[Help] Can ping, but DS says "No Robot Communication" only W7, ok from XP

[fovea1959]

bringing a new mule cRIO board online. Got the cRIO imaged, have had several weeks of successful use from my XP laptop.

Trying to bring my wife's laptop (Windows 7 Home) online. I disabled Windows firewall, shut down the wireless, connected the ethernet on the laptop to the cRIO with a crossover cable, configured the Ethernet to static 10.te.am.5 with a 255.0.0.0 netmask. I can ping (and FTP) 10.te.am.2 just fine, and the lights on the cRIO ethernet port indicate that packets are merrily going back and forth.

I bring up the DS, and it still says "No Robot Communcation". The Diagnostics Pane shows green for both the Enet Link and the Robot however.

What am I missing? I believe the Enet Link and Robot are green if things are pingable, where the "Communications" light is driven if the DS is receiving packets; this differennce is what made me double check the firewall settings.

I am stumped. Again, the XP laptop is fine, and I can ping and FTP the cRIO from the Windows 7, just can't get a green Communication Light from the DS.

[Mark McLeod]

Try starting the Driver Station app from the right-click menu using "Run as Administrator".

[fovea1959]

thanks for the response.

Running the DS as administrator did not help. Still showing green for Enet Link and Robot, but a Red communications light, along with "No Robot Communications" in the LL corner.

[Mark McLeod]

Team number entered in the Driver Station app matches this cRIO's Team #?
Is the DS set to override/set the local IP automatically?
DS version is 11.30.11.00 (I think)

[Tom Line]

You said the cRio was new: have you already flashed the image on the cRio?

[fovea1959]

Mark: Team number matches, have run both manually setting up the interface and letting the DS do it. I'll double check the DS version, and will also deliberately screw up the team # to see if behaviour changes (I think that will make the Robot light go red because the pings will start failing).

Tom: yes, it's imaged, and works perfectly from my XP laptop...

[Mark McLeod]

I checked and I have the Driver Station app running without issue on:
Windows 7 Home Premium
Windows 7 Professional, SP1

[Tom Line]

Is it possible that you have a proxy set in your internet settings? (This causes us headaches from time to time).

[fovea1959]

proxy was set. turned it off, didn't change things.

I deliberately changed the DS team number to an incorrect one; that causes Robot light to go red (expected, no response to ping...)

I did just notice this Windows 7 64-bit. Has anyone been able to get the DS to run under 64 bit?

[dcarr]

Has anyone been able to get the DS to run under 64 bit?

Yes, it's been fine. We even have someone running it on Windows 8.

[fovea1959]

ok, that's good to know.

I'm missing something here, it's still not working. Here's the summary of what's been considered and ruled out:

Bum cRIO?
Probably not, works fine with XP.
Wrong team #?
Probably not: ping and FTP works, symptoms change if the team number is deliberately set incorrectly.
Internet proxy?
Turned off. No change.
bad cable?
Probably not: ping and FTP works.
Windows 7?
Other teams have W7 working.
64-bit?
Other teams have 64-bit working.
Firewall?
Double checked and off.

[randalcr]

Have you tried using a straight-through cable? Have you tried going through a router? Do you have other computers with windows 7 that have this issue or is it just the one?

I had an issue that was exactly like this, I had the DS on a computer with Vista Business SP1 that connected just fine the the bot and always had comms but my personal laptop with 7 Pro x64 wouldn't show the robot as having comms or code. I don't know what caused it but I worked around it by reinstalling windows, labview, and the DS.

[fovea1959]

I have tried both a straight and crossover (though cable trouble was ruled out because pings and FTP work).

Did a wireshark on the PC, can definitely see the packets coming back from the cRIO, but the DS doesn't seem to get them. Have triple checked Windows firewall, which would seem to be a likely cause of an application not receiving packets.

Don't have another W7 box to try.

[Joe Ross]

What anti-virus are you using?

[gnunes]

Long shot...is the laptop fancy enough to have two network ports? If so, have you set the DS to use the correct one?

