Hello. Received my WF2IR this afternoon and thought I'd share my problems and how I solved them (so far). Basically it seems like WPA2 and WEP 128-bit both don't work. I'm using a Belkin router with 802.11b/g. When I tried to set up with WPA2 (which was the protocol I've been using) the itach would not connect to my network (solid power LED after reboot). There are so many settings it was quite difficult to troubleshoot (DCHP and static tried, also tried removing all the default WEP keys even though I wasn't using them). Finally I noticed that it worked fine when I disabled my router's security... while this wasn't acceptable it showed me that it was a security problem, at least. So cycling through the options I finally found one that worked - 64-bit WEP... I entered all four keys manually and the passphrase I used to create them. The itach connected to the network and I just did a quick test to verify everything is working (it is). Now to program my remote...
82 comments
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Mads Dybvad I've had a similar experience on a Zyxel WAP3205 on WPA2, the only difference is that i've succeeded in getting the Itach to connect several times. It seems like Itach is connecting after a long waiting time (5mins) and after the LED starts flashing everything is working perfectly, I can discover gateway in Ihelp, sync my Iphone with the gateway and even sending commands to the AV-stuff is working fine. But then after 10-20 minutes all communication seems to stop, but the LED keeps blinking. Then if I open Ihelp I sometimes can locate the gateway but not beeing able to communicate with it at all (except pinging seems to work at any time).
Now i'm stuck with one of the most amazing interface between my iphone and all the AV-stuff and not being able to connect it......the workaround with stepping down is not an option.
Please hurry with a solution, the Wi-Fi-standard is so well documented so it must be a walk in the park to get it fixed.
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Josh Sherman How far away from your router is your unit? It sounds as though the unit is functioning and connecting to the network, but you have a drop off of some kind. This could be due to signal strength issues, or some sort of interference. I recommend setting the unit up connected to the network with a static address, relatively close to the router. From there, you should be able to get a steady beacon and the unit shouldn't drop off the network. If the unit continues to give you problems, I can send you a ping bot which will hit the unit repeatedly and log the ping results to a text file. This will show us if the unit ever stops responding to network pings.
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Matthew Sullivan Hi. I too have a Belkin “N” router. I’m using its most current firmware. I just bought 3 WF2IR units this weekend. Initially upgrading to 700-1001-04 & configuring them to my network with static IPs using WPA2 was easy enough and I was able to access the units’ web pages through their assigned IPs. I was also able to integrate and use the WF2IR units with my Homeseer software. When the units stay connected they work great. I would say within the first five minutes of being connected, the WF2IR units disappear from both the iHelp utility and the DHCP Client list on the router. Distance from the router is not an issue. All three units are within a foot of the wireless router while I am doing the initial setup.
My questions are:
- Can\will the issues with the Belkin router be fixed with a firmware update?
- If not, I am willing to get a different router and relegate my Belkin to be an access point in another area of my house. What wireless routers does Global Caché recommend?
Thanks in advance!
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Josh Sherman Any problems with routers will prevent connectivity rather than making connection intermittent. It sounds rather than you are having a problem with connectivity or something of the like instead. When your units stop responding to Homeseer, are you able to view the embedded web pages of the unit? If so, then the unit has connectivity to the network. When the unit is in this "invisible" state, what does the power LED of the unit do? If the power LED continues to blink rhythmically, then your unit is still connected to the network.
In terms of wireless routers we have had success with D-Link, Netgear and Linksys routers, but if your units are connecting at all, that means you are not having a problem with the router but rather the connectivity.
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Matthew Sullivan When my WF2IR units stop responding to Homeseer, I am unable to (from any computer on the network) view the embedded web pages, or ping any of the units' addresses. While the units are in this "invisible" state the LED continues to blink. The Belkin Wireless N Router's manual is available on thier site in a PDF. Could you look at it and recommend settings to tweak? Protected mode? b&g only? best security to use? etc. Or unless for now, I should just not try the Belkin because of your Jan. 17 post?
I have a Linksys WRT54G I'm not using anymore that I will try out tonight when I get home.
Thanks in advance!
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Josh Sherman If your unit has connected to the network, then there is no problem with using the router for this unit. If the LED continues to blink, you should still be connected. It will not hurt to try the other router, as this will show you whether or not the same symptom presents itself. Let me know what you find with the other router and we can go from there.
**UPDATE**
It looks as though the only setting causing problems is the 128bit WEP encryption rather than being a more systemic issue. We are currently working on a workaround to this problem and should have a fix in the near future.
