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August 26, 2009 09:59 AM

Categories: Networking and Remote Access

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Quadrophenia

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Joined: 08/12/2009

I'm not even sure where to start on what I have done. Like every other tiny thing I have tried to do with this unit, I have days and days of attempts with zero forward progress.

I have turned on the remote and done the router test. Naturally, even though my router is upnp, the test fails. I get a check mark on the first, the yellow on the second and an x on the 3rd. I have gone into my router, a linksys wrt54gs and i think managed to get the 3 port forwards done. I have no idea if I have done that correctly as everything I can find in my searching seems to think that anyone doing this kind of thing is a doctorate level it professional. It seems like the port forwarding is in response to the router firewall?
If that is correct, I also tried turning off the router firewall just to see if it helped. It didn't.

When I reran the test on the mss remote, i got the green check mark, the yellow and the 3rd test just zipped by without being able to see the results. The final window gives a big green checkmark saying it successfully repaired my router.

That pops up the domain name setup wizard. I log in with my windows live account and all i get is an error message saying there is a problem with my live id account 80048823. Tells me to log in and fix it.

I go to the account and cannot find a thing wrong with it.
This has happened for several days in a row, so I don't think the problem is at Microsoft as some have suggested in other threads I have found.

Any ideas?

Discussion:    Add a Comment | Comments 1-25 of 38 | Latest Comment | 1 2 Next »

Matt Whitlock Avatar
  Administrator
August 26, 2009 4:06 PM

So let's first get a overview of your home network. You say you have a Linksys WRT54GS, but what else do you have? Do you have a cable modem/DSL modem? What is the make and model? Any other network components we should be aware of?

Generic Member Avatar
Member
August 26, 2009 4:35 PM

I have a cable company supplied Surfboard SB3100 modem. I have the Linksys WRT54GS. This was firmware version 1.1 but in the hope of getting the upnp to work, I did update the firmware to the most current from Linksys for that model. No help though.

Everything else is after the router. I have a desktop and laptop running wireless. The MSS is wired of course and I have a Sage HD200 and Silicon Dust HDHomerun wired as well. (I haven't even started on trying to get those working properly yet! :) Although they basically seem to be working)

Just FYI. My technical expertise is just enough to make everyone I know think I know computers, but I feel like I am WAY over my head at this point. For example, I have tried to do the port forwarding thing with the router, I really don't know if I did it properly.

JohnBick Avatar
  Member
August 26, 2009 4:57 PM

Well, since you seem to be inclined not to use the uPnP, the second question would be what did you do (1) on the MSS to set the IP address and (2) on the router to forward the ports? Screen shots would be particularly useful (of both setups).

Also you should be aware that this status indication of failure is far from totally accurate. MANY providers (and some routers) prohibit "loopback", inhibiting the ability to access your system from within the system, with an external address (domain or IP). Before you ass-u-me that the remote access is not working you should try it from a friend's house, library, etc. It may very well work just fine! (Sometimes mine test fine, other times it fails -- it has been in a fail mode for the last month -- but the remote access is working fine.) If the first couple tests are OK but the last one fails this is often the problem. Not sure yoyu are this far yet, but something to be aware of.

...JohnBick

Matt Whitlock Avatar
  Administrator
August 26, 2009 4:58 PM updated: August 26, 2009 5:00 PM

Quadrophenia said: I have a cable company supplied Surfboard SB3100 modem. I have the Linksys WRT54GS. This was firmware version 1.1 but in the hope of getting the upnp to work, I did update the firmware to the most current from Linksys for that model. No help though. Everything else is after the router. I have a desktop and laptop running wireless. The MSS is wired of course and I have a Sage HD200 and Silicon Dust HDHomerun wired as well. (I haven't even started on trying to get those working properly yet! :) Although they basically seem to be working) Just FYI. My technical expertise is just enough to make everyone I know think I know computers, but I feel like I am WAY over my head at this point. For example, I have tried to do the port forwarding thing with the router, I really don't know if I did it properly.

