Problems with 1 master + 2 slaves setup

[Hjalmar Peters]

I use Input Director 1.3 BETA (Build 100) with my 3 Computers, which I will call A, B and C.
I use the following operating systems:
A: Windows 7 64bit
B: Windows 7 32bit
C: Windows 7 64bit
The 3 computers are connected as follows:
A-B Switch
A-C crossover cable
B-C crossover cable

I would like to report two problems.

First problem:
Regardless which computer (A, B or C) is the master, the two slaves can only share the clipboard with the master, but not among each other. (I get "Shared Clipboard Data Unavailable" messages.)

Second problem:
When computer A is the master, then I regularly get a "Slave system failed to respond. Do you want to skip this slave" error for computer C when the cursor transits to computer C or when I scan the slaves. After some testing I found out that this happens, when computer C is more than about 40 seconds idle. Immediately after clicking the "No" button (for don't skip), the transition/scan works again without error. I increased the "time to wait for a slave to respond (in seconds)" to 10, without success. It seems that the scan or the attempted transition wakes up the slave and gets thereby swallowed.
Perhaps some strange power saving service of Windows 7 is responsible for this behaviour; however, I think Input Director could take this into consideration by not only waiting 2 (or 10) seconds for a response but instead sending a second request to the slave, if there's no immediate response to the first.
Remark: If I disconnect computer B, i.e., if there's only computer A (master) and C (slave), then this problem does not occur.

[Jay]

I have also seen this issue with 3 slaves. I have 3 Windows 7 slaves
and a Vista slave and it happens on all systems. I have also seen
instances where it seems like ID is "waking up" when transitioning to
a slave that has not had any input (local keyboard, or ID) for several
minutes. It is not a regular event, but an occasional random event.
What I mean by "waking up" is that the mouse transitions to the other
system but it takes a second for the mouse to catch up to the
movements it should be making. There is a detectable pause in the
mouse movement and then it moves as normal.

[Shane]

On Feb 24, 2:22 am, "Hjalmar Peters" <Hjalmar.Pet...@gmx.de> wrote:
> I would like to report two problems.
>

Hi,

> First problem:
> Regardless which computer (A, B or C) is the master, the two slaves can only share the clipboard with the master, but not among each other. (I get "Shared Clipboard Data Unavailable" messages.)

This usually points to a network issue - Input Director will show this
'unavailability' message when a computer is unable to communicate with
the other computer that originates the shared clipboard data. It could
be a network routing issue, or if one (or more) of your computers has
multiple ip addresses you may need to set the 'preferred network
interface' on all 3 computers (this is found on the "Global
Preferences" tab in Input Director) so that they are attempting to use
the same network subnet.

>
> Second problem:
> When computer A is the master, then I regularly get a "Slave system failed to respond. Do you want to skip this slave" error for computer C when the cursor transits to computer C or when I scan the slaves. After some testing I found out that this happens, when computer C is more than about 40 seconds idle. Immediately after clicking the "No" button (for don't skip), the transition/scan works again without error. I increased the "time to wait for a slave to respond (in seconds)" to 10, without success. It seems that the scan or the attempted transition wakes up the slave and gets thereby swallowed.

Another thing you can try on your slaves is to set the "Synchronise
the screensaver with the Master system" option. This should stop the
slaves going to sleep and may help.

Regs,

Shane.

[HjP]

Hi,

> > Regardless which computer (A, B or C) is the master, the two slaves can
> > only share the clipboard with the master, but not among each other.

> multiple ip addresses you may need to set the 'preferred network
> interface' on all 3 computers (this is found on the "Global
> Preferences" tab in Input Director) so that they are attempting to use
> the same network subnet.

I set all computers to the same "preferred network" but the problem
persists. Since the clipboard sharing between master and (each) slave
works fine, why does ID not simply synchronize the master clipboard
with each slave: I.e., as soon as the master clipboard is changed (be
it by the master itself or because one of the slaves changed its
clipboard), this change should be forwarded by the master to each of
its slaves.

> > When computer A is the master, then I regularly get a "Slave system failed to
> > respond. Do you want to skip this slave" error for computer C when the cursor
> > transits to computer C or when I scan the slaves. After some testing I found out
> > that this happens, when computer C is more than about 40 seconds idle.
> > Immediately after clicking the "No" button (for don't skip), the transition/scan
> > works again without error.

> > It seems that the scan or the attempted transition wakes up the slave and gets
> > thereby swallowed.
> Another thing you can try on your slaves is to set the "Synchronise
> the screensaver with the Master system" option. This should stop the
> slaves going to sleep and may help.

I enabled "Synchronize the screensaver with the master system" on all
my computers. However, the problem persists (which is not surprising,
since on all my computers the screensaver is disabled).

Regards,
HjP