Common Issues with Networks Troubleshooting Guide Solutions Index A.

I Can Not See My Director When I Open Composer B. My WIFI Mini Touch Or My 10.5 Touch Screen Will Not Stay Connected To The Wireless Network? C. I Keep Getting Kicked Off Director D. Basic Networking E. Common Mistakes that Cripple C4 Systems F. Spanning Tree Non-Support

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A. I Can Not See My Director When I Open Composer Solutions Index 1) This can be caused by several issues. 2) Open composer in virtual mode and go to tools-system manager. a) Connect to your director. b) On the right side pane under the status tab, verify that director has a green enabled status next to it. c) Please enable it if it is not enabled. d) Once enabled, exit Composer. e) Wait several minutes. f) Log back in using Composer. g) The director IP address should then show up in the list of directors window when connecting to local director. 3) Verify that you have the same subnet address on your laptop as the director and the router. 4) Make sure that MAC address filtering, IGMP filtering, or Spanning Tree Filtering, parental controls, or firewall is not enabled on the router or switch. a) We require port 80 to be open on any router or layer 3 or 4 switches. 5) This may the result of a security application such as a firewall, virus protection suite, or other security oriented software. a) Known offenders are: i) Zone Alarm. ii) Norton Security (Worm Protection). iii) Microsoft Firewall. b) These programs will need to be disabled or have the settings changed to allow for our communication. You will need to contact the administrator of those programs for further configuration. 6) Verify that the IP address that the controller is using is valid or reachable from your laptop. a) From start-run, type cmd and press enter. b) A DOS box will open. c) At that prompt enter ping xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx <ip address> and press enter. d) If you get replies it is a valid address. e) If you get denials or destination host unreachable, please check the local network router to verify that it is seeing the controller and your laptop. Beginning of Solution

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B. My Wifi Mini Touch Or My 10.5 Touch Screen Will Not Stay Connected To The Wireless Network? 1) Solutions Index Verify that the router is in mixed mode. a) Once an IP address is obtained, ping that IP address to verify that the device exists on the network. b) Verify that all security MAC address filtering, IGMP filtering, or Spanning Tree Filtering, parental controls, or firewall is not enabled on the router or switch. i) We require port 80 to be open on any router or layer 3 or 4 switches We do not work with any WiFi Range extending products. a) Apple airports or Linksys, and Dlink range extenders are not supported with Control4 products. Verify that you have a strong enough signal strength from the Wireless Access Point (WAP). Verify that you are only using a single WAP for routing with Control4. a) You can do this using several different utilities. b) We recommend WI-SPY as an affordable third party wireless network scanner or the wireless network card on your laptop. For the initial connection, please configure the router to be wide open. a) All security features mentioned above must be disabled. b) Please get permission from the router owner before any configuration is made. Beginning of Solution B

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C. I Keep Getting Kicked Off Director Solutions Index 1) Power cycle the router and then all DHCP devices attached to the network. (Make sure the router is power cycled first) a) This causes both the router and devices to look for one another. It also clears any stuck ports. b) Furthermore, changing between static and dynamic IP schemes can provide more stability. i) (Please be aware that local networks may have pre-defined security and configurations, so you will want to verify with the homeowner or ISP) 2) Verify that you are connecting to the correct controller. a) You can have more than one controller on the same network. b) However no more than one director can be identified into a project. c) Each Controller (or any Control4 Device) can only be in one project at a time. Beginning of Solution C

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D. Basic Networking Solutions Index 1) Additional Notes: a) a couple of routing configurations to note when using Control4 devices b) Remove all security including firewall, parental controls, MAC address filtering, WPA and WEP encryption for the initial connection. We do work with WEP encryption ONLY. However, after the initial connection has been made. c) If having connectivity failure using DHCP, switch to static IPs OUTSIDE OF THE DHCP RANGE. d) If using static IP address scheming and connectivity is failing, switch to DHCP. You may have to reboot the Device after this change. e) Verify that there is a single router and the SSIDs are lower case, single phrase, no numbers, no spaces. f) In the event of network interruption or specific routing questions, be aware of the ISPs contact information. Beginning of Solution D

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E. Common Mistakes Which Cripple Control4 Systems Solutions Index 1) Two Routers / Router used as WAP. a) We get several calls on devices that only control intermittently, appear to change IP addresses, and/or need constant rebooting. i) The #1 reason for this is there are two DHCP servers running on the network. ii) The story is always the same. A second WAP is needed so the installer adds in a second router as an access point. One of two things happen from here. Either the DHCP server is never turned off, or the Home owner/Someone else presses the Factory Reset button, which of coarse turns the DHCP server back on. 2) Static IP assignments in the DHCP range. a) You cannot statically assign devices to addresses in the DHCP range or you will have IP conflicts. b) DHCP servers are most often unaware of statically assigned devices in the DHCP range, and will furthermore assign duplicate addresses to your statically assigned devices within that range. If your DHCP range is: 192.168.0.100 - 192.168.0.150 Your first static IP would in theory be: 192.168.0.151 See Figure [E-2] 3) WIFI Range Extenders, Repeaters, (IE: Linksys Range Extenders, Apple Airports) a) These cause two problems. i) They have a history of grabbing Zigbee unicasts out of the air and resending them. The result being double commands, double curser movements on On-Screen Navigators. ii) Failed Director Communication on WIFI devices. (1) Director shows on wifi device but connection fails when attempted 4) 4) ROUTER DHCP lease time set to 0 or infinite

Figure E-1

Figure E-2 Technically, It could be: 192.168.0.11 192.168.0.99 and 192.168.0.151 192.168.0.252 There is a free tool on the internet called ANGRYIPSCANNER This tool scans all IP addresses on a network and provides a report of used and available ports.

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a) Our devices are not compatible with this setting and Streaming Audio will skip as a result. You may also encounter other performance issues related to this. Please set the router to a finite value such as 1 day. Beginning of Solution E

F. Non-Support for Spanning Tree Network Configurations Solutions Index 1) Workaround: a) Add a Cheap Network Switch in between the Control4 Device and the Spanning Tree/Managed Switch. (i) This allows the spanning tree link to be isolated to the cheap switch and ignore the Control4 Device. 2) Solution: a) Turn off Spanning-Tree. (Managed Switch) b) Log into the router, and see if this is enabled. c) Spanning-Tree Protocol is a link management protocol that provides path redundancy while preventing undesirable loops in the network. For an Ethernet network to function properly, only one active path can exist between two stations. d) Multiple active paths between stations cause loops in the network. If a loop exists in the network topology, the potential exists for duplication of messages. When loops occur, some switches see stations appear on both sides of the switch. This condition confuses the forwarding algorithm and allows duplicate frames to be forwarded. e) To provide path redundancy, Spanning-Tree Protocol defines a tree that spans all switches in an extended network. Spanning-Tree Protocol forces certain redundant data paths into a standby (blocked) state. If one network segment in the Spanning-Tree Protocol becomes unreachable, or if Spanning-Tree Protocol costs change, the spanning-tree algorithm reconfigures the spanning-tree topology and reestablishes the link by activating the standby path. f) Spanning-Tree Protocol operation is transparent to end stations, which are unaware whether they are connected to a single LAN segment

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or a switched LAN of multiple segments.

Beginning of Solution F