Okay, cool. I wanted to first make sure you didn't have a modem/router combo in front of your router. This causes headaches with network address translation (NAT). You're good though, your modem doesn't perform routing fuctions.

My guess is that we need to check and see how you did the port forwarding on your Linksys, which is likely the culprit. 

Go to Applications and Gaming -> Port Range Foward

It should look like this:

This is where you should have gone to enable port forwarding for remote access. 

You need to forward 3 ports: 4125, 80, and 443. It's important to note that you can't forward the same port to more than one device. So if you see any of those numbers forwarded to something else, you need to disable those.

You'll need to know your home server's private IP address. I'm sure your router has a list of current connected devices and their IPs.

Now, here's how you want to set it up, make sure you save after each entry.

Application |  Start | End | Protocol | IP Address | Enable

Home Server | 80 | 80 | TCP | (your Home Server private IP number) | Check enable

Home Server | 443  | 443 | TCP | (your Home Server private IP number) | Check enable 

Home Server | 4125 | 4125 | TCP | (your Home Server private IP number) | Check enable 

I'm going to assume you've already set up your TZO or free .homserver.com domain for your server, so once you're done configuring the port forwarding, go back into the home server console and check your remote access status (it takes a second so let it finish). 

John's thought about the loopback is something to consider, but let's make sure everything else is properly configured before we get ahead of ourselves.

JohnBick Avatar
  Member
August 26, 2009 5:04 PM

I am equally concerned that you have set up the MSS IP address properly. You may be forwarding the ports properly, but to the wrong IP!

...JohnBick

Generic Member Avatar
Member
August 26, 2009 5:55 PM

Let's see... John, I would love to use the upnp but the MSS doesn't seem to like it. I have done nothing on the MSS to set the ip.

Matt, it looks like I did do the port forwarding correctly, except in the application column, I had http, https, and rww. (from some other link I found) I changed these to home server. (just spent a while trying to get a screenshot for you but i can't seem to get it in here.)

I don't have a domain name from homeserver.com yet because I can't seem to get that far.

Just read John's newest. I think that my port forwarding may be ok but that my problem is elsewhere.

Ummm, done nothing that i know of on the mss for ip. My router has dhcp enabled and I went to status, local network, dhcp clients table to get the current ip for the hpserver to plug into the port forwarding ip address column. None of this is right, is it. That ip address is just going to change on me?

JohnBick Avatar
  Member
August 26, 2009 10:41 PM

Quadrophenia said: ... My router has dhcp enabled and I went to status, local network, dhcp clients table to get the current ip for the hpserver to plug into the port forwarding ip address column. None of this is right, is it. That ip address is just going to change on me?

The problem with manual port forwarding is that you need to be certain that the target does not change, specifically, in this case, that the MSS always uses the same port. If the router will lock a DHCP assignment in by the MAC address of the MSS then you can set it all up in the router. Unfortunately I don't believe your router has that ability. (Someone will correct me if it does!!!)

The alternative is to open an RDP session with the MSS and, in the Network Properties, change the MSS to use a fixed IP address. If you do this you need to also assign it one OUTSIDE the assignment range of the router. You could, for example, set the MSS to use 192.168.1.10 and change the DHCP Starting address to 192.168.1.100 in the Setup--->Base Setup screen of the router. You will likely need to restart everything after making that change as the addresses of most/all of your other devices will change. (I recommend shutting down the MSS after making the change there and then bringing everything else back up before the MSS, but YMMV.)

...JohnBick

Generic Member Avatar
Member
August 27, 2009 5:29 AM

Geesh, no wonder all the jokes about tech calls starting with "is the computer plugged in?" I know nothing it seems.

I have never used an rdp before, didn't even know it existed. Anyway, did some searching and found how to do that. I assume you mean to go to the local area connection properties... internet protocol properties and change from obtain ip automatically to use the following ip address.

