Windows XP placeshifter - will not connect using LocatorID

[dwalton22]

I can connect to my sageTV server without any problems over my LAN by specifying the IP address but if I'm outside my firewall and try to connect via the LocatorID the placeshifter never performs a query to figure out what IP address is associated with the LocatorID. From reading the FAQ it sounds like the placeshifter is supposed to establish a connection on TCP port 8018 to some sagetv.com server to learn the IP address that is currently bound to my LocatorID.

The placeshifter never tries to establish a TCP port 8018 a connection though...I know because I'm using wireshark to sniff the packets on my ethernet interface. I've tried the 6.1.9 placeshifter and the beta placeshifter, I've upgraded java to 1.6.2, I'm not using zonealarm, windows firewall or any other software that would be denying placeshifter access to port 8018.

Are there any debugs that I can enable in the placeshifter software? Any ideas why the placeshifter isn't attempting the connection to port 8018?

[Opus4]

Just to make sure: in the PS Servers Manager, you've added a server using the Locator ID for your home SageTV server and did not check the option to "connect to this server directly..."?

- Andy

[dwalton22]

Correct, I added my Locator ID which is of the format XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX but did not check the "connect to this server directly by its hostname or IP address" box.

[Opus4]

If the PS Servers Manager entry is configured correctly, then the only thing I can think of is that something is still running & preventing PS from accessing that port & is stopping it before it ever gets to the point that wireshark would see the activity. Are you absolutely sure there isn't some sort of firewall, internet security, antispyware, etc., software that is monitoring internet access?

- Andy

[dwalton22]

ok, I installed the placeshifter on my main server just so I could try it on a different machine and on that machine I can see the connection to port 8018. So there is something running on my laptop that is blocking the placeshifter app

Any idea how to troubleshoot what application is doing this? I've disabled the firewall, I don't have zonealarm or anything like that installed.

For any future releases a debug logfile for the placeshifter would be nice

[doncote0]

Are you using your laptop's wireless connection?

If you are trying to connect to your server via the laptop and cannot connect, I would suspect the WAP or Wireless Router is blocking the port (like it should). Just tell the router or WAP to allow communication through port 8018 (see router/wap user manual for details). Better control may be possible through the router/wap by only allowing that connection's MAC address to access that port.

Make sure that your "firewall" does not block port 8018 (most will by default). You may not notice because the firewall may be configured to discard unauthorized attempts (without responding - stealth method).

Also, TCP port are not always externally addressable. For the purposes of this application, do not block muticasting. If you are trying to make an TCP/IP connection to a private network (for example, IP starts with 192.168 or 10.0 )from outside of the network, you will be denied. As a matter of fact, if your laptop understands that the request is to a private network that it is not a part of (outside the firewall) then it may just drop the command. The system does not generate an error, because, effectively, you just asked it to do nothing. To fix this, tell your router (or firewall) how to address the private network by port forwarding (see WAP/router or firewall user guide). You could then access the placeshifter by using the routers external IP address with port 8018 which will then forward to your server (you may need dynamic DNS for this since most ISP's assign the external IP address using DHCP).

Placing your PC in the DMZ of your router or firewall temporarily may help troubleshoot the issue. Your firewall or router may also be able to clone the MAC address of your sage server which could help.

[dwalton22]

Update on this...I no longer think there is any firewall software running on my laptop that is hosing placeshifter. The reason being I cleared the dns cache in my laptop and fired up placeshifter but I never see placeshifter do a DNS lookup for locator.sagetv.com. So placeshifter is never attempting to open a connection to port 8018 on locator.sagetv.com....it can't be because it is never doing a DNS lookup for that host. I'm able to verify this by using sniffer software to see what traffic is going out my ethernet interface.

Thanks doncote0, unfortunately my router is not coming into play here because the Placeshifter client on my laptop isn't attempting to open the required TCP connection to port 8018. So its not that my router is blocking the connection, its that the connection isn't being attempted in the first place

[wvpolekat]

I would start looking further down the stack. Since Wireshark is showing that it isn't reaching the wire, I would try something like tcpview to see if it's making it to the network stack or not.

I know you say that the firewall isn't running, but it sure sounds like something like that is going on.

Try telnetting to locator.sagetv.com on the port it uses and see what happens. If that fails, you know it isn't the software not making the call, it's something on the system preventing it from making it to the wire.

You may need to go as far as some winsock sniffing to help track down where things are breaking down.

Is there something like a socks or VPN client at play here?

[dwalton22]

Thanks for the ideas wvpolekat:

- I can telnet to port 8018 of locator.sagetv.com so there isn't a firewall blocking my connection to there

- tcpview doesn't show any open ports to locator.sagetv.com. This makes sense though because placeshifter is never trying to connect to locator.sagetv.com, if it was I would see a DNS query for that hostname (I cleared the DNS cache right before launching placeshifter so that it would have to do a query to resolve the hostname).

- I've verified that there isn't anything blocking DNS for placeshifter. I did this by configuring a bogus hostname and click the "connect directly to this hostname" option...I see a DNS query go out for the bogus hostname.

- I tried a winsock sniffer but that shows less information than wireshark.

- No socks or VPN client here

I have a case open with sagetv support. I'll post whatever resolution they find on this thread so it is archived. My money is on a bug....that's the only explanation for why I never see a DNS query.

[wvpolekat]

I wonder if you put an entry in your hosts file for locator.sagetv.com if that would change anything.

[dwalton22]

Originally Posted by wvpolekat

I wonder if you put an entry in your hosts file for locator.sagetv.com if that would change anything.

Nope, no change in behavior.

[wvpolekat]

Interesting. I will be curious to see what the solution turns out to be.

[dwalton22]

This has finally been resolved. When I entered the LocatorID I accidently entered a W instead of the number 2 (w is right below 2 on the keyboard). The placeshifter silently aborts any connection attempt if it sees a non-hex entry in the LocatorID. This is why I was never seeing a DNS query for locator.sagetv.com. I've asked sage to have the placeshifter spit out an error message if someone enters a non-hex digit...I haven't heard back from them on this.

I'll pass along some useful tidbits that I got from tech support:

To capture generic debug output from placeshifter do:
java -cp MiniClient.jar sage.miniclient.MiniClient 2> logfile.txt

To see the exact Java error that is causing a socket to be blocked do:
java -cp MiniClient.jar;jogl.jar;gluegen-rt.jar sage.miniclient.MiniClient
ABCD-1234-ABCD-1234

But use your locator ID instead of ABCD-1234-ABCD-1234.