Crestron Connection Issues

[Josh]

We have several CommandFusion projects out there that until recently
have had very few problems, but the connection loss problem that many
people are experiencing has struck me now as well.

I have a project where I was using the DynDNS address to connect to
the processor, but when the internet went out, they could not
connect. I changed it to their processors local IP address instead,
but I am getting disconnects very often now. It seems weird that it
was more stable when using the WAN address.

I am using v4.5 of the module. Again the problem is on the Crestron
end, not CommandFusion's. I have seen the CIP demo, and I am very
excited about the but I need a fix a little sooner. Has anyone found
a fix for this? Any insight would be much appreciated.

[Mqsack]

How are you handling the connection/disconnection logic?

Are you using the method deployed in the demo program?

Or monitoring the socket status and running disconnect/connect based
on a change there?

[Josh Tyson]

I am using the logic in the demo program.

Josh Tyson
ENCO Electronics

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CommandFusion" group.
> To post to this group, send email to comman...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to commandfusio...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/commandfusion?hl=en.
>

[Mqsack]

Simon from the group here posted an alternate connection logic
method....a link to the archive is here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3233912/CF-alt-connect.zip

If you search here, you'll also see a third method of keeping the
connection continually alive, with certain pros/cons (Greg S can chime
in here on specifics as he's the one who showed me that method...)

hope that helps...

Matt

[Josh]

Ok. I implemented the alternate connection logic method and my client
is still experiencing the same issues. I am wondering if the problem
is specifically with the TCP/IP Simpl+ server or would the problem
still persist with a Simpl TCP/IP server? I think I am going to try
to modify the 4.5 module to use a Simpl TCP/IP server instead of the
Simpl+ one to see if I get better results. Are there any caveats to
this approach besides the Simpl 255 character limit? Also, can
iViewer handle joins that are split between packets?

[Mqsack]

I'm not sure if there will be a difference there...but curious to see
your results.

Have you checked out the CIP javascript solution? :

https://github.com/CommandFusion/CIP

This may be the way to go...there are some issues with the current
version of Next, but when iViewer 4 is released in the app store
recently, those issues will be resolved.

There is also a Crestron Mobile (Native iPAD symbol) based solution in
beta that Greg S created. Let me know if interested and I can send you
the details.

One of those might be a better long-term solution...

Matt

[Adam Zatorski]

I'm interested in both. Any chance you could send me info on the crestron mobile solution. I have 18 ipads in a project now that need some connection love.

Adam Zatorski
King Systems LLC
Audio/Video Design & Installation
Certified DBE, MWBE & SBE
www.kingsystemsllc.com

(303) 410-0924 Office
(303) 875-7897 Cell

[JoshW @ LiquidPixel]

Has anybody figured out any tricks to make the Crestron processor connection work well? It looks like the CIP option is going to be a good long-term solution, but I really need to get my client's home working reliably asap. After telling them for the past 8 months that the new version of the app is coming soon, I finally switched them over to iViewer 4 today and it didn't help. Now the homeowner is starting to use naughty words in emails.

I'm using Simon's connection logic (had already tried the logic from the demo program). These are iPad1's, just updated the iOS, CF running with multitasking enabled.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Nadim Awan]

Either don't lock the screen(currently use),

Jailbreak using old fw and install fusionlock (not personally tested because the clients so not want to jailbreak their shiny new iPads)

I was getting getting 25% success rate with CIP 1.0, with 1.1 it's about 75% until iViewer4 shat itself and refused to connect to the processor yesterday eventhough TF was still able to connect so I had to remove and reinstall iViewer4.

Sent from my iPhone

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CommandFusion" group.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/commandfusion/-/4TaM62_HF6IJ.

[Mqsack]

Josh:

You could try the Crestron Mobile / JS implementation posted here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3233912/CF%20Crestron%20Mobile.zip

It used a Native iPAD symbol as opposed to an Xpanel.

**It is still in beta and not officially released on GitHub yet, but I
have tested it with success as well as others here on the forum**

It was crested by Greg S.

The GUI, Javascript, ReadMe notes (from Greg), and SMW files are
included in the .zip file...

