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HD1010 local networking problem HELP

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bmxer
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Been trying to get local networking to work correctly. latest version software and firmware (as well as previous version). I have manually added player IP's (Bonjour discovery was problematic so disabled it). I can ping the players from the PC running BrightAuthor. I can access the players using the IPs with browser. BrightAuthor however, cannot "see" the players in Publish or Manage. When player unit is first given setup file on SD card, it will appear correctly in BrightAuthor, then software will lose communication with player and it will say "unable to connect to (IP of players)". Cannot understand why I can ping players and connect to them using IE (with player IP in URL). Have tried using statip IPs on players and DHCP. Players and BrightAuthor PC are on same building LAN segment. Any help appreciated. Would like to know, exactly, how BrightAuthor initiates and maintains connection to players in "Publish" or "Manage" so as to work with client IT staff to help troubleshoot cause of issue. I have verified that customer not using a proxy, however they do have web filtering appliances on network (however, like I said, I can access players reliably using browser). HELP! customer getting frustrated.
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    Partners


    I am experiencing exactly the same problem, everything worked fine the first time BrightAuthor discovered my 3 x HD1010's then when I try to reconnect to them I receive 'Unable to access a BrightSign at that IP address' even though I can ping the device and the connected screen is showing the correct IP address.  HELP PLEASE
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    RokuLyndon


    BrightAuthor communicates using http. The port on the player it connects to is port 8080. On the computer, it uses whatever ports the system gives to it. When the units lose connectivity, is the unit still playing what you last published? Since you can log in using the IP address of the player, if you click on the control tab, and reboot the unit does it start working again?

    I know proxy software, virus software, even vpn software can cause problems with BrightAuthor communication. Can you send what manual ip information you used to support @ brightsign.biz?

    Are any of these units setup to communicate wirelessly? if so, then another possibility is the unit might be dropping off the network due to wifi connectivity/signal issues.
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    Steve Roehm


    I am also experiencing this problem.    I have no security enabled on my router and it is within 20 feet of my HD210w.   I am running the latest (as of 1/25/2012) firmware and version of BrightAuthor.   It connected wirelessly to the HD210w once and since then get an error message 'Unable to access a BrightSign at that IP address'.
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    Partners


    Has the Brightsign unit you are trying to communicate with got a SD card in it, I had exactly the same issue and found that each Brightsign unit must have a SD card in it full time, I used the SD card to update the settings then pulled it and used it on another device, after a couple of minutes I found I lost connection to it.

    EACH BRIGHTSIGN UNIT NEEDS A SD CARD IN IT PERMANENTLY FOR IT TO WORK CORRECTLY - I've no idea why this isn't displayed more prominently in the user guide.  I took me hours to troubleshoot this.
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    RokuLyndon


    The SD card requirement is covered a number of places in our faq, and in the getting started guide. The brightsign tutorial video shows that the card is needed as well. But, this question does keep coming up.

    Where specifically did you look? I'll make a note to have those sections updated.
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    Nickjbanks


    Has anybody solved this one yet? I think I might have a similar issue. I've got an HD210, the first time I set it up it seemed to connect OK but it's said access denied since then. Tried various tweaks, turned off anti-virus, not sure what else to do. It pings OK.

    EDIT seems to  be working now. I don't think I changed anything.
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    Pan Pacific Perth IT


    Yes, I'm experiencing this problem too.

    I have about 15 HD 1010s, and most of them are working fine - I'm connecting to them via local networking, and pushing presentations up just fine.

    Three of them are having problems though.  I can ping them, and I can view the web interface fine, but BrightAuthor can't see them.  I get the error stating 'no brightsign at that address'.  This is with the 3.7.54 firmware and the 3.7.44.  The other working units are attached to the same switch, on the same LAN, and are running the 3.7.44 firmware.

    If I format the SD card and set up the unit from scratch, I'm able to access them via local networking.  I'm able to push an update up, but after an hour or so, they stop responding via local networking.  I can still ping and view the web interface though.

    Rebooting the unit doesn't resolve the problem, leading me to think that maybe the SD card is filling up or something?  

    edit:  unfortunately not:
    Filesystem           1k-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
    /dev/sda1              3864064    140480   3723584   4% /storage/sd



    I'm really puzzled, and would really appreciate some assistance.


