Next step is to add syncToRefClock

It seems odd to me that today's Ethercat hal driver is not performing but rolling back to an older version of it works. It seems to me his problem is the driver, not the version of Ethercat.

Any ideas or advice?

 

Ive experience of this non recognizing slaves on the bus during some experimenting at my debian 12 + 6.xx kernel ... but everything was solved by using non generic drivers and restarting ethercat service ifself... back that time I have benn using the 1.5.2 ethercat ... 

but it is sometimes odd till todays that with some hardware at bus ethercat is self-restarting and with some hardware is not ... and therefore bus has no slave active 

Ive not found solution at this till now...
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12 Apr 2026 09:49 #345438 by rodw
Replied by rodw on topic Ethercat random jitter fix
Thanks for ideas.

It gets worse and I've been pondering the next step.: "The machine is unusable; the axes shake and make a lot of noise. I tried rebooting and changing the refclock settings from -1 to values ​​of 1 or 1000, but to no avail. The PC has an Intel NIC, but, as I said, the hardware and software are identical to Debian 10. At this point, I don't know what to do. The problem is EtherCAT."
The customer would like to try Ethercat 1.52 from his Debian 10 days but I don't think it will run on later kernels 
The current Debian 10 Ethercat version on their repos is 1.62, Debian 12 and Debian 13 is 1.69 with no other earlier versions published. Latency is OK but not great for a 4 core machine
 

The only thing I can think of is to roll back to Debian 12. Any other ideas? 

 
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12 Apr 2026 12:38 - 12 Apr 2026 12:38 #345444 by papagno-source
Replied by papagno-source on topic Ethercat random jitter fix
Good morning everyone. We're running some tests with Rodw on a Debian Trixie system, kernel 6.12.74-rt, and ethercat 1.6.9.
Just to be fair, we're using the same configuration on real machines, so motors connected to lead screws, running Debian 10, kernel 4.19.0-27-rt, ethercat 1.5.2, and linuxcnc 2.9.0-pre1. So, with Debian 10, the machines work without problems. When I first start up, the drives and all ethercat I/O are immediately visible, meaning, for example, the positions of the absolute encoders for the motors appear instantly upon startup.
With Debian Trixie, we're having two problems. A less serious one, that is, at startup, the motor encoders' values ​​appear late, the first drive starting to appear after about a second (x axis), after another second Y appears and after that Z appears. But the most serious problem is that if you run the machine, the axes shake, then they stop shaking, then the vibration comes back and everything gets worse if I move windows on the desktop. Rodw has already attached the latency test on the matter, but I repeat, the PC is always the same and all the i/o and xml files are the same. Now I tried to copy from Debian 10 the bin/lcec_conf and rtlib/lcec.so files into the respective directories of Debian Trixie, without result, same problem. We tried to copy the same files from a version with the Grandixxximo patch, same problem, I also tried to vary the lcec.0.pll-drift pin, with values ​​from 10 to 1000 without solving. Honestly, I don't I know what to do. I'm attaching the XML files I use on Debian 10 and Trixie.
Last edit: 12 Apr 2026 12:38 by papagno-source.

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12 Apr 2026 12:41 - 12 Apr 2026 14:07 #345445 by papagno-source
Replied by papagno-source on topic Ethercat random jitter fix
xml debian 10

Warning: Spoiler!
Last edit: 12 Apr 2026 14:07 by Aciera. Reason: use a spoiler

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12 Apr 2026 12:44 - 12 Apr 2026 14:06 #345446 by papagno-source
Replied by papagno-source on topic Ethercat random jitter fix
xml on debian trixie
i have test refClockSyncCycles = -1 , but problem is the same
Warning: Spoiler!

 
Last edit: 12 Apr 2026 14:06 by Aciera. Reason: use a spoiler

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