If that is all correct, you want me to then change that to 192.168.1.10. (My router's starting assignments begin at 100 already) The subnet mask seems to want to be 255.255.255.0. What is the default gateway? My guess is that it is the default gateway listed in my router status tab.
Then I need to fill out "use the following dns server addresses. Again, my guess would be that it is the dns 1 and dns 2 listed under the default gateway from the router status?

Anything to be done under advanced?

I think these guesses are right but I don't quite dare do them so I have backed back out and will wait for confirmation.

Thank you both for all the effort!

JohnBick Avatar
  Member
August 27, 2009 8:10 AM

Default Gateway --> 192.168.1.1 (ass-u-me-ing that is your router's address)

DNS Server addresses --> I usually set these to the same values as in the router.

You should not need to do anything with Advanced.

WRITE THESE DOWN, by the way, so you do not forget them! That IP address is not easily "discoverable" later and you may need it at some point in the future for other things, for example if the router fails and you need to set up a new one! And be sure to update the router forwarding to point to the new address!

...JohnBick

Generic Member Avatar
Member
August 27, 2009 1:03 PM

I have had almost all the same problems as Quadrophinia and have worked through them as suggested above. I have set my port forwarding manually on my Linksys WRT400N. My router has never passed the test in the Remote Access page of the server settings. However, now I can open the home page of my LX195 from a remote location (or even on my home network by putting the domain name in my browser), but that is as far as I can go. When I click on one of the five icons (HP Photo Publisher, HP Photo Viewer, Web Media Streamer, Access Files on Server, and Computer Access), I get a generic "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage" message.

Shouldn't I get a logon prompt? I have set up a user on the server with a strong password, but I never get a chance to enter that information. Do you have any suggestions?

Generic Member Avatar
Member
August 27, 2009 3:30 PM updated: August 27, 2009 3:33 PM

ok, took a quick run home to load those suggestions in, but didn't get a bit further. I hung in the same spot of trying to get the domain name set up.

Details: went into the server and set the network properties ip 192.168.1.10, next line was the automatic 255.255.255.0, gateway of 192.168.1.1 and the 2 dns's from my router. I changed the port forwarding ip's over to the new 192.168.1.10
Shut down the server, shut down the laptop. Unplugged the router, waited and plugged back in. Fired up my wife's desktop and the laptop. After fully booted, fired up the MSS. All seemed to go fine.
Logged into the MSS and went to settings, remote. Turned off the remote and then back on, it found the new ip fine. Did it's checks and got the same green check, yellow warning and then a quick flash by to the big green check. All good so far I think. It then went on to the domain name configure, I entered my live id and password and got the same old error message. Can't get it to go beyond there and give me a place to set up a domain name.
Two more things I did, I fired up internet explorer on the server itself just to see if net connection was happening. It did that fine and from there I logged into windows live through the browser on the server. Went fine as well.

So I'm back to stuck again. Two thoughts I had on the way back to work. Should my port forwarding application columns be "home server" on all 3 or should they be http, https, and rww as indicated in some other threads?

Also, in some earlier battles, I have the workgroup name on the server set to that of the other computers at home, not whatever the default was. Does that matter?

It's almost as though everything is working fine, but windows live just doesn't want to give me a domain name, :)

Thanks as always for the efforts and advice.

pardizzone Avatar
  Moderator
August 27, 2009 4:56 PM updated: August 27, 2009 4:56 PM

Quadrophenia said: and the 2 dns's from my router.
The dns entry should be your router's ip address (192.168.1.1) not the ip addresses your router uses.

"everything will be ok in the end. if it's not ok, it's not the end" - unknown

Generic Member Avatar
Member
August 27, 2009 5:10 PM

The default gateway, the preferred dns server and the alternate dns server should all be the same 192.168.1.1?

pardizzone Avatar
  Moderator
August 27, 2009 7:54 PM

Yes, yes and no, you only need to put the preferred, you can leave the alternate blank. Here's how mine looks:

IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.25
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

So yours should look like this:

IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.10
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

"everything will be ok in the end. if it's not ok, it's not the end" - unknown

Generic Member Avatar
Member
August 27, 2009 8:11 PM

ok , tried that, still no change, it hung in that same spot, won't take the next step to allowing me to set up a domain name

Thank you though, every step should be a step closer :)

pardizzone Avatar
  Moderator
August 27, 2009 8:53 PM

Also, have you tried resetting the password on your Live account? Or try creating a new Live account to test if it's just your account causing the issue.

