Placeshifter Mac Address Change?

[voorhees]

Recently the mac address by which my laptop Placeshifter connects to my WHS SageTV server changed. Why did it do that? I did not think that was even possible, but that was just my assumption. I would have never known but on my web server it listed the mac address instead of the name I provided in the extenders.properties file.

Any ideas as to why the mac address changed?

Thanks so much for any help you can provide.

[GKusnick]

Does your laptop have more than one network adapter? E.g. wireless and wired? If so, they'll have different MAC addresses. Also if you use dial-up or VPN connections those can have different MAC addresses.

There's also a command-line option that lets you specify a MAC address for Placeshifter to use. So if for instance you were launching it from a batch file that used that option to spoof a MAC address, and then you stopped doing that and started running it directly, then that would look like a different client to the server.

[voorhees]

Thanks for the reply.

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Does your laptop have more than one network adapter? E.g. wireless and wired? If so, they'll have different MAC addresses. Also if you use dial-up or VPN connections those can have different MAC addresses.

It does, but I only have ever run it from the wireless adapter. I have never used wired or dial up with it, nor VPN for that fact.

Originally Posted by GKusnick

There's also a command-line option that lets you specify a MAC address for Placeshifter to use. So if for instance you were launching it from a batch file that used that option to spoof a MAC address, and then you stopped doing that and started running it directly, then that would look like a different client to the server.

I have always only run it from double clicking on the icon on the desktop.

I am truly stumped. How could it just change its mac address? Could it change if the wireless router is rebooted? Or, if it looses network connection? I have had some wireless connectivity issues recently, and this did happen once before but it corrected itself and went back to the original mac address. I only know this because there was a new properties file in the clients folder that I had not seen before. I know these sound like I am grasping at straws, since I am. Any ideas?

[zoundz]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but IIRC there is an idiosyncrasy in Placeshifter which causes it to use the first MAC address that it finds in the list of adapters, whether or not that is the actual adapter that's being used for the connection. This "feature" can cause it to change MAC addresses if you install a new network adapter, even if you are not using it. I've seen my Placeshifter clients show up with a new MAC address all of a sudden and all my settings disappear. The easiest solution is to copy the .properties file from the old MAC address to the new one in the clients subdirectory of the server. I have no idea how to convince Placeshifter to use the MAC address of the adapter it's actually communicating on.

[cheekymonkey]

You are correct,btw I have 56 properties files. This is something that has been bugging me for some time so I decided to do some testing and searching of the forum.

My machine is used to connect to work via a vpn and it's connection shows up as the first in the list. It seems a new mac is generated on each reboot, hence the reason why my being forced to reset seemed random

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection* 11:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Juniper Network Connect Virtual Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-FF-A0-D5-64-05
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

after a reboot

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection* 11:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Juniper Network Connect Virtual Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-FF-50-97-3D-05
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

looks like it's time to submit another bug

[cheekymonkey]

The fix from support is

You need to make a batch file that starts placeshifter instead with a
command line like this:

java -cp MiniClient.jar;jogl.jar;gluegen-rt.jar -Xmx192m
sage.miniclient.MiniClient -mac 00:11:22:33:44:55

(or whatever you want for the MAC) and then that'll always use the same ID
on the server for that client and you won't need to reconfig each time.

[voorhees]

Originally Posted by cheekymonkey

The fix from support is

Thanks so much for posting the fix.