Summary

Splitting this out from #3042, which started as an auto-upgrade question (resolved) and then drifted into a separate MeshCore telemetry problem. Filing here so the telemetry issue isn't lost behind a closed thread.

On a meshcore-only deployment running v4.6.1, enabling "Telemetry Retrieval" on a MeshCore repeater never produces any visible telemetry, and the UI surfaces failures when attempting to fetch telemetry against any repeater the user tries.

Reporter: @HougeDK (see #3042 from 2026-05-19T19:54Z onward).

Environment

• MeshMonitor version: v4.6.1
• Deployment: Docker (Docker Desktop on Windows, v4.73.1)
• Source type: MeshCore only (no Meshtastic node attached)
• Target: MeshCore repeaters (companion-less / serial-CLI repeater flow)

What the user did

1. Connected a MeshCore source (TCP) — confirmed working in [BUG] No upgrade since 4.5.0 #3042.
2. Enabled the "Telemetry Retrieval" option on a node, expecting telemetry to appear under the DM messages area (per [BUG] No upgrade since 4.5.0 #3042 (comment)).
3. Waited past the configured interval.

Expected

Periodic telemetry samples appear for the node, like the screenshot the maintainer posted in #3042 (comment).

Actual

• No telemetry ever shows up.
• An earlier fix landed for the rendering side and shipped in v4.6.1 ([BUG] No upgrade since 4.5.0 #3042 (comment)), but the user reports the symptom is still present after upgrading.
• The reconnect/telemetry attempts produce error toasts in the UI on every repeater the user has tried — see the screenshots in [BUG] No upgrade since 4.5.0 #3042 (comment) and [BUG] No upgrade since 4.5.0 #3042 (comment).

Possibly related noise

The user also saw log errors that look like the backend trying to reach a default Meshtastic node despite the deployment being meshcore-only:

#3042 (comment)

Maintainer response: "If so, that's it trying to access the default meshtastic node setup and failing. Generally harmless.. I've integrated a fix that should be in 4.6.2 to silence it." (#3042 (comment)).

Probably unrelated to telemetry, but worth ruling out — if the telemetry scheduler is being attached to a phantom Meshtastic source instead of the active MeshCore source, that would explain why no MeshCore telemetry ever lands.

Open questions for triage

• Does the per-source telemetry scheduler in meshcoreManager.ts actually fire requests against repeaters, or only against companion nodes? The repeater path goes through the serial CLI shim — does it support the same telemetry-request opcode?
• Are failures persisted anywhere (e.g. a meshcore_telemetry row with an error column) so the user can confirm requests are at least being sent?
• Does the rendering fix from [BUG] No upgrade since 4.5.0 #3042 require any backfill or schema migration that wouldn't have run on an existing v4.5.x install upgraded in place?

References

• Originating thread: [BUG] No upgrade since 4.5.0 #3042 (closed as completed for the upgrade-button bug)
• First mention of telemetry not appearing: [BUG] No upgrade since 4.5.0 #3042 (comment)
• "Known bug, fixed in master": [BUG] No upgrade since 4.5.0 #3042 (comment)
• Still broken after the fix shipped: [BUG] No upgrade since 4.5.0 #3042 (comment)
• Failure screenshots on every repeater: [BUG] No upgrade since 4.5.0 #3042 (comment), [BUG] No upgrade since 4.5.0 #3042 (comment)