Problems with RailMaster iPad app

[Nick_]

Does anybody else use the iPad app with RailMaster?  

I'm having a problem where the iPad app periodically looses connection with RailMaster usually indicated by the green icon in the top left corner of the iPad screen going red and I'm looking for any suggestions as to how to fix it. When the iPad looses connection I have to stop the iPad app and re-start it, it will then work for a few minutes or 10s of minutes before loosing connection again.

I have already considered the following:

RailMaster is v1.64r1 re-upgraded yesterday

The iPad app is v1.21 The PC is Win 7 SP1 at current patch level

The PC has a fixed IP address (192.168.1.200)

The iPad has a fixed IP address (192.168.1.202)

There are no other deviced trying to use the same IP addresses

The PC has a wired connection to the wiFi router, the iPad uses WiFi

The WiFi router is physically in my railway room.

I have tried changing the server port, this made no difference. (changed in both the app and the RailMaster.ini file)

RailMaster can happily connect to the internet

RailMaster is allowed through the windows firewall, disabling the firewall does not make any difference

No 3rd part anti-virus installed (just Microsoft Security Essentials)

[Chrissaf]

My first reaction would be to say the iPad is loosing the Wi-fi signal. But you say that the Wi-fi router is in the same room. Change the router orientation (turn it through 90 degrees) and make sure it is not close to or hidden behind other things. As an experiment, operate your layout with the iPad whilst standing next to the router. Does connection reliability improve?

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What IEEE 802.11 spec does your iPad use for the Wi-fi?

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If it is one of the older standards like the 'g' standard for example (IEEE 802.11g) then that has inherently poor connection reliability. IEEE802.11n on your iPad would be preferred, then you could operate the Wi-fi at 5Ghz instead of 2.4Ghz. Unless the router is very old, it should be a dual standard router supporting both the 'g' and the 'n' standards. The very latest standard is IEEE802.1ac but "ac" compatible kit is so new that there is not much of it about. The 'ac' spec would also need to be implemented at both ends, the mobile device as well as the router. Thus at this early adopter stage of 'ac' technology, the upgrade costs would be significant (assuming the iPad could be upgraded, which I doubt).

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Another user expressed exactly the same symptoms. In his case, his Wifi router was on a lower floor. He used an extender to put a second IEEE802.1n Wifi transmitter / receiver in the same room as his layout to solve his issue, but that is the same as you having the Wifi router itself in the same room. But his solution does indicate that it is the Wifi wireless communication that is the problem.

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Is anybody else using your Internet at the same time as you're controlling your layout. Granted you are not using the Internet, but you are using the router. The router may be busy handling other traffic. Someone watching a YouTube video or watching Internet TV for example. Particularly relevant if they too are using Wifi for that activity.

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My motto is 'wire it if you can....wireless only if you have to'. Unfortunately with the iPad, that falls into the 'have to' category.

 

[RB51]

I hope we get a solution for you Nick - but I don't think you should put your IP addresses on here. R-

[Nick_]

@chrissaf

According to Apple's spec the iPad I'm using supports Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n) and my WiFi router is configured for g & n, so that's the faster 2 standards.

My  WiFi router has 3 ariels and it's in line of sight and only a few feet from the iPad with nothing in the way. I've never had any dropout problems with any other network connection using the iPad  or any other device. The iPad is showing 3 bars which is full wifi strength

I'm going to borrow my wife's iPad tomorrow and try the app from that USB in case it's a problem with my iPad itself

 

[Chrissaf]

I find that when the modile device is left to its own devices to connect to the router (automatically). It searches out the connection with the highest signal strength. But not necessarily the Wifi standard with the best connection reliability. My laptop insisted that it connected to my router using the 'g' standard. I had to manually configure the laptop to only connect using the 'n' standard, after which all my connection issues went away.

[Nick_]

@RogerB

Thanks, but don't worry, those IP addresses on my own internal private network behind my broadband router And so are inaccessible to anybody else not on my network. I won't be publishing my external IP address...

[Nick_]

@chrissaf

Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be any way on an iPad to find out which standard it has chosen or to tell it which to use. But given the distance it shouldn't really be a problem which ever it choses

[Chrissaf]

One of the reasons I don't like Apple products. Apple seem to have a policy of not allowing users access to configurations for hardly anything. It seems that their view is. If you can't tinker with the settings, then you can't 'expletive' it up.