Matt

On Aug 19, 2:10 am, Nadim Awan <vmail...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Either don't lock the screen(currently use),
>
> Jailbreak using old fw and install fusionlock (not personally tested because the clients so not want to jailbreak their shiny new iPads)
>
> I was getting getting 25% success rate with CIP 1.0, with 1.1 it's about 75% until iViewer4 shat itself and refused to connect to the processor yesterday eventhough TF was still able to connect so I had to remove and reinstall iViewer4.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On 19 Aug 2011, at 06:00, "JoshW @ LiquidPixel" <jw...@liquidpixelgroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Has anybody figured out any tricks to make the Crestron processor connection work well? It looks like the CIP option is going to be a good long-term solution, but I really need to get my client's home working reliably asap. After telling them for the past 8 months that the new version of the app is coming soon, I finally switched them over to iViewer 4 today and it didn't help. Now the homeowner is starting to use naughty words in emails.
>
> > I'm using Simon's connection logic (had already tried the logic from the demo program). These are iPad1's, just updated the iOS, CF running with multitasking enabled.
>
> > Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CommandFusion" group.

> > To view this discussion on the web visithttps://groups.google.com/d/msg/commandfusion/-/4TaM62_HF6IJ.

[Scott Shanafelt]

If the XML parses fast enough this seems like a preferable approach to CIP. While CIP is potentially lighter weight, in practice it's pretty cumbersome and the DOM parser might beat it anyway.

Cool stuff,
S

On Aug 19, 2011, at 3:33 PM, Mqsack wrote:

> Josh:

[Jared Haleck]

Scott

Are you saying that it is "cumbersome" on the iPad end or the Crestron end.  I am convinced the latency issues I was experiencing with CIP was caused on the iPad end.  The SIMPL+ was lightening fast then only changing the SIMP+ module over to an xpanel, things slowed down on the iPad.

[Scott Shanafelt]

CIP is a protocol, and as a protocol it's cumbersome because it's a strange combination of big endian and little endian short integer data structures.  Strings are also presented more like a console command than a value representation.  So when attempting to implement CIP on a platform that doesn't utilize Crestron's internal panel API's, it's just annoying.  It's one reason I've on more than one occasion considered adapting it over to the Crestron Mobile approach, since that protocol is more sane.  My fear, there, was that because of the much increased meta data that update requests and other large systems would drag our javascript interface to iViewer to a crawl.

But with some luck that won't be true and the XML approach will be a far supperior choice to CIP, particularly since the Crestron Mobile module has built-in password and orientation reservations.

Scott

[JoshW @ LiquidPixel]

I'm using Simon's connection logic with 4 iPads in a residence. The connection loss problem is a little better than with the demo program's connection logic (for several months now). Two of the iPads have now been updated to iViewer4 in hopes that this would improve the connection stability. The client insisted on not doing all four of them in case version 4 had other problems. Is that a huge mistake? Do they all need to be on the same version in order to work correctly? They are still having connection losses on all four iPads. A wifi scan of the home shows decent coverage - enough that I wouldn't think there would be problems. And other iPad apps seem to get a solid enough connection.

Also (and more importantly), the Pro2 occasionally locks up its ethernet port. Other functions (internal processing, Cresnet control) still work, but nothing on the ethernet port. We have to do a hard reboot to get it back online. We're considering swapping out the Pro2 to see if it's a hardware issue, but the existing Pro2 already passed all of the console ethernet tests. Anybody know a good way to monitor that ethernet traffic to nail down what's causing these lockups? Crestron has a monitoring solution that writes to a CF card - is that the best solution?

I'm very interested in the CIP programming solution, but it's not ready for prime time (right?). Any help would be greatly appreciated. If someone is interesting in looking at the SIMPL program, we can work out an arrangement.

Thanks!

[vmailtk5]

They do not all have to be iViewer 4 (yet), but by upgrading it will work better and have more features. Try using CIP to reduce the data load and use crestrons own port number, it may help

Type Top into toolbox if you can to see which section of the processor is hogging the CPU

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CommandFusion" group.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/commandfusion/-/z7tD-KYhvN0J.

[Matt Cusack]

I agree...try latest CIP from GitHub or the Crestron Mobile solution mentioned here in prior posts. CIP is faster (CMobile may take up to 10 seconds to make a connection), but both have merit.

Either one will be better than what you're dealing with now in my opinion.

Matt

---

From: vmailtk5 <vmai...@gmail.com>

Sender: comman...@googlegroups.com

Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2011 21:56:54 +0100

To: <comman...@googlegroups.com>

ReplyTo: comman...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Crestron Connection Issues

[Jarrod Bell]

One thing to remember is that it's not the iPad that's the problem, its
the Crestron system not correctly closing ports, etc, to allow a reconnect.
Very well known issues with Crestron firmware and anything to do with
the TCP stack.