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Matthew Sullivan Making progress!
I set up my Linksys Router (turns out it's a WRK54G model ... a pretty old one). The WF2IR units work fine with that router. I then set up the Linksys as an access point using my Belkin as my DHCP server. For the most part that seems to work. Occasionally one of the WF2IR units would drop, and typically reappear. Only once over the past 24 hours have I had to reboot a WF2IR unit. I think I will put the WF2IR units on X10 switches so if need be, I can remotely reboot them.
The one weird thing about using the access point is viewing the WF2IRs with "iHelp". They sometimes show up all with the same IP address and that IP address is the static address I gave the Linksys access point. I think it may have to do with me getting a few more of the Linksys settings right for using it as an AP ... like NAT maybe? But the units work with Homeseer even when iHelp is showing the same IP. And I can access the embedded pages by using the actual IP address I set up for each unit.
I will have to burn in and play with the setup for a while, see how it goes and then report back.
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Mads Dybvad UPDATE: I've made another SSID on my Zyxel WAP3205 now without any encryption (only mac-address filtering) and now everything is working perfect. To my luck I am able to set up a second SSID on my existing router, but I would prefer an update to fix it so its all running on WPA2 again.
Josh Sherman wrote:
How far away from your router is your unit? It sounds as though the unit is functioning and connecting to the network, but you have a drop off of some kind. This could be due to signal strength issues, or some sort of interference. I recommend setting the unit up connected to the network with a static address, relatively close to the router. From there, you should be able to get a steady beacon and the unit shouldn't drop off the network. If the unit continues to give you problems, I can send you a ping bot which will hit the unit repeatedly and log the ping results to a text file. This will show us if the unit ever stops responding to network ping
Mads: I've got no network coverage issues at all, the unit is located pretty close to the AP. Thoughout all the process i've been able to ping the unit, but after 5-10 mins it disapears from iHelp.....
Now after swithing to non encrypted wifi, all my problems are gone. Fast and very stable connectings for the last 21 days.
It seems to me that the unit have some issues with encryption standards for the wifi protocol since it is not just one kind of routers and the issue is on both WEP and WPA-encryption.
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patrick cappillino I suggest you try 8-bit WEP... Not as secure but better than nothing. -
patrick cappillino That is to say, even 64 bit WEP wouldn't work for me but 8-bit was fine... -
Josh Sherman Connections to encryption such as WPA and WPA2 can take upwards of 1 to 1.5 minutes depending upon the router and the length of the passphrase. If you have problems connecting a unit to a network, attempt to connect with DHCP disabled (if you had set DHCP when configuring before), or DHCP enabled (if you had set a static when configuring before). Depending upon the scenario you will likely be able to get your unit connected, so long as the traffic is moving in the 2.4 GHz range and the unit has signal strength. According to current testing, we have found no router wherein the WPA encryption type does not work if configured correctly.
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Carlos A. Castro Hi, a have agreat problem, i have a DIR-300 Router (dlink) and i cant connect this with the itach, i format the router for that work withthe SSID for default, i use a WEP64 bits secure type and a FFFFFFFFFF Key and nothing. The router have active the SSID broadcast and nothing, after i try with the WEP2 with a password and nothing (For that i update the firmware in the router directly of the globalcache website and nothing. I try to disable the security in the router and the itach and nothing. I try with another router and nothing. I try with another WIFI network and nothing. What can i do, thanks.
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Chris Moyer Ok it looks like there is a problem with a LinkSys WRT54G router using 128-bit WEP. My router is set up to be a DHCP server but I have the WF2IR set up to a static IP. The router's ip is xxx.xxx.xxx.10, the WF2IR static IP starts and xxx.xxx.xxx.101 and the DHCP server starts serving up ips with xxx.xxx.xxx.102. If I set the router up to Disable the security (i.e. no encryption type) and set the WF2IR to similar setting I can connect just fine. However, then switching the WF2IR to 128-bit WEP and then the router...can't connect to the WF2IR. I will try 64-bit WEP.
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Chris Moyer It looks like 64-bit WEP worked...see my posting above. Note: With the 128-bit attempt I only filled in the first key with 26 E's and blanked out the other three keys, which didn't work. When I tried the 64-bit WEP I filled in each of the four keys with 10 E's. So my point is that perhaps I needed to fill in all four keys with 26 E's for it to work (but I doubt it, I think it just flat out doesn't work for 128-bit). I will leave it as an exercise for you to try 128-bit with all four keys ;-)
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Josh Sherman We are currently working to fix the 128bit WEP encryption issue we are having with some routers. We plan to have an iTach firmware release handling this problem by month's end if not sooner.
