BCS-462 not starting up

[don.fief@comcast.net]

During my last brew session, I could not connect to my BCS with my laptop. After rebooting it a few times, the BCS Finder app did find the BCS, but my browser would not connect. I was using Chrome. I see that there is a new firmware out. Could this be a bug that was addressed? I don't really have time on brew day to discover that it won't talk to my laptop, and troubleshoot it. I am disenchanted with my system. I just want it to work.... Any suggestions?

[JonW]

Likely this is a networking issue. You're not providing enough information to determine what could be the cause though. What is the current IP address on your PC? What was the IP address that BCS finder was showing? Do you have BCS using a static or DHCP address? Is the BCS plugged into a router to get an address or do you use a direct connection? Are you wireless? Has anything with your laptop and/or router changed?

There are so many things that can affect your ability to connect to the BCS. Really need more info to give any direction.

[don.fief@comcast.net]

Sorry. I am direct connected to the BCS with a cable from my laptop. No router in the way. I initiate the BCS, and then attach the laptop, so it has always been the default ip, 269.254.0.63. That is the address the finder utility shows, and what I typed into the browser window. It has always worked in the past. As for the ip of the laptop, it is assigned a local IP from the router, and can see the internet. 192.168.1.12.

Thanks! Any direction will be appreciated...

[don.fief@comcast.net]

Any help out there??

[JonW]

Sorry. I am direct connected to the BCS with a cable from my laptop. No router in the way. I initiate the BCS, and then attach the laptop, so it has always been the default ip, 269.254.0.63. That is the address the finder utility shows, and what I typed into the browser window. It has always worked in the past. As for the ip of the laptop, it is assigned a local IP from the router, and can see the internet. 192.168.1.12.

Thanks! Any direction will be appreciated...

Something doesn't add up here. A 269.254.x.x address is a "link-local" style address that devices use when no other addressing mechanism is available. If your laptop couldn't get a DHCP address from your router, it too would have a 269.254.x.x address and would be able to connect to the BCS via a local connection cable. Both the laptop and BCS need to be on either the 269.254.x.x network or the 192.168.1.x network, not one of each.

Is your laptop using wireless internet? Is the 192.168.1.12 address on your wireless interface or your hard-wired ethernet interface? If you're on wireless, but you want to connect to the BCS with a hard-wired connection, you should manually assign IP addresses to both the BCS and your hard-wired LAN port on the laptop.

[RiverCityBrewer]

Sorry, I'm confused, you say there is no router involved but then give the IP address on your laptop being distributed by (presumably) DHCP on your wireless router? If that is the case then that is likely the issue, even though you are directly connected to the BCS, the subnet that DHCP on your router is giving out (likely 255.255.255.0) is not in the same subnet that is being used by the BCS (255.255.0.0 according to the wiki). Try turning off your wireless connection (leave it off) and disconnecting from the BCS, then reboot your laptop, reboot the BCS and try direct connecting again.

[BrianC]

Are you sure the IP address you previously used is 269.254.0.63? IP address ranges cannot go that high. The default IP address of the BCS if it cannot find a DHCP server is 169.254.0.63.

Sounds like you connect to your router via wireless and then use an ethernet cable to connect between an ethernet port on the laptop and the BCS?

If that is the case, your wireless adapter will be on the 192.168.1.x network as you mention, and the ethernet adapter could have a 169.254.0.x address, as it isn't connected to anything. If you plug in your ethernet cable between the laptop and the BCS, you should be able to hit the BCS at http://169.254.0.63.

If the BCS and your laptop are both on your actual network, you could add a secondary static IP address like 169.254.0.62 to your active network adapter and try accessing it again. I've had to do that a few times to access the BCS when it didn't grab an IP address for whatever reason after upgrading the firmware. My BCS is plugged into my network though, so this just lets me access it across the network (so I don't have to take my laptop out to the garage and plug it directly in).

[JonW]

Are you sure the IP address you previously used is 269.254.0.63? IP address ranges cannot go that high. The default IP address of the BCS if it cannot find a DHCP server is 169.254.0.63.

LOL! Good catch Brian. I copy & pasted his IP when I was replying and didn't even notice it was 269!!!

[don.fief@comcast.net]

Sorry, I'm confused, you say there is no router involved but then give the IP address on your laptop being distributed by (presumably) DHCP on your wireless router? If that is the case then that is likely the issue, even though you are directly connected to the BCS, the subnet that DHCP on your router is giving out (likely 255.255.255.0) is not in the same subnet that is being used by the BCS (255.255.0.0 according to the wiki). Try turning off your wireless connection (leave it off) and disconnecting from the BCS, then reboot your laptop, reboot the BCS and try direct connecting again.

Yes, by the time I connect to the BCS with the cable, my laptop has already gotten an address via DHCP from the wireless router. When I said no router was involved, I meant between the BCS and laptop. I will try turning off the wireless adapter on my laptop and try again. It worked in the past with it on, as I am able to browse the net, and go to Brewersfriend, etc. I must have booted them up differently.

If it works with the wireless adapter turned off, I will change the IP in the BCS to a static one on on the same subnet as the IP assigned from the router. First step is to get it to connect at all.

As for the 269.x.x.x, sorry, it must have been a typo. I will recheck that, but I agree that it doesn't go that high. It was just defaulting to the address it gets when it does not get assigned one.

Thanks for the flood of help. This gives me some things to try.

Don

[JonW]

There's a few other gotcha's that may be in play here. Like Brian said, your wireless can be on the 192 address and your LAN port on the 169 address and work properly. However, if you plugged your laptop into the router at any point, it likely grabbed a 192 address and now wouldn't be able to see the BCS. Depending how long your system has set the lease time on the DHCP addresses, your LAN port could hold that address for a significant period of time. You may need to "release" the lease manually to get the LAN port back to an auto-assigned 169 address.

To see all your IP's, open a command prompt and type "ipconfig /all". You can also do "ipconfig /release" and "ipconfig /renew" to both release and renew the DHCP addresses.

If you want to continue to run the BCS hard-wired, I would specify a static IP address on both the laptop LAN port and the BCS, but do not use the same subnet on both ports. Windows will complain since both ports will be setting a default gateway to the same destination. You'd be better off setting the BCS and laptop LAN port to 192.168.2.x addresses. This way, your laptop knows which port to send the data through based on destination address.

Ideally, if you can just wire the BCS to the router to use a 192.168.1.x address, you'd get around all these networking issues.