railmaster hand held

[Mick1968]

Hi their I am trying to get the railmaster hand held to work on my phone, without success.

 

My phone is the Samsung Galaxy S8 and I am using Chrome version 69.0.3497.91

 

please help

 

Regards

 

Mick

[Chrissaf]

The Android 'Hand Held' app only works on Chrome version 35.

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Since it is near impossible to force a permanent downgrade of Chrome to version 35, you will have to wait for the planned Android APP re-write that has been promised but as yet no delivery date has been stated.

[Mick1968]

ok thanks for the reply

[Fireman_Ian]

Mick, the android app has never worked, so dont waste your time and money.

We are all still waiting for a new app that works or our money back, lol. 🤐

[RDS]

... the android app has never worked ...

 

Sorry, that is not true.

I have had it working.

[Colpatben]

... the android app has never worked ...

 

Sorry, that is not true.

I have had it working.

 

So How, when, which browser and version ?

 

I am desperate to have this function working!! 😢

 

Using Samsung Tab3 Chrome V69 but willing to try anything just give me a clue.

 

[RDS]

... So How, when, which browser and version ?

 

I have just had it working a few minutes ago.

The reason I previously said I HAD it working was just because I have only just got my layout up and running again and my Android phone has been upgraded since I first loaded RM Handheld.  I have never had a Chrome version of 35, as that was always an earlier version than was available for download, or pre-installed on the phone.

 

Tonight, I installed Chrome on my Android phone.  It is version 58.0.3029.83.

In the address bar, enter:

www.my-apps.eu

This loads the RM handheld application.  I selected settings at the top right corner of the RM application and changed the ip address to the ip address of my laptop that runs RM.  After a short while (guess 30 seconds) the Handheld application bleeped and my Loco's were loaded onto my phone.  A few seconds later and my plan was loaded onto my phone.

 

I then successfully ran some Loco's by selecting them from the dropdown.  It starts off very small and you need to pinch to zoom it in.  After that it filled the screen, in portrait mode.  I have started Loco's on my laptop and stopped them using the Handheld and vice versa.  However, selections made on the Handheld, are correctly reflected on the RM screen on my laptop, but not vice versa.

 

If I remember correctly, there did used to be a requirement for v35 of Chrome but I never had a problem with not having v35 of Chrome.  It may be that some functions I didn't actually use were not available.

 

EDIT:  I have just tried again and a little patience was required, whilst it reloaded everything.  If it looks like it is not doing anything, just wait.  Mine took less than a minute.

[Chrissaf]

See also:

https://www.hornby.com/uk-en/forum/railmaster-android-app---problem-pinching-to-zoom-and-google-chrome-version/#post-92080

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I have just tried it and can confirm that the downloadable Chrome 35? installer file is still available for download on the link in the body of the post 'Step 1' text.

[RDS]

/media/tinymce_upload/64862a59b3093399732ea66d9b344437.png

 

This is an example of the Handheld Display, on an Android phone. This is using Browser Chrome v58 that I loaded yesterday. As expected, pinch to zoom is not available on the track plan using this version of Chrome but I have been unable to load v35 from the link Chris has provided above.

 

I use RailMaster mainly from a W10 Desktop but this gives quite adequate results for me and of course is completely wireless and all my Loco's (with their individual functions) are available from the drop down.

 

It is essential to allocate a fixed ip address to the PC running RailMaster, because this address is stored in the Android app.

[Colpatben]

I have downloaded Chrome from the link that Chris provided, but it returns as v36 so no pinch and zoom! But the throttles do seem to work between Tablet and Railmaster and visa versa, albeit the Railmaster PC is currently NOT connected to a layout. I will persevere and report back middle of next week on a working layout if I can make the time.

BTW. I am only using the evaluation version of the Hand Held App

[Chris Surrey]

Does anyone know whether, once set up on an android phone, an internet connection is needed to run the handheld app. Reason I am asking is that I would like to use an old Android phone running Chrome v35 at an exhibition as a throttle but have so far failed to get it to work. 

[Chrissaf]

I think it is highly unlikely that the Android APP supports 'Peer to Peer' networking with RailMaster. All the documentation I have seen indictates that the Android HH wireless data has to pass via a Wi-fi router. However, the Wi-fi router does not need an Internet connection to be present to support the connection.

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Note 'Peer to Peer' networking means that two LAN attached devices communicate directly with each other without passing through through a LAN network device (i.e a LAN Layer 3 switch or router).

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So basically, you take your own Wi-fi router with you to the exhibition and power it up. You set up a TCP/IP address in the router. This is called the 'default gateway' address. You will have to then set this 'default gateway' TCP/IP address into the PC (the PC that is running RailMaster) network configuration and the Android device network configuration setting. The 'default gateway' address needs to be an address in the same TCP/IP subnet used by your PC and Android device. The PC can connect to the Wi-fi router using an RJ45 Ethernet cable leaving the Android device to connect to the Wi-fi router wirelessly. The Wi-fi side of the router will also need a matching configuration on the router and the Android device to set the Wi-fi SSID (Service Set IDentifier) and password.

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If you have no experience of TCP/IP addressing and subnets and Wi-fi SSIDs you will struggle to set this up as it requires a lot of manual configuration and is not 'plug n play'.

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To make life a little easier, you could set the TCP/IP 'default address' of the exhibition Wi-fi router to the same address that is normally used by the broadband router you use at home. Thus the PC network configuration can remain the same. In other words, the settings in the exhibition Wi-fi router are cloned the same as your normal home router. Thus you only need to go into your normal home router management interface and copy its settings into the exhibition router.

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Remember also, that when using the Android APP, the PC running RailMaster needs to have a 'static' TCP/IP address configured (assuming you adopt Hornby RailMaster recommendations). By default, the PC will be configured to be allocated a dynamic TCP/IP address via a local DNS (Domain Name Service) running in the router. This 'static' TCP/IP address is then configured in the Android APP to tell the Android APP where in your local network it can find the RailMaster application.

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More information on TCP/IP networking and setting up 'static' addresses for RailMaster can be found on AC's RailMaster 'Help Site' - see the link in the sticky post at the top of the RailMaster & TrackMaster sub-forum.

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PS - I would suggest setting up your Chrome 35 Android device and get it running on your normal 'home' setup first. That will debug the bulk of the configuration settings you need to achieve to get it working. Then it will be an easier task to get it working via a standalone exhibition Wi-fi router.