[DigitalBlue]

If you have a router that has both 2.4 & 5 GHz WiFi, then it's best to give them different names. That way you know which you are connecting to. This stops them moving between to the two without you knowing as you can 'forget' the one you want to stay off of. 

[Chrissaf]

DB, is 100% correct. This is the method I used as part of my Laptop configuration to force the laptop to use my 802.11n 5Ghz channel. DB said, give the two different 2.4 and 5Ghz Wifi channel bands different names. The names he is referring to are the Wifi SSID (Service Set IDentifier) names. These are the names that appear in your Wifi network selection list on your Mobile devices when searching for a network to connect to.

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Most ISP's default router configurations use the same SSID name for both the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz channel. This means you, the user, cannot make a specific manual connection to any particular channel. The device will auto-negotiate a connection to that SSID based on signal strength. Thus you, the user, cannot then force the mobile device to use the 5Ghz channel.

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If you access the 'Dual Band' Wifi configuration interface in your router you should (with most Dual Band routers) be able to allocate a different SSID name to the 5Ghz channel and un-link it from the 2.4Ghz channel band (i.e. make them work independently from one-another). Let's say just for the sake of description that the two SSID's are named MyWifi24G (IEEE802.11g 2.4Ghz channel) & MyWifi5G (IEEE802.11n 5Ghz channel). On the mobile device when searching for a Network SSID to connect to, both of these SSID names should then be listed as they are being broadcast out from your Wifi router. You would then be able to manually select the SSID "MyWifi5G" to connect to. Hopefully, subject to the device in question, you should also be able to tell the mobile device to 'always' connect to this SSID in preference to others that might be visible to it. Thus you have then locked the mobile device to use the later IEEE802.11n spec WIfi interface operating at 5Ghz.

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PS - You can use the same Wifi password for both SSIDs.

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Two web-links that might help are pasted below:

https://www.lifewire.com/definition-of-service-set-identifier-816547?globeNoTest

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/connect-ipad-to-wireless-network/

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[Nick_]

So, further testing:

My router is only enabled for 2.4Ghz and is set to channel 6. My WiFi sniffer (inSSIDer) shows that nobody else is using channel 6 (I'm rural so there aren't many other houses around) and signal strength is very good.

I've tried another iPad and it has exactly the same problem (period loss of connection)

RailMaster is running on a desktop PC which has the eLink connected to it and I happen to have a second licence for Railmaster so I've installed it on my laptop. I've configured the laptop as a Slave terminal which is currently working OK and this would appear to rule out it being a WiFi issue?

[DigitalBlue]

So, with the iPads, when you say they lose connection, is that to the WiFi as a whole, or just to RailMaster? 

[Nick_]

It's Just the RailMaster app that appears to lose connectivity to RailMaster on the PC. I've never had any wifi connectivity problems otherwise. And if I stop and re-start the app it always connects and works  for a while

[DigitalBlue]

So looking in the RM manuals, it uses ports from 30-37 by default... I would make sure all of those ports are allowed between the IP addresses of your laptop and your iPad fixed IP on your Windows firewall.

 

Although you've tried a different port, this could still be the issue. Port 30 for example is a known port of a trojan virus so may be problematic. Also IMO any port below 1024 is not a great start as on non-windows machines, it can mean the port if compromised may lead to admin level access to the host computer. So they may be subject to more interest from both outside and AV software.

 

Port 8788 is not a registered port, or recognised for any known viruses, so may be worth a shot. Again, if you choose this make sure your firewall allows ports 8788-8795 between the RM computer and the iPad. 

[Mobileadam]

I was a big user of the app on my iPad but have the same sort of problems. I control lots of devices through my wifi network, drones for my son and other projects and never have issues. Still the railmaster software loses connection. Support blame my network for a number and of weird bugs - but of course they do, it's the easier option. 

[Nick_]

 @DigitalBlue

I'll give your suggested port numbers a go and let you know what happens.

I'm currently running with the Windows firewall switched off on my RailMasterPC so my LAN is open but the LAN is then protected from the WAN/Internet by an external firewall in my internet router which I've tested to make sure doesn't leak ports. 

I have found that reducing the Update Interval setting to 3 secs in the apps settings improves things, but it still looses connection, just a bit  less frequently.

