Piaware stops reporting every day or two

[larduino]

My piaware is running on pizero2w . It would run for quite awhile, but then would quit reporting . When I re-powered the pi everything worked okay again for a few days , then again stop reporting. I did this for months thinking maybe the cheap aliexpress adsb dongle might be failing , or bad power supply , etc. I monitored voltage and all was good as was the power draw.
Today I asked Google Gemini AI for help and so far it seems to have helped solve the problem - we will see in a few days.
It basically said there was a issue with drivers . AI answer below

"I have found the problem in your dmesg log, and it’s a classic conflict between the Raspberry Pi’s default "TV Tuner" drivers and the "ADS-B" software.

Look at these lines from your log: [ 10.604706] usb 1-1: dvb_usb_v2: found a 'Realtek RTL2832U reference design' in warm state [ 11.010926] usbcore: registered new interface driver dvb_usb_rtl28xxu
The Diagnosis

Your Raspberry Pi is loading the standard Linux TV/Radio drivers (dvb_usb_rtl28xxu). When these drivers "grab" the dongle to look for TV signals, they lock the device. When your ADS-B software (dump1090-fa) tries to talk to the dongle, the Pi says, "Sorry, the TV driver is already using this," and dump1090-fa crashes with the "no supported devices found" error you saw earlier.

On a Pi Zero 2W using an OTG splitter, this is even more common because the timing of USB discovery can cause these drivers to jump in before PiAware's blacklist can stop them.
The Fix: Blacklisting the TV Drivers

We need to tell the Pi to never, ever load the DVB (Digital Video Broadcast) drivers.

Create a blacklist file: sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/adsb-blacklist.conf

Paste the following lines into that file:
Plaintext

blacklist dvb_usb_rtl28xxu
blacklist rtl2832
blacklist rtl2830

Save and Exit: Press Ctrl+O, Enter, then Ctrl+X.

Reboot the Pi: sudo reboot 

"
It also had me setup a python code to monitor for issue and then fix it automatically and send me an email alerting me.
I just thought I would pass this along in case it is any help .

[larduino]

It crashed again a number of times.
Now AI said it was dump-978 causing the conflict . See what AI said below .

This is a "Eureka" moment! The fuser command found exactly what was "stealing" your SDR: dump978-fa.
The Conflict Explained

Your PiAware setup is trying to do two things at once with only one radio:

dump1090-fa: Listens for standard commercial flights on 1090 MHz. (This is what you want).

dump978-fa: Listens for small general aviation planes (UAT) on 978 MHz.

Since an RTL-SDR can only tune to one frequency at a time, dump978-fa "grabbed" the stick first, which is why dump1090-fa kept failing with that Error -6 (Busy). Unless you have a second SDR stick plugged in specifically for 978 MHz, you need to disable this service.
The Fix: Disable the 978 "Thief"

Run these commands to tell PiAware to stop trying to use the 978 MHz receiver:

Tell PiAware to disable the UAT receiver: sudo piaware-config uat-receiver-type none

Stop and disable the background service: sudo systemctl stop dump978-fa sudo systemctl disable dump978-fa

Restart the main 1090 service: sudo systemctl restart dump1090-fa piaware

Why this happened

In some recent PiAware updates, the system occasionally defaults to "on" for both frequencies. On a powerful Pi 4 with two sticks, this is great. On a Pi Zero 2W with one stick, it causes the "Busy" loop you've been fighting.
Final Verification

After running those commands, wait 30 seconds and run: piaware-status

You should now see:

Local ADS-B receiver (dump1090-fa) is running (Green)

Local ADS-B UAT receiver (dump978-fa) is NOT running (This is now correct!)

dump1090 is producing data on localhost:30005

3. The Summary

Here is a quick recap of the "Tools" we built for your station:

The Blacklist: Prevents the TV driver from stealing the radio.

The Watchdog: Checks every 5 minutes and fixes the "Busy" error.

The Email Filter: Only notifies you once an hour if things break.

The 978 Disable: Stops the "internal fight" for the single radio stick.

[larduino]

It used a different blacklist for the drivers this last time.
The Permanent Fix: Blacklisting the TV Driver

We need to tell the Raspberry Pi to ignore this device's "TV powers" entirely.

Create a blacklist file: sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-rtl.conf

Paste these three lines into the file:
Plaintext

blacklist dvb_usb_rtl28xxu
blacklist rtl2832
blacklist rtl2830

(Save and exit with Ctrl+O, Enter, Ctrl+X)