Either way, I would hit the Choose NIC... button on the DS Setup tab, just to see if there is anything illuminating there.

[fovea1959]

Joe Ross: hadn't thought of that. Running AVG Free 2013; disabled it, no joy.

gnunes: only one ethernet port. double checked, wireless is disabled, wired enabled on correct port, ping and FTP work.

So still in same place: Communications lights on diagnostics panel shows "Robot" with a green light, I can ping and ftp the robot, but DS stills says "No Robot Communications". If I put a bad team number into the DS, then the "Robot"light goes red (as it should), and if I have the correct team number in the DS, but disconnect the cable, the "Robot" light goes red (as it should). I definitely have TCP/IP connectivity between the W7 box and the robot (green Robot light on diagnostics panel, ftp and ping work).

Who knows the difference between the green Robot light and the "Communications" light?"

I'm about to give up and start over with the 2013 DS in a little over 2 weeks; maybe the problem will go away then (or FIRST will be able to tell me how to get more troubleshooting information).....

[Greg McKaskle]

Ooh, ooh, I know...

The Diagnostics page LEDs in that column mostly refer to ping results. The No Robot Communication message, and the light on the left permanent panel labeled Communications are much more of a summary and indicate whether the protocol is succeeding.

My guess is that the cRIO is not running the FRC Communications task and is not responding to control packets. Image the cRIO. You can verify this further if needed by using netconsole or the serial cable to view the console trace. You could also identify if that task is running or not. But since most folks don't have a null-modem serial cable laying around, I'd reimage and see if the issue is resolved. Be sure to click the format checkbox in the imaging tool.

Greg McKaskle

[fovea1959]

cRIO is running the task; swapping my XP machine in makes everything work perfectly. It's something on the W7 box...

[Mr. Lim]

Is there any chance you are also using both a wireless and wired network connection?

Do both have the same domains, or do they both start with 10.xxx.yyy.zzz and you have a subnet mask set at 255.0.0.0?

It might be confused about which network connection to use to connect to the cRIO.

If so, try disabling your wireless, and go wired only.

Strange, because if you can ping it, it should be fine.

How are the ping times? any dropped packets?

Maybe you can try a "tracert" and see if anything fishy is going on.

[Mark McLeod]

It still sounds like the FRC port traffic for the Driver Station is being blocked (or the port is locked up) by something on the Win7 machine (for your own security, of course).

You might scan from another machine to see what ports the Win7 machine has open using something like Angry IP Scanner (http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,23772-order,4/description.html)

You've already eliminated the usual culprits - Windows firewall, anti-virus, extra NICs, intermediate router firewalls.

No other network related applications on the Win7 machine?
Perhaps booting Safe Mode with Network would eliminate the possibility of a third-party driver causing the conflict.

[Kevin Fort]

Does the cRIO show up in the imaging tool on the Win 7 machine?

If your wireless card is currently disabled try enabling it - if it is currently enabled try disabling it. We fixed most of the problems with this in the updates after week 1 of the season last year and it was mostly with the imaging tool but still worth a shot at this point.

[Greg McKaskle]

One other thing I've seen affect this is having multiple IPs on a single NIC. Open the control panel and get to the IPv4 properties. That dialog contains an Advanced button. If you happen to have multiple IP addresses set, delete all but one.

You can also see this if you use ipv4 or perhaps netshell.

Greg McKaskle

[Mr. Lim]

Does your W7 machine support Gigabit Ethernet?

Try going to Device Manager and manually configure the speed of your Ethernet down to 100Mbit Full-Duplex.

I've had machines be able to ping, but not actually send reliable packets via Ethernet if auto speed/duplex negotiation is on, and I don't have cabling which can reliably support Gigabit speeds. It tries Gigabit speeds, it sortof works, but then stalls.

[Secretspy97]

Your netmask should be 255.255.255.0 not 255.0.0.0.