    Mark.
  • 0
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    Partners


    Hi Mark,
    I had the exact same problem about a month ago and have previously posted in this thread, our issue turned out to be a network ports problem, the desktop running brightauthor had its IE proxy set to use port 8080 as we proxy authentcate internet traffic, the Brightsign units use port 8080 to communicate, we found that once we disabled the proxy on the desktop access started working again.  I assume this issue would also extend to any other software potentially using port 8080 from the desktop side, might be worth doing a netstat just to check.  This drove us absolutely crazy I don't know why Brightsign chose 8080 because its the most common proxy port.  We ended up setting up a separate virtualised PC that the admin staff remote into when they want to update content on the units because if we install BrightAuthor on their desktops no one can access the internet.

    Alexander
  • 0
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    Pan Pacific Perth IT


    Thanks Alexander, great info.

    I don't have a proxy set on those PCs, so they shouldn't have any problem with port 8080.

    I just tried telnetting to the brightsign on port 80, and was successful.  Port 8080 wasn't successful

    I also tried connecting from a linux box on the network, which definitely doesn't have anything running on that port.  Successful on 80, not on 8080.

    nmap shows that port 80 is the only port open on the 'faulty' units, whereas an nmap port scan on a 'working' unit shows both 80 and 8080 open.

    Which would suggest the problem is with the player, not the workstation config.
  • 0
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    Partners


    Hi CurleyAU,
    I've just tried telnetting to port 8080 and it works (abeit blank screen) on all three of our working units so as you say it must be an issue with the units themselves perhaps.
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    Lyndon

    On the problem players, have you tried creating the setup files again, and power up the units with those setup files, to see if the port's reopened. 

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    Pan Pacific Perth IT

    Yes, have tried that a few times.  It works for a few hours or a couple of updates, but then Brightsign can't connect, and port 8080 is closed.

     

    Rebooting the device doesn't help.  I'll try a different physical SD card this morning, but I doubt it's that.  The cards are Sandisk Ultra 4GBs.

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    Pan Pacific Perth IT

    Well this is interesting.  I formatted a new card, and set up the unit again.  It's been up for over a day now, and I've published many different things to it.

    I'm putting my money on it being a dodgy batch of SD cards.  Will give it a few days and see if they stay fixed...

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    Pan Pacific Perth IT

    Unfortunately not.  I published a range of different presentations to the units, and they appeared to work fine for a couple of days.  But checked on them thismorning and they're not responding on port 8080.

    Doubt it's anything wrong with the presentations, as the presentations are working fine on 8 or 9 other units.

    What can I do to troubleshoot this further?

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    Lyndon

    You can enable the diagnostic web server on the units, and check the system log when you log into the diag server for any errors.

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    Pan Pacific Perth IT

    This entry in the logs was posted a moment ago.

     

    [ 60.688] TIME: Render = 0.428357
    [ 60.692] TIME: CancelRender = 0.000606
    [ 633.204] Attempting to post crash dump to server.
    [ 639.224] Crash dump posted to https://www.brightsignnetworkmanager.com/bs/CrashReport.ashx

     

    Starting Nmap 4.62 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2012-04-05 17:04 WST
    Interesting ports on 10.108.76.154:
    Not shown: 1714 closed ports
    PORT STATE SERVICE
    80/tcp open http

     

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    Pan Pacific Perth IT

    Ok, so last week I updated 4 of my HD1010s with new SD cards freshly formatted, and also the newest firmware.

    I uploaded a presentation using the new release of BrightAuthor on a Win 7 PC.  The presentation was one jpg image, saved out of Powerpoint.

    Info

    Model: HD1010
    Unique ID: A0F0CT00XXXX
    Ethernet MAC: 00:0d:4b:61:XX:XX
    Boot Version: 3.3.69
    Firmware Version: 3.8.34
    Video Mode: 1920x1080x60i
    Uptime: 3 days 0 hours 47 minutes
    When I came in this morning, I see that 3 of the 4 units aren't accepting connections on port 8080, but the other one is working fine.
    Should I consider these units faulty, and ask them be replaced, or is there some other troubleshooting I can perform?  I'm doing a port scan using nmap from a linux box, so it can't be an issue with my windows PC.  It may be a network issue, but I've checked the switch port config and it's identical to that of a working unit.  Tearing my hair out here.  :)
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    Lyndon

    Mark, I'm going to replace one of the units to see if we see any different behavior.

