Calling all Apex guru's

[jayu]

Last Wednesday I went out of town for work. During that time I got a call from my wife stating that my tank "looked funny". The first thing I did was to grab my phone to do a quick check on my Apex, however I was unable to gain access to said Apex. I received either a bad gateway message or unable to connect to server. I PAINFULLY talked her through troubleshooting the problem with the tank, and all was good, except that I still had no access to my Apex.

Immediately upon returning home I got in contact with Paul from Neptune and he was able to remotely reconfigure the Apex. Back in business right...NO

Ever since then my connection to the Apex will periodically "drop" for lack of a better word. Ill have access for a period of time and then suddenly the next time I go to access it either thru my web browser or iphone app, It'll start displaying the bad gateway or unable to connect to server messages. If I do a reboot on the display unit, everything works normal again for a while.

Im super confused because before last Wednesday, everything was working rock solid since having the tank setup for about 10 months. What could have suddenly caused this to happen?

I emailed Paul from Neptune again and this was his response:

"Can you access the bridge at the point of inaccessibility? Can you ping the controller's IP address at that time? Is it possible to make the controller hard-wired to remove that variable? What port is your Apex typically available on?

Please advise."

This confuses me further because he just reconfigured my apex the day before.

Id like to consider myself about a 6.5 on the tech savvy scale, however understanding network setup tends to fly right over my head. Can anyone provide some simplified instructions for troubleshooting my issue. Please keep in mind that EVERYTHING was working fine for close to a year, and I made no changes that I can think of.

Im heading out of town again this weekend, and this a major priority. It's sad but my days are crappy when I can't check in on my tank.

HELP PLEASE!

 

[rdnelson]

Don't have an Apex and I am no IT guy but..... From Paul's response I assume the Apex is connected to the network via wireless. I suspect that is where you problem lies. Get a long patch cord and connect direct to the router temporarily.

The other possibility is the port he refers to. There are digital ports programmed into routers that either block or allow access into the router from the Internet. If you don't open the correct port you cannot access it remotely.

Hope that helps a little.

 

[jayu]

rdnelson99;812824 wrote: Don't have an Apex and I am no IT guy but..... From Paul's response I assume the Apex is connected to the network via wireless. I suspect that is where you problem lies. Get a long patch cord and connect direct to the router temporarily.

The other possibility is the port he refers to. There are digital ports programmed into routers that either block or allow access into the router from the Internet. If you don't open the correct port you cannot access it remotely.

Hope that helps a little.

Not sure that's the problem. I think the key points of emphasis regarding my problem is that:

1. Ive lost the ability to connect remotely to my Apex, but I had it running fine for 10 months.

2. If I do a reboot from the Apex display unit everything works fine temporarily. Then it loses connection after a while.

I know that the Apex has the ability to communicate to the router or else it wouldn't start working again after the reboot.

Im not sure what hardwiring would prove in that regard.

There are a bunch of threads on ReefCentral that describe similar issues however I haven't been able to pinpoint an actual fix.

 

[elfloyd]

Jay... Hard wiring will eliminate the wireless aspects of the circuit and sectionalizes the issue. Might not fix the problem but I feel it's necessary to see what is going on.

I ran a wireless connection for two years and experienced unreliable connectivity. Went wired a couple months ago and now have a steady connection. The wireless box was only 15 feet from the Apex, so distance wasn't the problem.

Just my two cents.

- Larry

 

[jayu]

elFloyd;812859 wrote: Jay... Hard wiring will eliminate the wireless aspects of the circuit and sectionalizes the issue. Might not fix the problem but I feel it's necessary to see what is going on.

I ran a wireless connection for two years and experienced unreliable connectivity. Went wired a couple months ago and now have a steady connection. The wireless box was only 15 feet from the Apex, so distance wasn't the problem.

Just my two cents.

- Larry

Let me start by apologizing for being a total blockhead about this, but I just don't get it.

Assuming I hardwire the Apex to the router and I find out that I can connect to the Apex thru a hardwire, that would tell me that the problem lies somewhere within the wireless setup. However, without hardwiring the Apex, and just performing a system reboot, Im able to reconnect to the Apex wirelessly, albeit temporarily. So, wouldn't that indicate that I indeed do have a solid path from my Apex to my router and that something within the Apex is "kicking" me off the network. That is what Im thinking, especially because I haven't made any changes.