[Augustus Caesar]

@Nick

 

You don't need to turn off the Windows Firewall at all. That's not going to help you here. The situation you have as far as I can tell from your initial post is that you have fixed an IP address to your PC as 192.168.1.200 and the iPad as 192.168.1.202.

Now... you say 'fixed' IP... is this just set on each device alone or just inside the router alone or, more critically, have you set the fixed IP addresses to BOTH the PC and iPad PLUS the router?

Inside the router you would fix the IP address for each of the PC and iPad to that equipments MAC address.

This way the router CANNOT reallocate those addresses to other equipment either from the the start OR when you are running your railway and someone else turns on their laptop, PC, phone or whatever and demands an IP address from the same router. It is possible that the router may give a duplicated IP without warning you of a clash. I do recognise you said that no other equipment is receiving the same IP address but without anyone knowing how you are set with your configuration it is impossible to give an answer without just 'guessing' what is wrong. No offence to anyone trying to help but fixed IP's can cause all sorts of issues if not set correctly as some will already know.

 

If the router is in the same room it is unlikely to drop out as much as you are saying and using different SSID's is not always possible sa some routers do NOT allow this. Are you wireless channels on each device set to a default? This is usually 6 when first bought but can be changed if residentials around you also use wireless a lot. Moving to another channel, say 8, that is not frequently used can help. The frequencies will be picked up by the device and router and each will find common ground in which to operate. You shouldn't have any trouble at all with dual or triple frequency routers as they are all compatible anyway from 'g' through to present.

 

If the router is not configured with the PC's IP and MAC address through the router interface then I suggest you do this so on the network adapter under network settings you have the same IP there. This obviously goes for the iPad too.

 

If your setup is already configured thus then do let us know.

[Nick_]

 @AC

Thanks for your suggestions.

Neither my iPad or my RailMaster PC have any network related problems with any other network connected apps or applications. It is only the RailMaster iPad app that appear to be loosing its connection to RailMaster. It should be noted that changing the RailMaster apps  'Update Interval' setting to 3 (the minimum) from from its default of 6 has improved things in that the RailMaster app will now work for up to 30 minutes before failing, whilst with the default setting it was pretty much always failing within 5 minutes.

The fixed IP addresses used for the iPad and the RailMaster PC are deliberately outside the routers DHCP range (which is set to .100 - .199) and network sniffing has confirmed that no other devices are ever trying to use those IP addresses. I will do as you suggest and program the mac addresses into the router, but I don't hold out much hope that this will fix the problem (though you never know...)

My router is on channel 6 there are no other routers using this channel. My neighbour uses channel 1 (with a different SSID) and my other WiFi router (not in my computer room) uses channel 11, again with a different SSID. Thus there are no channel overlaps or co-channel interference. This has all been checked using a rather useful PC program called inSSIDer which also shows me the wifi signal strength is very good (~-25db)

I agree that there is no real need to turn off the firwall, this was done simply to remove one extra variable. It is safe to do in my case but I certainly wouldn't reccomend switching off firewalls to anybody else unless they fully understand their own network infrastructure and are confident they still have an good external firwewall in place (as I do).

Thanks for all your suggestions

Nick

[Nick_]

 @DigitalBlue

Just to let you know that changing the port number has not made any difference, but thanks for the suggestion

Nick

[Fishmanoz]

Next stop - HRMS, although I haven't checked earlier in the thread to see if you have done this already. 

 

Irrespective, email from the facility in the Help window, and do it after you have opened the HH app and it has stopped working, in case that leaves any trace in your log.txt file which is sent to them with your email. 

[Augustus Caesar]

We're not quite at that stage yet Fishy my old mate... there are still a couple of suggestions and answers awaited before going down that route.

 

OK Nick... changing ports didn't offer too much but it was worth a run although I did not expect anything from it. Without seeing your setup I can't obviously tell you for definite what the problem is but as I do understand fully the networking side (having built several servers etc. I can help here more than most. Having said that you do have a grasp of most of it anyway...

 

If you have changed the update interval from 6 to 3 then this proves communication is at fault here... of which we have almost entirely worked out anyway but this proves the point.

 

As you have stated the DHCP range is not interfering with the static IP side of things it is still always wise to tie a MAC address to an IP within a router and match that to the IP fixed on the PC or iPad. If the router is attempting to keep that connection for all time it may be getting dropped purely because it is not fixed within the router. I know you don't hold out much hope for this but I must say you would be surprised how many times connections have been made more permanent with this scenario. It should be done anyway really for redundancy (fail safe for the uninitiated).

