Wiser can no longer talk to CBUS Network

Am working on a CBUS system with a Wiser unit that recently stopped accepting commands from WiserUI.

A Reboot of the Wiser allows it to control the lighting etc., but pressing the buttons then fails and the lights on the modena CBUS switching flashes. Eventually, the WiserUI stops talking to the CBUS Network (CBUS with cross through it appears on WiserUI) and the switches work again, but the WiserUI stops.

The CNI light on the Wiser flashes constantly between red/orange as opposed to intermittenantly when the Wiser can no longer control the CBUS Network.

Anyone have any thoughts as to why?

I can no longer update project via PICED and when I scan network for CBUS networks in CBUS toolkit it identifies the CNI controller (greyed out) and the Wiser, but cannot identify Project Name on Wiser.

Wiser is at 10.0.0.240 and CNI from web page is ...

Description: CNI Mk 2
Project: ````````
Part name: ````````
C-Bus status: Not responding since 1 minute ago
Network voltage: 28.1V, measured 29 minutes ago
IP Address: 10.0.0.241
Netmask: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 10.0.0.1
TCP Port: 10001
Unit Address: 255
MAC Address: 00:17D:01:09:49
Serial Number: 010485754095
C-Bus Firmware: 5.4.00
Ethernet Firmware: 1.0.0
Hardware variant: Inline

Can anyone assist?


Regards,


BenC

 

This part of your problem sounds like a C-Bus communications issue. Use the Diagnostic Utility Network Analyser to monitor the error rate while you switch some C-Bus groups on and off.

It may just be an issue with the C-Bus burden, C-Bus voltage or electrical noise.

 

Thanks for your input.

I managed to get around to working through this with a colleague and it was a comms issue.

An additional problem was the USB CNI I had attached would not work whilst the Wiser was connected, which kept poiting us back to the CNI on the Wiser. (usually you can use one or the other CNI on the network even when both connected.. obviouslly never at the same time) You could see the network existed, and connect to it, but couldn't locate devices on the network.

Worked through this with Tech Support after confirming below with network analyser,

1) burden ok
2) voltage ok
3) enough power (amperage) to support load on network
4) factory defaulted devices to remove any config errors

After discussing in detail and performing numerous test with Tech Suppport, they advised to return Wiser and test it in the lab.

.. returned Wiser to Techos who confirmed the CNI portion of the Wiser wasn't operating properly so have had that part replaced.

Thanks to the tech support in Clipsal who helped us through this if they're watching .. and hopefully if someone else experiences this they can learn from the steps I've taken, and thanks Darren for your advise. It pointed us clearly in the right direction to resolution.


Regards,


BenC.

 

Hi,

I had a similar problem with couple of wiser units. As soon as you configure the wiser router and CNI to 10.0.0.X range the C-bus comms dies, put it back to 192.168.2.X range and everything works fine. Not sure how does the IP side of things correlate with C-bus comms but I have seens this happen on two units.

on 10.0.0.x range I can still logon to wiser GUI on explorer/ iphone but there are no comms happening on C-bus side.

Any one else had this issue?

P.S the reason to go to 10.0.0.x range is because some brand of telstra modem dont easily allow personalised DHCP IP assisgment.

 

I have seen this problem before with Telstra.

Here is how I do the change in the Telstra modem.

a) Change the primary LAN address of the router / modem.

b) Connect with a manual address (not DHCP) in the laptop or PC.

b) Disable DHCP in Telstra appliance.

c) Enter the desired address pool as mentioned above. (may already be there).

d) Delete the default address pool.

e) Reboot Telstra appliance

f) Log in to Telstra appliance and enable DHCP.

Most people dont know, and it will not be supported on the phone (from India) how to make these changes.

The unwritten rule is that you can only change the DHCP range (address pool) while DHCP is disabled. You can only delete the address pool while DHCP is disabled. I used some basic Cisco concepts to work that out.

Recommendation
--------------------

When creating an address pool, dont need to add all 254 numbers. Make the pool from xxx.xxx.xxx.16 to xxx.xxx.xxx.64 since that is above the hardware limit of the router anyway and homes dont have more than 48 devices operating through the internet.

This allows a number of static addresses where you are able to fix the location of an appliance with a TCP address without having to use address reservations. You would use an address outside of the address pool.

This also means that when the Telstra router is offline ... you can still work in the house between servers, printers, secondary routers like wiser, managed switches.

I dont see the need for having everything on DHCP. It places additional burdens on the Telstra router because the DHCP server is also the LAN DNS for internal resolution and Network Discovery.

You can easily customise a Thomson router or similar from Telstra. There is no documentation or support but the change is relatively simple.

 

Thanks for the reply Tobex,

I think the telstra modem my customer have is techicolour. I did work with thomspson which took me a while to get aroung the non-user friendly GUI. Especially the port forwading bit was very painful.

But in any case I am still confused as to why the wiser stops responding on C-bus side when range is changed to 10.0.0.xxx range. I mean there might be situations where wiser need to go in option B (Static IP no DHCP) with a range other than 192.

Is your wiser working ok on 10 range ARRIKHAN?

 

Wiser

Just to confirm - my Wiser here is on the 10.0.0.xx range and works fine, has done for over a year now with no communication problems.