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    Pan Pacific Perth IT

    That's great, how should I contact you privately to arrange this?  I'll happily send a unit in it's current state, including the SD card.

    Are you also able to extend the trial of brightsign network I'm currently using as a workaround while we're investigating this issue?

  • 0
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    Lyndon

    please send an email to support@brightsign.biz. 

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    Charles Krueger

    Here we are almost a year later on this issue. I have 4 1020 units that we are setting up for LAN publishing. I can ping the IP, but when I try to add the IP's to the BrightAuthor software, it cannot locate the IP addresses. We are using Static IP's. One thing to note is that the IP address for the unit is on a different subnet than the PC. For example, PC address is 192.168.1.5 and the unit is 192.168.2.23. The IP address is routable and pingable but cannot add through Bright Author. I have tried different SD cards and uploading config multiple times.

     

    PLEASE HELP!!!

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    Lyndon

    Charles, what brightatuhor version are you using? And, can you install a program like wireshark to monitor traffic to and from the brightsign? that might help us figure out why brightauthor can't connect to the players. Port  8080 should be opened on players setup for local networking, and that's what brightauthor should be connecting to. 

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    Nickjbanks

    As this has been re-opened here's an update from me: I did manage to get mine working and installed it on site but it was pretty hit and miss as to when I could connect to it. The IT guy at the venue had less luck than me and couldn't connect at all. He has now changed it for another make of player which is working well. I like these units as they are generally robust and easy to use but the network feature just doesn't seem to work as it should.

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    Pan Pacific Perth IT

    An update from me also.

     

    My site has been working fine with recent firmware versions.  Unfortunately I don't recall which firmware version fixed the problem, but I've been stable and working for >6 months now.

    To recap - if you port scan the Brightsign and port 8080 isn't open, you won't be able to publish to it via BrightAuthor - Local network.

    Since updating the firmware last year, that problem hasn't raised its head.

    Occasionally the units don't get discovered by Bonjour, but I have them on static IP addresses (with a DHCP reservation) and Marketing just add them via IP and publish fine.

     

    I have 17 HD1010s in operation and another 7 HD220s waiting to be rolled out and I'm fairly happy with the setup.

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    Charles Krueger

    Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. Turns out although we had the Brightsign units in the same network area and using the same broadcast address, they were on an independent subnet. Although we could ping them as they were being routed through the shared gateway, the independant subnet made them unreachable. We ended up having to build a virtual machine on the side of the PCs with IPs in the subnet that the Brightsign units were in. We then would utilize the VM, which we could reach with the PCs, to publish to the brightsign units via BirghtAuthor. Isn't netwoking fun!

     

    Thanks,

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    Lyndon

    Thanks for the updates. 

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    Kasper Stouenborg

    I'm about to do a Local File Network with more than 80 Brightsign players, HD220 and HD1020.

    But it seams that "Networked with Local File Networking" is not anymore an option in the BrightSign Unit Setup dialog box.

    Or do i have to do something to make this option to show up?

  • 0
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    Lyndon

    We don't recommend using local networking for that many units. It's recommended for a small network, more in the 10 - 20 unit range. As far as making the option appear, go to the edit menu, preferences, networking, and turn on the local network option.

     

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    Matt Lubbers

    I have tried everything here and I have tried different versions of the Firmware.  I have tried a network with only one router, my PC, and the HD1020.  I have tried a crossover cable "network".  It always says "unable to access a brightsign at that IP address"  In all configurations I can Ping the device just fine.  I dont get it.  Is there something I am missing?  I have done this before on the same network with a 1010, if that makes a difference.

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    Lyndon

     

    Are you using static or dhcp? what's your subnet mask. Can you get to this address?

     

    Http://unitipaddress:8080/GetID

     

     

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