It be a huge hassle to hardwire the Apex, (Home modem, and router are in different rooms than my tank and Apex) I usually only do that when I need to update firmware. Id especially would hate to do that only for it to indicate something that I already expect.

In any event, thanks for the input.

 

[rdnelson]

JayU;812864 wrote: Let me start by apologizing for being a total blockhead about this, but I just don't get it.

Assuming I hardwire the Apex to the router and I find out that I can connect to the Apex thru a hardwire, that would tell me that the problem lies somewhere within the wireless setup. However, without hardwiring the Apex, and just performing a system reboot, Im able to reconnect to the Apex wirelessly, albeit temporarily. So, wouldn't that indicate that I indeed do have a solid path from my Apex to my router and that something within the Apex is "kicking" me off the network. That is what Im thinking, especially because I haven't made any changes.

It be a huge hassle to hardwire the Apex, (Home modem, and router are in different rooms than my tank and Apex) I usually only do that when I need to update firmware. Id especially would hate to do that only for it to indicate something that I already expect.

In any event, thanks for the input.

Not disagree but..... In thirty years of troubleshooting things that sometimes seem beyond explain action I have learned to start by eliminating the simple things first. Have a cable run across the floor while you are gone would be good insurance until you have more time to figure it out. Just a thought

 

[jayu]

Just got off the phone with Paul for Apex. While I never got a clear understanding on the root cause of the problem, he helped by reassigning the Apex a new IP address and opening up some new ports. Wireless connection is reestablished (for the time being anyway.) Crossing my fingers.

 

[realfish]

You do know that your ISP likely changes your IP address at unpredicatable intervals. I can't remember the name of the service, but it assigns you set up a static IP for remote access and then the service checks your IP periodically and maps your static IP to it.

 

[jayu]

RealFish;812897 wrote: You do know that your ISP likely changes your IP address at unpredicatable intervals. I can't remember the name of the service, but it assigns you set up a static IP for remote access and then the service checks your IP periodically and maps your static IP to it.

I believe your referring to the dyndns server. I had that up and running since setting up the apex. I changed to a new IP address for the Apex not my home network. Not even sure if what i did is a direct fix for my original problem or if its just a way to bypass the issue altogether.

It's working fine now, I'm just hoping the problem doesn't come back.

 

[silver surfer]

I would recommend running a hardwire from point to point. I don't trust wireless connections in an emergency situation. I was in Aruba and a pump went out. With my apex (out of the country) I was able to power down the pump and start it up again.

Most of the issues I have heard about start with my "wireless gaming module...."

 

[rdnelson]

JayU;812904 wrote: I believe your referring to the dyndns server. I had that up and running since setting up the apex. I changed to a new IP address for the Apex not my home network. Not even sure if what i did is a direct fix for my original problem or if its just a way to bypass the issue altogether.

It's working fine now, I'm just hoping the problem doesn't come back.

I think what he is referring too is the IP address of your internet modem. Most do not use a static IP address (in otherwords, you always have the same IP address for your modem). Many providers bassically asign your IP address to someone else when you are not using it. When you log onto the internet it just assigns you a new one. That way they don't need as many. For an extra fee they will give you a static IP which means it is always yours. How that affects you in this situation is if you point your phone or a remote computer to look for your Apex through a certain IP address it may not be going to your modem unless you have a static IP.

 

[silver surfer]

You are correct sir

 

[morganatlanta]

I've been having an issue the past three days with my Apex as well. I'm running mine hardwired, so my problem was not with wireless.

The controller goes offline and all of the outlets freeze in whatever state they were in, but the head unit still displays temperature, etc. I emailed with Paul, and he said it might be due to too many requests hitting the built in Web server if external port 80 is forwarded to the Apex. The requests could be from people (hackers) running automated scripts to scan the internet for vulnerable Web servers, not just from requests you have made.

I removed the external port forwarding, so we'll see if that fixes the issue for now.