Topic: So much trouble connecting Apps to stations

[mbinnc]

I've had a WS-2902 for a few years. I had a hell of a time getting it on WiFi when I first got it. Took forever before the Ambient app saw it. But eventually I managed to get it to be 'seen' and set everything up. From then on, if the access point rebooted or power failed, it would constantly go up/down. Router showed hundreds of DHCP requests trying to assign an IP to the console. My WU update times would go from seconds to 20+ minutes. After a few days? Suddenly WiFi settled down and was rock solid. No joke.

Of course I missed the boat on upgrading my WS-2902 to an A (v4 was offered to me at first. I didn't do it. Then when the WiFi issues got too annoying, I figured I'd upgrade and.. Ambient blocked the conversions because of people bricking them. Begged them for some way to upgrade to v4 and presumably better WiFi support. But.. no luck). So I suffered through the occasional instability because it was very rare. If new firmware came out for the access point and I updated it - my console would bounce for 4-7 days then everything was fine.

Well, I finally gave up and bought a WS-2000. I had wanted on anyway. Man WHAT a breeze. Sensors synced instant. WiFi connected instant. Logged into all the services (WU, Ambientweather, PWS, etc.) in a few minutes. Awesome! So I research about firmware and figure out you need awnet to upgrade the WiFI firmware. Meanwhile WeatherCloud is complaining that my station is offline and... you need awnet to reconfigure the new console for that.

So I launch it figuring it'll be right there and.... Nothing. No device listed. I can't find ANY documentation that explicitly says how it's supposed to work, but it seems like unlike the WS-2902, the WS-2000 should just appear. Yes my phones are on 2.4 - I actually disable 5G on my IoT network. I've tried three different phones. Android and iPhone. I even installed BlueStacks on my PC and ran awnet from there. Nothing - I cannot get awnet to show my new WS-2000. Am I missing some magical button sequence or whatever to get awnet to see the station? I've Googled for days. Now I know my UniFi access point does some crazy stuff. I've check for device isolation, it's disabled. 5G is disabled - it's 2.4GHz only. I've tweaked jsut about every setting there was trying to make my WS-2902 behave better. I have no other problems with any other devices. Just this - it has been a nightmare trying to get either app to see either station when I need to.

So am I missing something obvious? I can login to my access point and see my phone and the WS-2000 happily logged into the same WiFi network. Same channel. But they can NOT see each other.

Appreciate any ideas...

[plunet]

So I'm struggling to understand the exact status at the moment.
I think you might have written WS2000 instead of WS2902 at one point in your posting..

I think the status is

• Your newer WS2000 is correctly attached to your Wifi network and there are no issues, it's all good
• Your WS2902 is still causing you a headache.

You seem to know your way around your router, so
Can you see the WS2902 attached to Wifi when you log into your UniFi networks? Can you see the IP address it has been assigned by DHCP?
You're right to check for device isolation on UniFi... that would definately need to be OFF.
If you know the IP address of the WS2902, can you try to do a network PING (basic connectivity check) the IP address of the WS2902 from your phone.
This would at least ensure that the phone with the app can see the WS2902 and contact it across the network.

Doing this for my unit from a PC as it's easier for me to copy and paste

Code: [Select]

C:\>ping 192.168.1.195

Pinging 192.168.1.195 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.1.195: bytes=32 time=99ms TTL=255
Reply from 192.168.1.195: bytes=32 time=4ms TTL=255
Reply from 192.168.1.195: bytes=32 time=7ms TTL=255
Reply from 192.168.1.195: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=255

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.195:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 4ms, Maximum = 99ms, Average = 30ms
You can see I can ping my console - it's normal that the first ping has a slower response time if you have not contacted that device from this network device recently.

You can also double check your ARP table - this is what makes the connection between IP addresses and MAC addresses, some details redacted...