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Carlos A. Castro Hello again, I've tried with different kinds of keys and security settings but I could not connect the itach to the wireless network. I do not know if you have information about how you must configure a itach to a Dlink DIR 300 router. I've disabled security settings on the router and nothing. This desperate, please if someone set up a itach on a Dlink router write me. Thanks for your feedback. -
Carlos A. Castro I have probles with the 64bitWEP too.
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Josh Sherman We have done in-house testing and have confirmed that the router you are using is compatible with our unit. When configuring, set your network up with no security, with a broadcast SSID and with 802.11b type WiFi enabled. This will eliminate variables in your setup and hopefully allow you to get your unit connected. Once you have worked out how the connection process works, you can start introducing network security into the equation, which will help to point you in the direction of the problem you are seeing.
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Matthew Sullivan Just reporting back in. I have been running for two weeks now with my WRK54G as an access point. Since I couldn't get WPA to work, I set it up with no security. Then (for now) what I am doing us using WiFi MAC Address filtering. Yes. I know I should at least also try a WEP but I've been too busy. Functionally, it has been working quite well with only the occasional "unable to connect" message in my HomeSeer log. But the unit recovers right way and does not cause the unit(s) to stop working. If I can get a security working as well, I will, and continue to use to use MAC Address filtering since I have an extra, dedicated router for this.
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Carlos A. Castro I belive that desable the secury in the DIR 300 but i dont know if a realize that good. Someone know how disable the secure in a DIR 300. Thanks
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Uwe Jeck I am using a Buffalo WZR-AG300NH router with a WEP128bit encryption, open authorization, 13 digit pass phrase. Firmware in my WF2IR is 710-1001-02 from the start. I did have trouble in connecting to the router with this mentioned setup and eliminated all variables, means connecting without security. It worked fine. After reading the comments on WEP encryption above I decided to update the firmware to version 04, hoping that I than can connect with WEP security to my router. Firmware update worked well, successful.
But the big surprise is, there is no field to key in the pass phrase in this firmware version with WEP enabled. Even more funny is the fact that trying to connect to the router without pass phrase, WF2IR is blinking like connected. Checking the router I found out that the MAC address is shown in the connection table but no IP address is assigned.
Can somebody comment on this? It seems that the missing field for pass phrase is just my problem. I am communicating with my distributor but it seems they don't (want) understand me. Thanks for a comment.
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Josh Sherman WEP encryption uses Keys rather than passphrases. If your router does not specify a key index, or allow for multiple keys, then you will want to put your WEP key into the KEY1 field. If your unit does not connect, then you may be having the same problem as the above users. We are currently in the testing phase of the new iTach firmware release, which handles all tested forms of WEP128 without problem. I will post on this thread when the new revision is released and the WEP128 compatibility problem is officially dealt with.
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Uwe Jeck While i am waiting for the new firmware for WF2IR, I did setup an old router and configured the unit with MAC Control. I am playing around a bit to get used to the way it works. My captured IR codes are working fine. However, there is an issue which bothers me: I couldn't figure out how to make the on/off toggle function on my remote working with my iPhone. The captured IR codes in iLearn are not prepared for the toggle function. Is there any way out? There are quite a few functions in my setup where toggle is needed.
Maybe it is a stupid question, but I would appreciate to get some info about.
Uwe
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Josh Sherman If your remote uses a toggle feature on the command, you should be able to mimic the function with our hardware. When capturing the command, make sure that you get enough of the data for the command to work in both situations. This can be tested directly with our unit and the iLearn utility. Other than that, you may want to contact the manufacturer to see if they supply IR codes for the hardware, or if you can find IR commands on a community website such as www.remotecentral.com. Let me know if I am misunderstanding what you are getting at.
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Sven-Erik Ringström Hello
I just recieved my WF2IR from your rep. in Sweden. I have a DIR-655 router from D-link. My setup is WPA, but the unit will not connect. Do you know if the "chip set problem" also is the case for D-Link?
Sven-Erik
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Josh Sherman That router has been tested and has no known interaction issues with our WiFi units. In order for you unit to connect, you will want to make sure that the router has b type wifi enabled in a mixed mode, and that the SSID is being broadcast. From there, make sure to input the WPA passphrase into the passphrase field before saving the settings and you should be good to go. One thing to note: our units' power LED is used as an indication of its connection. If the unit has been configured to connect to an infrastructure network, and the power LED is blinking once per second, the unit is connected to the target network.
