Intermittently not finding client systems

[Garet Holcomb]

This has been going on for week off and on.  It was behaving but not it's not, and I made no changes to configuration or anything.

ID refuses to find two of my client systems.  Says the system "isn't responding" and I cannot control them, obviously.  Again, it worked fine all last week, I didn't make any changes, and now yesterday and today, nothing.

Weird thing is, if I power down the client system, ID on my main machine says that it's no longer available.  So is it connected or not?

The only common denominator I can come up with is a wireless access point that I recently added to my network.  The two intermittent machines have the ability to connect to this WiFi access point, but they still don't talk to ID even when I turn off WiFi on those machines entirely.  The normal way of doing things is all machines connected to the same ethernet hub.  Is it possible some new driver or something is in the way?

I'm lost, and sad.

[Shane]

Hi Garet,

Couple of questions:

1. Are you sometimes running a VPN client on any of the computers?

2. Do you use IP addresses or hostnames in the Input Director configuration?

3. Is there a 3rd party security product active on any computer?

Regs,

Shane.

[Garet Holcomb]

Hi, Shane

No VPN on these machines, and no 3rd party security as far as I'm aware.  I'm using hostnames to configure the client systems in ID. 

The machines are on a wired ethernet hub under my desk, and like I said it has access to a wireless access point that I deployed around the same time as these issues started happening - but, WiFi is currently off on the problem machine.  Yesterday I hard rebooted the building's modem and router, and ID worked great for the rest of the day.  This morning, it's back to not responding.  Much as I'd like to, I can't reboot the router every day.  Maybe this gives some clue?

[Scott Copus]

Garet,

Run the Command Prompt on both machines, each with the ping command running for as long as it takes until ID stops working:

C:\> ping -t machine1-or-2-hostname

Pinging machine1 [x.x.x.x] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from x.x.x.x: bytes=32 time=29ms TTL=56
Reply from x.x.x.x: bytes=32 time=29ms TTL=56
Reply from x.x.x.xx: bytes=32 time=29ms TTL=56

When ID stops working (or if you notice it earlier), does either/both machines ever start displaying "Request timed out" messages instead of those "Reply from" messages?  If they do, then stop the command (CTRL+C), then re-run each command again.  FYI, use the up arrow then enter to re-run the last command.  Does either then fail with "Ping request could not find host machine1-or-2. Please check the name and try again." ?  Or do you notice if the IP changes between the first and second runs on each machine?  

These steps might reveal some network issues such as with IP, DHCP, or DNS.

cheers,
Scott

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thanks,
Scott

[Garet Holcomb]

ID is not working now, and pinging in both directions results in no lost packets and <1ms times.  I have a shared folder set up on my main machine that I use for file transfers and that works fine, too.

The error I generally get is "Client system "x" failed to respond.  Do you want to skip this client?"

I really wonder if adding that wireless access point did something.  But I can't find any apps to uninstall or anything else.  Something is getting in the way of something else.

Thanks

[Garet Holcomb]

I can, by the way, configure my client computer as a Director and my main machine as a Client, and it works fine in that direction.  I can control my main machine with my client machine, but not the other way around.

[Scott Copus]

Garet,

When ID stopped working, did you stop the ping and start it back up again?  Did both machines continue getting replies from each other?  As long as you are pinging the machine names (and not their IPs) this forces ping to use DNS to try to find them again.  So if this part has issues on a restarted ping, then it may point to DNS issues.

cheers,
Scott

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/input-director/d056a7d6-2932-426e-8c27-ffd4a2ca5942n%40googlegroups.com.

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thanks,
Scott

[Garet Holcomb]

I can't get ID to direct this laptop client at all now.  My setup is three machines: a Director, Client 1, which never changes, and another client that changes based on which laptop is plugged in.  The main Director and Client 1 have never had any problem talking to one another via ID.  It's the Director and the laptops that can't talk, and even that is only one way.  The laptop(s) can control the main machine in director mode, but the main machine can't control the laptop(s).

Ping results as of this moment:

Ping working client from main Director:  fails with "request timed out"

Ping laptop from main director: "Destination host unreachable"

Ping main machine from working client: Pass, with <1ms time

Ping main machine from laptop: Pass with <1ms time

Ping working client from laptop: "Request timed out"

None of this seems to have any effect on whether ID will see the laptops or not as a director.  Again, no problem controlling my main machine as client with the laptop as director, just doesn't work the other way around.

Thanks

[Garet Holcomb]

From my main machine (director) I just pinged the laptop by IP instead of host name, and that worked.  Also, in the "Clients" list on the main machine I manually changed the hostname to the current IP of the laptop and now it works!  That's a temporary fix, although I'm glad to have it. 

Any ideas on how to fix this permanently?

Thanks

[Scott Copus]

This sounds like it could be an issue with the laptop not responding to browse requests for its hostname. You might want to look into its settings under Advanced Network Settings->Advanced Sharing Settings and check if you have "Network discovery" enabled. Or sometimes firewall or security or VPN OS/software could interfere. Or it could be your router and disabling discovery broadcasts for certain networks.  Sometimes this can be a challenge to figure out.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/input-director/78896b0a-abbd-4bdf-b435-362d7a618123n%40googlegroups.com.

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thanks,
Scott