Code: [Select]

C:\>arp -a

Interface: 192.168.1.138 --- 0x16
  Internet Address      Physical Address      Type
  192.168.1.1           74-ac-xx-xx-xx-1c     dynamic
<snip>
  192.168.1.195         d8-f1-xx-xx-xx-b4     dynamic
<snip>

[Gyvate]

......
Well, I finally gave up and bought a WS-2000. I had wanted on anyway. Man WHAT a breeze. Sensors synced instant. WiFi connected instant. Logged into all the services (WU, Ambientweather, PWS, etc.) in a few minutes. Awesome! So I research about firmware and figure out you need awnet to upgrade the WiFI firmware. Meanwhile WeatherCloud is complaining that my station is offline and... you need awnet to reconfigure the new console for that.

So I launch it figuring it'll be right there and.... Nothing. No device listed. I can't find ANY documentation that explicitly says how it's supposed to work, but it seems like unlike the WS-2902, the WS-2000 should just appear. Yes my phones are on 2.4 - I actually disable 5G on my IoT network. I've tried three different phones. Android and iPhone. I even installed BlueStacks on my PC and ran awnet from there. Nothing - I cannot get awnet to show my new WS-2000. Am I missing some magical button sequence or whatever to get awnet to see the station? I've Googled for days. Now I know my UniFi access point does some crazy stuff. I've check for device isolation, it's disabled. 5G is disabled - it's 2.4GHz only. I've tweaked jsut about every setting there was trying to make my WS-2902 behave better. I have no other problems with any other devices. Just this - it has been a nightmare trying to get either app to see either station when I need to.

So am I missing something obvious? I can login to my access point and see my phone and the WS-2000 happily logged into the same WiFi network. Same channel. But they can NOT see each other.

Appreciate any ideas...

The WS2000 can be configured - including the posting to Weather Networks - from inside the console, from the settings. No WSView (or awnet) app needed for that (even though, if you pair the console, you should afterwards be able to also configure these networks via the app). If you want to upgrade the WiFi firmware (not the console firmware, that's different and works via an microSDcard, see also section "firmware" in https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=40730.0),
this (WiFi firmware update) only works via the app (awnet, WSView), and there may have been some changes here ...

There is a chapter 6.7.15 Weather Server in the WS2000 manual which describes how to connect to WU and Ambient Weathernet.
Did you try this ?  https://ambientweather.com/mwdownloads/download/link/id/447/
Just press the setting gear wheel and select Weather Server ...

What's your WiFi firmware version ?
In order to find this, you have to press the setup (gear wheel) button several times (careful - 2nd time the button has moved one to the left ! )  until you arrive at the "Factory" page. There you select "About".

AND, did you read the post about "How to connect to WiFi" and tried all the hints there ?
https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=41575.0

All issues (so far know to us) connecting WiFi consoles to the wireless network have been described there.

Once a WS2000 (HP2551) console is connected to the local WiFi network, it should appear in the device list of the WSView/awnet app (download latest version from app store !) without going through the WSView / awnet app pairing procedure - provided your mobile device where the awnet (WSView) app runs is connected to the same network subnet !! Then announcements for new WiFi firmware will pop up automatically once available once you connect.

Does the WiFi symbol appear in the top left corner ? If so, green reception bars should be visible and in the Settings/Factory/About page your IP address should be shown.

If something's missing there, something's wrong with either your network or your console ....

[mbinnc]

Thanks for the detailed replies. Sorry I wasn't clearer in what the issues were. I work in IT, so am very familiar with the networking aspects of this.

For context, was explaining I had had a heck of a time getting the WS-2902 to show up in the Ambient Weather Tool initially when I got it years ago. But eventually did (took a couple days) and got it configured/connected. Any time the power went out or access point restarted/firmware upgraded the WS-2902 would constantly bounce on WiFi - requesting an IP over and over and over (it has a static reservation in the router). It would manage to get updates out to WU and friends every 20-30 minutes. Then after a few days - it would stabilize and be rock solid sending regular updates and the WiFi icon never going away or flashing like it would do for those few days. The DHCP storm ceased and it behaved like any other network device. The few times I ever tried to manipulate the WS-2902 via the Ambient App - just was very flaky. Most of the time was never there when I tried to Add it. Then it might suddenly show up, etc. This would be when I'd get a wild streak and reset the WS-2902 to reconfigure it and see if the WiFi flaky behavior would go away. Finally stopped trying because it was so hard to get it reconfigured each time and it always behaved the same way. At one point I considered putting the console on a cheap UPS, but still updating the UniFi firmware always triggered behavior too.

