Can’t connect to Ring Servers

[G8B4Life]

It's not the wrong angle to try the easiest first, and many find looking behind the scenes a bit overwhelming but yes we can do that in various degrees of difficulty.

We'll start with the easiest. This won't tell us what is being sent back and forth but should tell us if stuff is actually being sent back and forth.

• Download to a folder on your desktop LiveTcpUdpWatch from https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/live_tcp_udp_watch.html.
• Unzip it an run it (it doesn't need to be installed). You'll need to run as administrator. Under Options make sure Capture UDP is enabled.
• Then after LiveTcpUdpWatch is running start RailPro Assistant (don't click anything in RPA yet, just start it).

When RPA is connected have a look at the LiveTcpUdpWatch screen and locate the RingEngAssistant process (probably the first line). It should have sent and received 2 packets each. The Sent Bytes should be 95 and the Received Bytes should be 131.


* The local port, remote port and remote address should be the same as shown.

Return to RPA and click the product programs button and wait until RPA gives you it's error. Look at the LiveTcpUdpWatch screen again and check the sent and received packets for RingEngAssistant. If it was successful (which it wont be) it should be showing 4 packets sent and 4 packets received and Sent Bytes 190 and Received Bytes 576.

If sent is not greater than 2 then something is blocking the outbound packets, if sent is more than 2 but received is not then something is blocking the reply, or the wrong information is being sent to Rings Server. What count do the sent and received packets have?

Next, we'll probably have to get much more technical but I'd like to see what LiveTcpUdpWatch reports first.

- Tim

[William Brillinger]

Just for fun, did you shutdown our router and modem for 5 minutes like I suggested, I know Tim say's it cannot be the problem, but let's rule it out.

[G8B4Life]

Just for fun, did you shutdown our router and modem for 5 minutes like I suggested, I know Tim say's it cannot be the problem, but let's rule it out.

Not quite what I said; I said DNS could not be the issue  . That's not to say that there couldn't be another issue with the modem / router and by all means rebooting a modem/router should be a step taken in just about any unexplainable connection problem troubleshooting but given KB02 says it works from his other computer I figure the problem lies elsewhere, but as you say, let's rule it out if KB02 hasn't done it.

- Tim

[William Brillinger]

Many routers have an IP & DNS cache for each client - corruption in one cache can cause the kind of behavior being described where only one PC is affected.

[KB02]

Okay, LiveTcpUdpWatch, at RingEnfAssistant startup, reads as you say it should (131/95) with local port, remote port and remote address just as in your picture. When I try to access one of the menus, I have 183 Received Bytes, 730 Sent, 3 Packets Sent and 14 received.

I reset the modem, tried again and got 131 Received Bytes, 546 Sent, 2 Packets Sent and 13 received.

[KB02]

And then I tried again... you know, repeatable results being the goal... only now it seems to be all over the place and I can't even get a stable opening.

Received Bytes 52, sent 635, Received packets 1, sent 12. AND, after only being open for a few seconds, RingEngAssistant goes straight to the "Error - Cannot Connect to RE Server" message.

I rebooted the computer and got the same thing.

[G8B4Life]

I can at least report this: the problem is with my computer. After going through the above, I dug out my old, outdated, still running XP, laptop - which also happens to have Railpro Asst. downloaded it, and that is working perfectly fine and my HC-2 is currently updating as I try this. ..

Hang on, something doesn't add up there, RPA hasn't natively run on XP since at least version 2.02 back in 2016, and I stopped providing patches to let RPA run on XP in about 2018 so how are you getting RPA to run on XP?

As for the Win10 machine, your result is what I expected to see in LiveTcpUdpView. It almost looks like something is mangling the packets of data. I may have to write a program to mimic RPA so we can see what the sent and received data actually contains. I need to think on the best way to do this.

I also tested MalwareBytes on a virtual machine (Win7, not Win10) without issue.

- Tim

[William Brillinger]

Have you by any chance called Ring's Support line and talked to them?

[KB02]

Hang on, something doesn't add up there, RPA hasn't natively run on XP since at least version 2.02 back in 2016, and I stopped providing patches to let RPA run on XP in about 2018 so how are you getting RPA to run on XP?

My apologies. The old laptop is running Vista. It's the little Acer Aspire that wouldn't die.

[KB02]

PROGRESS!!!

I spoke with one of our IT guys at work today and gave him the basic rundown of what I had going on (It was fun to watch him nearly vomit when I mentioned the laptop was on Vista  ). As a my machines are running through Wifi, one suggestion that he had was to plug the computer into the modem directly and try that way. IT WORKED! Yay! I unplugged the hard wire and went back to Wifi and the problem returned with it.

Okay - it has something to do with the Wifi. But why this newer and updated machine and not the old Vista machine running off the same modem?

We're getting there...

Moderator edit: Fixed BBC code in post that makes the font larger

[William Brillinger]

back to what I said about router caches - did you turn the router off for at least 5 minutes before you restarted it?

[G8B4Life]

Ahh, WiFi, The plot thickens! I was wondering if I should ask whether you were using WiFi but to be honest I figured you would have checked with a wired connection in the first instance. My bad. I'll have to try and think of an easy way to test what's going in and out of the WiFi adapter; the best (and possibly only) way would require installing some software.

back to what I said about router caches - did you turn the router off for at least 5 minutes before you restarted it?

I believe that was done, most people have an all in one modem/router but if KB02 has a separate modem and router then both should be restarted.

I reset the modem, tried again and got 131 Received Bytes, 546 Sent, 2 Packets Sent and 13 received.

- Tim

[William Brillinger]

reset the modem

A quick on and off is not the same. The word "Reset" does not necessarily mean it was off long enough to reset the cache.

[KB02]

I did do a reset. It's an all-in-one machine - Router and Wifi. Left it off for about 5 minutes before restarting. Didn't seem to make a difference. Worth a try again, I suppose? My wife works from home and has to reboot the router on a regular basis. I'll try a good overnight shutdown and see what that does.

[KB02]

Well, if 5 minutes is good, then 7 1/2 hours should be great! Still no joy.