"everything will be ok in the end. if it's not ok, it's not the end" - unknown

Generic Member Avatar
Member
August 28, 2009 4:29 AM

Yep, I already had a live account, but set up a new one for this. I have tried both accounts multiple times.

Generic Member Avatar
Member
August 28, 2009 6:50 AM

Grrr, I had one last thought before coming to work and tried my wife's old hotmail account. The damn thing went to the next screen beyond where I could get, on the domain name setup. I backed back out from there because I was out of time, but that would sure indicate that the problem is somehow with both my accounts. Wonder how much of this battle I/we didn't need to go through.
I don't understand what the problem might be. The new one I set up is an @live and my old one is an @hotmail. Her old one is an @hotmail.

I'll investigate further when I get a few minutes.

pardizzone Avatar
  Moderator
August 28, 2009 7:40 AM

Do you have really long passwords on the accounts. I read somewhere that long passwords can cause issues with Live accounts.

"everything will be ok in the end. if it's not ok, it's not the end" - unknown

Generic Member Avatar
Member
August 28, 2009 8:14 AM

Hmmm, certainly a possibility since I use Keepass for my passwords. I just checked and while not huge, both mine are 20 characters long. My wife's is 12.
I'll get mine changed to something smaller and try that.

Damn, got a guy on vacation at work, so no taking time to go home and try it today. :)

Generic Member Avatar
Member
August 28, 2009 5:55 PM

Woohoo, nice recall on that one Pardizone. I backed down my password to the same 12 characters as my wife's and it all went through just fine. I now have a domain name.
Not tested from outside the home network until tomorrow at work, but it's certainly another step.
My sincere thanks to all 3 of you for the help.

Now the question becomes, how much of this did I really need to do given my password length was a major problem. Should I back out some of the changes I made in the above suggestions? or leave it alone if it's working?

Thank you very much again!

pardizzone Avatar
  Moderator
August 28, 2009 6:13 PM updated: August 28, 2009 6:13 PM

All the changes above (static IP, manual port forwards, etc) are standard setup step for a MSS IMHO. I would just leave them as is. What keyed me off to tell you to look at your password was in your original post:

"That pops up the domain name setup wizard. I log in with my windows live account and all i get is an error message saying there is a problem with my live id account 80048823."

That error was the whole problem.....

"everything will be ok in the end. if it's not ok, it's not the end" - unknown

Generic Member Avatar
Member
August 31, 2009 3:44 PM updated: August 31, 2009 3:45 PM

I just registered here to say thanks.

I just started down this road and was wondering why I was getting rejected after entering windows live credentials. To bad I didn't come across this thread last night.

I also am using KeePass (with a 20 character password for Live).

adnott Avatar
  Member
September 8, 2009 11:29 PM

pardizzone said:
Quadrophenia said: and the 2 dns's from my router.
The dns entry should be your router's ip address (192.168.1.1) not the ip addresses your router uses.
I have a Westell 2200 DSL Modem between my wrt54g router and the internet.  In IP Config in WHS I see it's IP listed as the DNS Server so that is what I have put in during in the manual IP setup of the WHS.  Does this make sense?

pardizzone Avatar
  Moderator
September 9, 2009 6:17 AM

The ip address in the DNS entry should be your router's ip address, not the DSL modem's address. By making the DSL modem's ip address your DNS, your internal devices behind the router will have issues seeing each other.

"everything will be ok in the end. if it's not ok, it's not the end" - unknown

Discussion:    Add a Comment | Back to Top | Comments 1-25 of 38 | Latest Comment | 1 2 Next »

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