So I finally upgraded and bought a WS-2000 console to replace the WS-2902. I reset the WS-2902 to factory defaults to use as a secondary display w/o WiFi. I had NO trouble getting the WS-2000 connected to WiFi or the services. It was incredibly easy and it is working great. But WeatherCloud config is only possible via awnet and I wanted to restore the feed I had. As is upgrading the WiFi firmware. So I was trying to get the WS-2000 in awnet to restore the WeatherCloud config. But I cannot get the WS-2000 to show up. It's absolutely online. It's connected to the same access point/subnet. It's on 2.4 GHz. Same as my phone. So basically it's doing the same thing as the WS-2902 in terms of not being accessible via the appropriate app (it's WiFi has been rock solid though). I've tried awnet and WSView. All the latest version available.

Yes, the WS-2000 can be pinged, it's active on the network. Same as the phone. I've tried different phones. I've tried an iPhone instead of my Android. I even installed BlueStacks android emulator and awnet on a PC to see if it would show up there. It will not show up.

So at this point it's more of a concern that should a WiFi update be necessary for whatever reason, I can't do it. Weathercloud is cool, but not the end of the world. But just seems like both console types and the UniFi access point I have here just do NOT get along when it comes to the apps. I've spent DAYS of effort over the years tweaking various wireless settings to see if something would get the WS-2902 to stop doing what it did. Never succeeded. Probably have 40+ devices that use our wireless and none have ever had trouble. Just a weird problem.

So was just querying if anyone else with a UniFi access point had seen similar issues. I searched the forums and Google extensively trying to find anything close but didn't come up with much.

At some point I'll get serious and fire up WireShark to see what's really going on....

[Gyvate]

OK - got it. Weird. But we are dealing with quite some weird situations/constellations here every now and then ...
Two more things:
a) the WS2000 should show in the device list as AMBWeather-WIFIxxxx (with or without an ending like V.4.2.8, depending on the firmware version - this V.-appendix is only recent) where xxxx are the last 4 characters of the WS2000 MAC
b) did you try to temporarily add a simple (or whatever is temporarily available) access point to your network and see how the WS2000 behaves with it.
Or temporarily convert your smartphone into an access point, use the mobile internet and try to connect your WS2000 to it. On e.g. Samsung Android phones that's pretty easy.
(you'll need a 2nd smartphone to connect then to this local network to see if the WSView app works  - as WiFi on and WiFI access point active in the smartphone exclude each other )

As WeatherCloud hasn't changed their interface (API) afaik, I doubt that's a firmware issue.

The  communication between the app and the console with goes afaik via port 45000. If this is somehow blocked, the app and the console can't talk to each other.

WSView will not work with an Ambient console like  WS-2000, only awnet - it's due to a firmware incompatibility introduced by Ambient.
FO/Ecowitt/reseller consoles will receive Ambient sensors (but cannot connect to Ambientweather.net), Ambient consoles cannot receive the original or clone branded sensors.
It's an Ambient business model. 
EDIT
That was a partly wrong statement. Therefore corrected/ strike-out. WSView works with all Ambient consoles (which are Fine Offset clones).
The 2nd sentence is still true - but of no relevance here.