 

You have no interference from other channels which is excellent and can be ruled out of the situation.

The ONLY time you should switch off the Windows Firewall is if you have another more solid software firewall in place as you shouldn't run two together on the same machine (same as antivirus software (though NOT the same as malware or spyware)). The only time two firewalls should be running is when the router contains a firewall of its own (hardware - which most do have these days) and you have a software one besides (Windows Firewall for example). The better the router (industry standard or high spec ones) will have a better firewall written to the chipsets.

 

A couple more questions for you...

1. Are you running WPA2 or WPA2-Personal as your passphrase? You will probably already know but these are highly recommended and are the best ones to use if the router, PC and iPad do support them.

2. Have you tried renewing the lease on the iPad for Wi-Fi?

3. On the iPad try 'forgetting' the network and then re-connect.

4. Restarting the iPad after some changes will help but you will will already know this I am sure.

5. The iPad has a reset I believe (if I remember after fixing one a while back)... try that after changing some settings and nothing works so you can re-enter the configuration.

6. Upgrade the iPad and/or router firmware.

 

You may already have tried these so apologies if you have but at least it may help if you haven't... or give you a clue when going through them as to what might be wrong...

 

Keep us informed...

[DigitalBlue]

@Nick...

 

I know you have changed ports, but you need to be more specific on what you changed them to. My point is/was that you need to be careful which ports you use as the one you chose could be in use by something else. Hence my comments on using ports < 1024 being generally a bad idea. 

 

One thing I have noticed is that the actual port the iPad uses to connect to RM varies. It doesn't stay on the configured default port... So I have seen it move from 30 to 32 to 33 etc when the iPad comes back from 'sleep' or RM restarts while the iPad is running the RM app. The iPad config still says port 30.

 

So - try the specific port range I suggested and also make sure your RM PC firewall allows the base port + 9 more in a contiguous block. 

 

If you have something on your network/PC setup that is using any port from 30-39 it could be part of the problem assuming your network is itself stable. If RM is moving ports in that range under the covers, then you need to be very careful which port range you pick. 

[Nick_]

 @DigitalBlue

Apologies I should have been more specific I changed the base port in the RailMaster ini file to your suggested value of 8788. So far I have seen the app, at different times, try to use 8788, 8789 & 8790

The port change made no difference compared to when it was using 30 as the base port. As far as I can tell noting else is attempting to use 8788, 8789 & 8790 (or indeed 30, 31 & 32). But it's something ruled out, so that's progress.

As I mentioned in my post to AC, currently I have the software firewall on my RailMaster PC disabled. This is safe to do because I have a hardware firewall on the outside of my private network so I safely disable all software firewalls on PCs inside my private network when I need to do so.

Thus currently there is a hardware firewall between the internet and my network, but no internal firewall between my iPad and my RailMaster PC. Once I get the problem resolved I will bring the RailMaster PC firewall back on-line, but at the moment its disabled just to remove one more variable .

[Nick_]

 @Fishy the problem has been reported to HRMS and so far they've responed with the expected 'you've probably got a problem with you network'. I've sent further info and I'm now waiting for a further response to that. In parallel I've asked the collective brains on the forum in case someone had previously had the same problem and resolved it themselves. Some useful suggestions coming from the likes of AC and DigitalBlue, but unfortunately no suggestion that generates a final solution as yet.

[Nick_]

 @AC

Thaks for all your suggestions so far.

To answer you questions:

1. Wireless is using WPA/WPA2 Personal (WPA2-PSK) with AES encryption

2. The iPad (and the RailMaster PC have both been switched off-on multiple times to allow them to re-request their IP address. As they have been set to use static addresses outside the DHCP range they are asking for, and being allocated their requested address and the router logs show me that it has indeed allocated those addresses to those devices (and only to those devices)

3. Deleted and re-connected the Ipad to the network but it didn't make any difference.

4. Both the RailMaster PC and the iPad have been re-booted after changes, just in case (but it didn't help)

5. The only reset the iPad has resets it to 'factory default' which also destroys all your data, so not a good plan. However I have tried the app on 2 different iPads, with the same results

6. iPad is running the latest version of IOS, my router is running the latest available firmware, my RailMaster PC is running the most up-to-date version of Win7 SP1 with all updates applied.