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Sean Steele I am having connectivity issues as well. I go through the motions per instructions, then when I run the iHelp it tells me that the IP address is the same as it was in the instructions (which I believe to be the IP address for initial setup and that it should change, right? Otherwise, what is the point of using iHelp if its the same IP as before?) What I'm getting at here is that I can't figure out how to get the WF2IR on my network and running off my ipad. I set it up as Infrastructure, DHCP, my network name, WPA2, my network password, hit save. It then says "Reboot in Progress" and will stay like that for at least 5 minutes (thats as long as I let it sit before thinking I was supposed to disconnect from the WF2IR and log back into my network). It does not look the same as the page shown on the iTach WIFI Tutorial on the GC website. Also, underneath "Reboot in Progress" it says "Your settings were successfully saved.". I have reset it a few different times and followed the instructions over and over. I am using a linsys router.
Another thing that has happend after trying several times is that sometimes after putting all the info in and getting the reboot message the power LED will blink (yet I still can't get it on the network) and somtimes after starting over and putting the info in and getting the reboot message the power LED will stay on.
If it is connected to my network, should it still be a viewable local network or should it no longer be listed?
If the power LED is blinking, its no longer listed as a local network, but the iHelp can't find it what does that mean?
If the power LED is blinking, its no longer listed as a local network and the iHelp can find it but lists its IP as "http:/169.254.1.70" what does that mean?
If the power LED is blinking, its no longer listed as a local network and the iHelp can find it but lists its IP as "http:/169.254.1.70", I right click and choose "configure" sometimes the setup page will load but mainly I get a page not found type response, would this mean the WF2IR isn't connected to any network?
When the WF2IR is reset, does that completely start it over?
After resetting it and using a PC, I am unable to choose Infrastructure and put all that info in, the "network page" only offers to "enable lock" or "enable DHCP" and to save the change.
After resetting it and using a Mac, I am able to choose Infrastructure, then the options to "enable lock", "enable DHCP", IP, mask, security, ssid, password, and save appear. I type in my network name, choose WPA2, enter my password, and when I click "enable DHCP" mask dissapears (I guess that is normal) and then save. The WF2IR lights flash and what not, the page tells me reboot in progress, but I have never seen anything that said the reboot is complete (should I see this?) after a while I just disconnect from the iTach's network and log back into mine. Again, everytime the iHelp has found the WF2IR after doing these steps it shows the IP Address as "http://169.254.1.70". Am I missing a step?
Sorry for the long post, just really want to figure this out since I spent about 6 hours yesterday doing this over and over with no luck. Could the unit be bad? Thanks for the help! -
Josh Sherman It sounds as though your unit does connect, but you are leaving the unit in static mode rather than enabling DHCP. When configuring your unit, you will want to enable DHCP which will have an address assigned to the unit by the router rather than having the unit keep the default IP address. If your unit is configured to connect to your infrastructure network and the power LED blinks once per second, then the unit is connected to your network. Once settings are saved, you will be served the "Settings have been saved" web page, then the unit will reboot. At this point the unit will not be broadcasting the adhoc network, so you will not receive anything more from the unit until you reconnect to your infrastructure network and discover the unit. If you are able to view the unit's embedded web pages from the network, then the unit is connected and is ready to be controlled by some software. It sounds to me as though your unit is functioning properly, so feel free to get back to us if you continue to have problems.
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Sean Steele Ok, when I enable DHCP and save, it will reboot but the power LED will remain lit no more blinking. Also, after I do this I am unable to go to the unit's embedded web pages. I have just been resetting it manually when this happens. If I don't enable DHCP, it appears that it will connect to my network (power LED blinks). I was just able to get my ipad to talk to it, some functions are working, some aren't but I don't think the WF2IR is at fault for that. I am only able to use the WF2IR by keeping the default IP, is this a problem? Does it need its own IP address? I haven't installed my GC-100 yet, but I am about to, will the WF2IR at the default IP be a problem with the GC-100? Thanks!
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Frédéric Feyel I have a WF2IR unit that connects fine to my Linksys access point. However, after some time (a few hours, sometimes one hour), the connection disapears, the led stops blinking, and the itach can no longer be reached in the network (ping fails).
I have no other choice but reboot the itach, which then connects immediately.
What could cause the problem ?
Note that the iTach is not far away the access point, so I guess it's not a distance problem (I also have a WF2SL device near that has no problem).