[mbinnc]

OK - got it. Weird. But we are dealing with quite some weird situations/constellations here every now and then ...
Two more things:
a) the WS2000 should show in the device list as AMBWeather-WIFIxxxx (with or without an ending like V.4.2.8, depending on the firmware version - this V.-appendix is only recent) where xxxx are the last 4 characters of the WS2000 MAC
b) did you try to temporarily add a simple (or whatever is temporarily available) access point to your network and see how the WS2000 behaves with it.
Or temporarily convert your smartphone into an access point, use the mobile internet and try to connect your WS2000 to it. On e.g. Samsung Android phones that's pretty easy.
(you'll need a 2nd smartphone to connect then to this local network to see if the WSView app works  - as WiFi on and WiFI access point active in the smartphone exclude each other )

That's what I did with my WS-2902 initially (a generic AP). But I'm determined to figure out what's causing the glitch here. I finally had some time to sit down and dig deeper and made headway.

So my router is a business grade Universal Threat Management router. These things are amazing protection for a network, BUT can also intercept legitimate things. A lot of IoT devices can do 'sketchy' things in the name of code efficiency/lack of CPU power or RAM space, etc that can trigger the UTM to drop packets. But given the weird issues I had with my WS-2902 after AP reboots, I had long ago added a full exclusion for the weather station 'just in case' (it didn't help). But one of the benefits of a UTM router is the advanced logging.

Digging into the logs, I discovered that the WS-2000 throws out a LAN wide broadcast on port 2525 to 255.255.255.255 The smartphone does the same thing in the 49xxx port range. They happen at the same time so it almost seems like the weather station broadcasts that it's there and awnet broadcasts back to get things rolling. So the smartphone clearly was reacting to the WS-2000. But still never would display the station.

Now - my IoT stuff runs on a Virtual LAN (VLAN) for security purposes. The access point we have support multiple WiFi networks, so our IoT wireless is a VLAN on the network. Both devices are connected to it during this process so it shouldn't matter. But it does. When I switched the WS-2000 and my phone to the main LAN WiFi, it immediately appeared. Upgraded the WiFi firmware and configured WeatherCloud in no time. Switched it back to IoT and everything is happy - but awnet shows no devices. Basically - same hardware involved in both scenarios. Just one is a VLAN based wifi network, the other native.

But that's such a strange issue. Both are wireless devices - so broadcast packets should go straight across. The router isn't even involved. I own an MSP and we have these same routers with the same type of VLAN configs all over. Can't figure what is tripping the stations up.

Now it's a research project. When I have time, I'm going to wireshark capture the full exchange between smartphone/awnet and WS-2000 on the LAN, then VLAN and see where it breaks down...

[galfert]

I don't see the problem. The network is doing exactly what you designed it to do. The whole purpose of a VLAN is to segregate systems. Not receiving a network broadcast across from one VLAN to another is exactly how networks are intended to be. So I don't understand the unexpected results. Pinging and broadcasts are different types of packets.

Your BlueStacks installation didn't work because of the same reason....the Android install is in a VLAN. I haven't visited the newest version of BlueStacks but about a year ago when I last looked at it they didn't offer the option to allow you to be on the same subnet as the host system. Earlier versons of BlueStacks only worked on the same subnet and then your Android would have worked with that older version of BlueStacks. Which is why I use NoxPlayer as my Android emulator because it allows me to create a network bridge.

[Mandrake]

I concur with Galfert here. Broadcast packets do not normally traverse network boundaries.
This is networking 101
The way the console and smartphone app works is not ideal and folks have pointed out the issues of using broadcast packets but that's the way it currently works I am afraid.
By using a VPN you have effectively firewalled the phone from the Console and as there is no way to address broadcasts your setup is not going to work.

[mbinnc]

I don't see the problem. The network is doing exactly what you designed it to do. The whole purpose of a VLAN is to segregate systems. Not receiving a network broadcast across from one VLAN to another is exactly how networks are intended to be. So I don't understand the unexpected results. Pinging and broadcasts are different types of packets.

Your BlueStacks installation didn't work because of the same reason....the Android install is in a VLAN. I haven't visited the newest version of BlueStacks but about a year ago when I last looked at it they didn't offer the option to allow you to be on the same subnet as the host system. Earlier versons of BlueStacks only worked on the same subnet and then your Android would have worked with that older version of BlueStacks. Which is why I use NoxPlayer as my Android emulator because it allows me to create a network bridge.