[fovea1959]

just trying to stay focussed on underlying problem: netmask is not the problem, else ping, ftp, etc, would not work.

frc documentation states clearly that 255.0.0.0 is correct (ref: http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles/Robotics_Programs/FRC/Game_and_Season__Info/2011_Assets/Kit_of_Parts/How_to_Configure_Your_Radio_Rev_A.pdf, http://www.usfirst.org/sites/default/files/uploadedFiles/Robotics_Programs/FRC/Game_and_Season__Info/2012_Assets/Getting%20Started%20with%20the%202012%20FRC%20Cont rol%20System_2.pdf)

in any case, either netmask 255.0.0.0 or 255.255.255.0 will work for 2 clients, 10.xx.yy.2 a nd 10.xx.yy.6.

[Secretspy97]

I believe that 255.0.0.0 is for configuring your radio not to communicate with your cRIO;
The 2012 control system says that you need to change it to 255.255.255.0 as stated by FIRST in http://www.usfirst.org/sites/default/files/uploadedFiles/Robotics_Programs/FRC/Game_and_Season__Info/2012_Assets/Getting%20Started%20with%20the%202012%20FRC%20Cont rol%20System_2.pdf(page 16, bullet 6).

You are currently just pinging the radio not the cRIO.
You can see if this is true by connecting directly to the cRIO and then try to ping it.

I know that it is possible for a windows 7 computer to work because I currently use a windows 7
computer to deploy code to our robot. I had the same problem and this fixed it.

[connor.worley]

You are currently just pinging the radio not the cRIO.
You can see if this is true by connecting directly to the cRIO and then try to ping it..

OP can definitely ping and FTP to the cRIO.

[Secretspy97]

Can you deploy code to the cRIO?

[fovea1959]

I let the DS configure the wired NIC, it set a netmask of 255.0.0.0. Cannot be possibly pinging or FTPing the radio, since there is none (running crossover cable from W7 box to cRIO)

SecretSpy97: good question. I can deploy code to cRIO just fine from W7. Can even see the disabled elapsed seconds increase in Disabled.vi.

what would cause DS to not think cRIO was there when everything else can access it? It smells like firewall or such, but firewall is turned off, as is AV...

[Mr. Lim]

I let the DS configure the wired NIC, it set a netmask of 255.0.0.0. Cannot be possibly pinging or FTPing the radio, since there is none (running crossover cable from W7 box to cRIO)

SecretSpy97: good question. I can deploy code to cRIO just fine from W7. Can even see the disabled elapsed seconds increase in Disabled.vi.

what would cause DS to not think cRIO was there when everything else can access it? It smells like firewall or such, but firewall is turned off, as is AV...

Are all three of:

LabVIEW Update
Utilities Update
Driver Station Update

Installed, in addition to the files from the USB key? Sounds like your DS might be missing some library files which support TCP/IP communications.

It makes sense if all firewall, AV and such is off, and the only application that can't connect to the cRIO is the DS. Does the cRIO imaging tool recognize it?

http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/2261
http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/2262
http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/2263

[fovea1959]

Mr. Lim: just put the 2013 kit on, along with the updates.

no change in the status: DS can ping everything, but still shows no communications. Ping in DS is showing green, ping from command line is good, can ftp to cRIO.

The imaging tool cannot see the cRIO. So Labview itself can talk to the cRIO (I can deploy to it and see variables), non-Labview stuff can talk to the cRIO (FTP), but I have 2 programs written *in* Labview that cannot talk to the cRIO (the DS and the imaging tool).

Just put the 2013 kit on my XP box, all is ok there.

[Sparks333]

This may sound stupid...

When the laptop was first hooked to the network, did you set it as a home, public, or an office network? Windows 7 does this weird thing sometimes where it won't let you access other computers on a network (beyond pinging them) if you set it as anything other than home. It's bitten me a few times.

Luck,

Sparks

[fovea1959]

Don't remember what I did.

We can do things besides ping: we can deploy, watch code run, and FTP.