Jarrod

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "CommandFusion" group.

> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/commandfusion/-/z7tD-KYhvN0J.

[Eric Miller]

I have had good success with the crestron mobile set up and have
deployed in 2 clients houses each running two ipads on a cp2e at one
and a pmc2 at the other. I haven't had any issues thus far.

> >http://groups.google.com/group/commandfusion?hl=en.ou

[JoshW @ LiquidPixel]

So if the S+ module (using Crestron's TCP stack) is known to not work (0% reliability), anyone willing to put a percentage on the CIP solution as it stands? The number would need to be pretty high before my client would be willing to make the leap. Or are any remaining issues with the CIP solution avoidable? i.e. As long as I don't use a particular feature things should be reliable. We're really not doing anything too crazy in this project - no lists or other special features. Thanks guys/gals.

[vmailtk5]

100% with v1.1 (75% with v1.0) from what I have tested, but its early days yet

On 2 September 2011 15:04, JoshW @ LiquidPixel <jw...@liquidpixelgroup.com> wrote:

So if the S+ module (using Crestron's TCP stack) is known to not work (0% reliability), anyone willing to put a percentage on the CIP solution as it stands? The number would need to be pretty high before my client would be willing to make the leap. Or are any remaining issues with the CIP solution avoidable? i.e. As long as I don't use a particular feature things should be reliable. We're really not doing anything too crazy in this project - no lists or other special features. Thanks guys/gals.

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CommandFusion" group.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/commandfusion/-/pjaBfL3MLGYJ.

[Dovi Engler]

CIP 1.1 and Crestron Mobile,  - No issues.

For now we stick on our projects to the Crestron Mobile solution (CIP 1.1 as a "B" plan if...)

[yellowfin]

Mqsack

Thanks for making your Crestron Mobile / JS implementation available.
So far I have not been able to get it to work. I feel like I have
followed your demo program to the tee. The only thing I am wondering
is I did not see anywhere to declare the IP_ID of the Crestron_Moble
connection. Did I miss that? If so, is it a global token that is
missing? If so, please advise. Thanks again.

J

On Aug 19, 8:33 am, Mqsack <mqs...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Josh:
>

> You could try theCrestronMobile / JS implementation posted here:

>
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3233912/CF%20Crestron%20Mobile.zip
>
> It used a Native iPAD symbol as opposed to an Xpanel.
>
> **It is still in beta and not officially released on GitHub yet, but I
> have tested it with success as well as others here on the forum**
>
> It was crested by Greg S.
>
> The GUI, Javascript, ReadMe notes (from Greg), and SMW files are
> included in the .zip file...
>
> Matt
>
> On Aug 19, 2:10 am, Nadim Awan <vmail...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Either don't lock the screen(currently use),
>
> > Jailbreak using old fw and install fusionlock (not personally tested because the clients so not want to jailbreak their shiny new iPads)
>
> > I was getting getting 25% success rate with CIP 1.0, with 1.1 it's about 75% until iViewer4 shat itself and refused to connect to the processor yesterday eventhough TF was still able to connect so I had to remove and reinstall iViewer4.
>
> > Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On 19 Aug 2011, at 06:00, "JoshW @ LiquidPixel" <jw...@liquidpixelgroup.com> wrote:
>

> > > Has anybody figured out any tricks to make theCrestronprocessorconnectionwork well? It looks like the CIP option is going to be a good long-term solution, but I really need to get my client's home working reliably asap. After telling them for the past 8 months that the new version of the app is coming soon, I finally switched them over to iViewer 4 today and it didn't help. Now the homeowner is starting to use naughty words in emails.
>
> > > I'm using Simon'sconnectionlogic (had already tried the logic from the demo program). These are iPad1's, just updated the iOS, CF running with multitasking enabled.

[Matthew Cusack]

Hey Jared...

To clarify - Greg S from the Group wrote the code but I provided the link.

I apologize -  I just got back from vacation and my laptop is at the shop. I can't remember offhand, but perhaps Eric or someone else who has the code running in the field can advise on what the issue might be...

Matt

[Eric Miller]

did you figure this out? I am happy to help I have successfully
implemented this using both a cp2e and PMC2 and 3. PM me at eric at
xentechaspen dot com and I can send screen shots of each component to
verify your set up and the latest javascript file to use. Sorry for
the delay been traveling and am at Cedia this week.