Sorry - I should have been more clear. In every attempt the Android device/Bluestacks PC/awnet device and the weather station were on the same wireless IoT network (which is a VLAN as far as the router is concerned). I wasn't trying to broadcast across VLANs. Again, I do this for a living and have a solid grasp of network fundamentals. Any device that joins the IoT wireless network is, by default, on that VLAN, *not* the local LAN. That designation is handled by the wireless network itself, not the devices. (Basically Ubiquiti access points provide the ability to have multiple SSIDs and they can have a VLAN ID assigned to them to segment off from the main LAN). So as far as the devices are concerned, they're on a normal wireless network 192.168.vlanid.x. They don't have to have any configuration/comprehension of the VLAN as all they see is a normal Class C subnet based on the SSID they connect to

[galfert]

Perhaps your IoT WiFi VLAN is doing client isolation.

It is also a know fact that some IoT devices do not have a full TCP/IP stack. That means that sometimes they do not adhear to all networking standards. This is because they are economical chipsets that have some constraints and valid limitations. I've seen issues in IoT devices that for example didn't like subnet masks that where not a full class C. I've also seen it where they expect the default gateway to be .1. Another thing I've seen is DHCP leases not renewed at the half life or not all all past expiration. I can list countless other examples. Because of these limitations often enterprise networks can be a challenge for IoT devices. You are the IT guy, I'm sure you'll find a solution. Remember to not miss the forest for the trees.

[wardie]

Perhaps your IoT WiFi VLAN is doing client isolation.

It is also a know fact that some IoT devices do not have a full TCP/IP stack. That means that sometimes they do not adhear to all networking standards. This is because they are economical chipsets that have some constraints and valid limitations. I've seen issues in IoT devices that for example didn't like subnet masks that where not a full class C. I've also seen it where they expect the default gateway to be .1. Another thing I've seen is DHCP leases not renewed at the half life or not all all past expiration. I can list countless other examples. Because of these limitations often enterprise networks can be a challenge for IoT devices. You are the IT guy, I'm sure you'll find a solution. Remember to not miss the forest for the trees.

I quite agree. It's not really worthy of a separate post but I've been having personal battles with getting my HP2551C to maintain its WiFi connectivity to my router. The GW1000's are fine (do they use the same chip? seems not to me). I can get the HP2551C to connect to WiFi initially with the normal procedure. But then I was finding that every day or so it would just drop off the network anything from once to several times. No particular pattern I could discern. When it happens the console shows no signal and the WiFi menu just said "Connecting..." permanently. The only way I could get it back working was to reboot the router (a console reboot didn't help oddly).

My main setup is a 2-station mesh with tri-band switching. Anyway I played around with a lot of the expert settings but nothing seemed to work - use main network, use guest network, use with/without isolation, with/without mesh, fixed channels etc. It's Asus WiFi 6 kit. Anyway it is fixed now sort of... I've now got a stable connection at least for a week now, no dropouts. The solution... I bought a super cheap TP-Link router to run a separate 2.4GHz network and that is rock solid... So I guess the lesson is YMMV on different router brands and models with this kit...

[galfert]

If you are running an Asus router I recommend looking at Merlin firmware. In another life I was really into alternative router firmware. Decades ago it was almost a necessity because it was the only way to turn a seemly basic home router into a more business class type device with more advanced features. But router firmware has evolved a lot and it is to the point where unless you need something special then you do not need the likes of DDWRT, OpenWRT, Tomato and others that are still popular. I would say these alternative firmware are still popular to give extended life to many abandoned routers. But they also exist to add an extensive set of enterprise level features. That can be overkill for most people. I recommend new hardware as alternative firmware is not going to give you new WiFi standards and stock firmware as long as you keep it up to date is fairly okay. But sometimes Merlin has fixes before Asus gets them.