Mark

 

Not knowing - I can only think that the subnet mask in one of the devices could have been automatically changed so that it wasn't obvious and that would be sufficient to topple the communication.

I do know that some routers are bios limited to 32 machines and when they see the Class C addressing they flip the desk.

 

Mine works fine on 10.0.0.xxx address range.

1) Using IP Util I set the subnet/gateway/ip address on CNI on Wiser first (setting up using B option from manual!).

CNI IP Address: 10.0.0.241
Netmask: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 10.0.0.1 (my ADSL Modem on network)

2) Using Wiser GUI, I setup the IP on the Wiser Router with a different IP than above (obviously) but the other details remain the same.

Make sure you're not assigning an IP in a DHCP supplied range. I limit my router to 100-199 and use 200-250 for static IP's in my network to avoide duplication.

What you describe above sounds like an IP address conflict.

What settings are you using for WISER Router and CNI on Wiser?

PS: You can check settings of CNI on Wiser by viewing address as web page just like you do the Wiser Router (http://10.0.0.241 in my case)


Regards,


BenC

 

Some routers will not accept that subnet mask over a C-Class type NAT. For reasons to do with convention and style the most common setup by default is

10.0.0.xxx with SM: 255.0.0.0 -----> Class C with 24 bits of freedom.

192.168.1.xxx with SM: 255.255.255.0 -----> Class A with 8 bits of freedom.

I am not saying you cant do it ... clearly you can. But there comes a time when the defaults sneak up on you with other brands of equipment and then you spend hours working out that the hardware ASSUMED a specific setup without asking you and automatically changed something you already typed in to something else. Then of course ... it doesnt work 100%.

 

Hi,

I will be going to the site this friday and test the equipment.

We had 10.0.0.155 for CNI which we could ping and check on web browser

We had 10.0.0.150 for Wiser which we could ping and log to on web browser

The modem is 10.0.0.138 (default technicolor telstra setting)

The above settings let us communicate with each device but no C-bus. I am wondering if I need to put default gateway for CNI as Wiser IP cuz thats the only link I see between CNI and WISER. We may have had inconsistant subnets but I thought that doesnt matter cuz Class A should Still talk to Class C as long as the first three prefix match i.e (FIXED).(FIXED).(FIXED).(VARIABLE).

Anyways will test on firday and post.

 

It depends on the hardware and its internal error handling.

 

All good on LAN side of wiser today. As suspected the gateway in CNI is the IP of Wiser.

Had hard time configuring Telstra's Technicolour / Thompson modem. Did all the port forwading but WAN access didnt work. Initially the external IP with port 80 was opening the GUI for Modem, now I heard this can be disabled on modem but I couldnt find anywhere on the modem GUI to do so. I played around with different port numbers and intermittenlty I could access Wiser loading page but it would fail and slaps the message "unable to connect to Wiser".

As discussed on other threads and as I hear from installers, Telstra do not provide port forwarding as a service, the installer on site told me today that he spoke to Telstra and they said they will configure the ports on their end but will charge a fee of $100???

 

Are you able to direct me to a user manual pdf for the technology in this application from Telstra. I wouldnt mind seeing what is going on.

The alternative is to strategically place Teamviewer inside the LAN and totally bypass all of the WAN issues. I find that a MacMini does the job of a multi-application service node. In other words, it is so tiny it can be hidden easily - it is fast enough to crunch many different functions smoothly.

Overall, $100 seems like a fair price. Wouldn't mind seeing the before and after screenshots.

 

interesting and funny XD

 

I call your video and raise you

 

Thanks for sharing the video I did see it too on youtube.

I dont understand why would Telstra have the port restricted? Why cant we just do it from the normal GUI.

I will have to wait to try this method, I dont have a crapy Thompson modem.

Will post once I try it.....

 

Hi Tobex, I dont have the manual for the modem but you can google Thompson Telstra modem and you will find the manual online.

I have never tried Teamviewer or MacMini will have to look into it.

I understand that $100 is not a big price but these days you can get decent modem for that price with no restrictions. Plus it will eventually become customer's cost.

 

I suspected from the outset that Telstra had admin level access and user level access and it is apparent from the video that Telnet can be operated by a custom interface overlay at the Telstra end. They wouldn't have to type much, the overlay would poke the modem with a GUI and make it all user friendly. There must be several layers of interaction with deeper and more direct internal control.

Telstra is trying to do the whole ISO9002 thing. It basically saves money if Mr.Owner cant fiddle too much because as you know a fair amount of "oops" phone calls eventuate and they dont want to pick up the cost of a non-standard situation. It would have been more reasonable if they uploaded the 50 most common apps into the configuration table but then how would they be able charge $109. $9 for the modem and $100 for help.

With the mac mini factor in that it runs MacOS from factory and now no longer has a DVD player. It will however load any OS required. I normally start by reformatting the hard drive. Either VMWARE can be used to run Mac and Windows OS at the same time or it can be setup with a multitude of operating systems running in isolation. For peek and poke it would run fine stock standard.

 

for one installation, when i called up Optus to ask if they blocked any particular ports, they were like "ports?". The support person didn't even know what a port was. They ended up putting me to through to Cisco in the US who tried to talk me through how to port forward.... useless