So I've been mostly very content just running stock Asus firmware and Asus has done a great job supporting their better router models years after having been introduced. But about a bit over a year ago I decided to take notice of Asuswrt-Merlin, or just Merlin for short. The predominate reason was so that I could run Pi-hole but keep the main router as the DHCP server and that required the router to not force itself as the DNS server on the network. Well with stock Asus firmware that is not possible. I then implemented Merlin and I liked a lot more than just gaining this feature. Turns out that Merlin has a different focus than those other alternative firmware. The focus of Merlin is to remain true to the original Asus firmware as it still looks identical and it only aims to make minor tweaks and you get to keep all of the Asus baked in goodness. Turns out that the maintainer for Merlin has even had an active role in actually fixing bugs in stock Asus firmware so his work makes it way back to Asus. I've noticed that Merlin runs well and is much reliable and you benefit from some tweaks (only run releases marked stable though). It is very easy to switch over to Merlin as it is just as simple as flashing the Merlin image over the stock Asus. You can just as easily revert back to stock Asus firmware. I do though recommend doing a factory reset before and after flashing Merlin. Then manually configure your router as if it was new out of the box....for that you are going to want to have copied down all your configuration settings.
https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net/

* Merlin doesn't support all Asus models. Only the better and most popular models are supported. My current favorite is the RT-AX88U.

If you need help for Merlin firmware there are a ton of folks that hang out in this forum and they are extremely helpful:
https://www.snbforums.com/forums/asuswrt-merlin.42/

[Rover1822]

I have multiple Asus router's, all running stock firmware. Work perfectly fine for me. Now I don't go the extents that Galfert does.

However, and this has been brought up before, if running APs off your main Wifi router , some of the F/O, Ecowitt stuff may have a tendency to connect / reconnect.

Having observed this , all of mine run off the main WiFi router (in my case a RT-AC87R) . My APs are  ASUS AC-1300s ( two of those on separate SSIDs )

But, I digress, once I found that everything worked properly on my main WiFi, I stopped looking into the issue, well because , everything worked. I do not run separate subnets (other than the initial NAT) or vLans at my house.

I do have a GW1000 at the office , which uses an old netgear or dlink, which hits a watchguard firebox. No issue with that either

[wardie]

Thanks both very helpful comments! The Asus router in question... I’ve tried both an old AC86U I had and also now the main system I have is a pair of XT8’s which are otherwise brilliant. Huge throughput. AI Mesh is fiddly though. Anyway regarding the HP2551C because of where they are located the HP2551C could only get a good signal from the mesh slave, but the mesh master was just about in range. The HP2551C seemed to be wanting to connect to the master, not the slave. Forcing it to the slave didn’t work either. I suspect its nuances of Asus’ AI mesh protocols. The odd thing was I also had problems with stand-alone AC86U in AP mode too. Stock firmware.

[galfert]

Up until very recently the guest network feature only worked on the main router with Asus mesh.

[wardie]

Up until very recently the guest network feature only worked on the main router with Asus mesh.

Yes Ive now upgraded them to the latest firmware “AI Mesh 2.0” functionality and it seems to work in general but I had these dropouts in both guest and main mesh network sadly. Interesting to see that it can work OK with these routers though (if you have XT8s vs doing mesh on like 88U’s. Anyway I’ve never had issues connecting the Apps (WS View) to the networks, just the HP2551C ongoing.

[Gyvate]

it's a more than two year old post you were replying to .....
and the issue was apparently solved -
and Mesh network setups can have impact on a weather station console (or in principle any other device) to have a stable connection. That's not necessarily the device's fault).
In such cases we recommend either a change in SSIDs or a straight connection to the router and not via a Mesh hub.
When a firmware upgrade of the network infrastructure has the same effect, also fine. 

[MatsJ]

Registered user yesterday and with only a short delay before posting in a thread with generic wordings without intelligent sense or meaning; that's am automated spam robot... possibly hooking up through the new so called AI databases. I'd just delete the user.