Can connect to the roboRIO by IP but not by hostname

[Hsifeulbhsifder]

We have run into this issue where one laptop (the programming laptop) is not able to connect to the roborio by hostname (roborio-5428-frc.local), but we can connect via IP (10.54.28.90). This problem only exists with this laptop, however, it is our programming laptop, and we are unable to upload code or ssh files into the rio by hostname. This also causes the driverstation to not be able to connect to the robot, even though it can connect to the radio. Using another laptop is not feasible right now. I hypothesize the issue occurs on the side of the laptop.

[Mark McLeod]

The standard questions apply:
- What is the operating system on the troublesome PC?
- Are all firewalls off?
- All anti-virus off?
- Extra NIC's Disabled?
- Is the mDNS service running (NI mDNS Responder Service)?
- Is anything listed when you click on the arrow beside the team number on the Driver Station Setup tab?

If Windows 10 there are a couple of extra steps to turn things off.

[Hsifeulbhsifder]

It is a windows 10 laptop. Firewalls and antivirus are off. Not sure if the extra NIC's are disabled. nimDNSResponder is running. Robot Radio is the only green light on the ds setup tab.

[rfolea]

Is the laptop set for static ip or dhcp?

[Hsifeulbhsifder]

Is the laptop set for static ip or dhcp?

It is set to DHCP.

[Mark McLeod]

For Windows 10 there is an additional step to turning off the firewall.
MamaSpoldi reported this one:
- On the regular firewall page is a link to Advanced settings.
- The Advanced settings page will be divided into several sections, but at the bottom of the first section (Overview) will be another link to Windows firewall properties.
- Under that turn the first item from On to Off.
- Then reboot the Win 10 machine for it to take effect.

[tr6scott]

We had a almost 2 hours FTA visit at Waterford Thursday night. Not happy, could not get through inspection because our drivers station would not connect with robot, to power the pneumatic tests. Many, Many things were checked and tested, and after the roborio was reflashed and re firmwared and reloaded something clicked and it started working. Arron the FTA is excellent, and very knowledgeable, have worked with him in the past, and always a pleasure.

I have been posting our issues with this for months now, we were a beta test team. There is something still a miss, somewhere.

I can plug in last years dlink, and everything works, and quick.

The one thing I did learn this weekend, is the new system needs IPv6 enabled. We always turned that off in the past. Maybe it will help someone.

[Hsifeulbhsifder]

For Windows 10 there is an additional step to turning off the firewall.
MamaSpoldi reported this one:
- On the regular firewall page is a link to Advanced settings.
- The Advanced settings page will be divided into several sections, but at the bottom of the first section (Overview) will be another link to Windows firewall properties.
- Under that turn the first item from On to Off.
- Then reboot the Win 10 machine for it to take effect.

Did this, but to no avail. The issue still exists.

[Mark McLeod]

Try Disabling/reEnabling the NIC you are using to connect the PC.

[Alan Anderson]

We have one laptop where the Driver Station doesn't want to make an initial network connection to the robot until we physically reset the roboRIO. It's a minor hassle so far.

[Tom Line]

I know this is slightly off topic, but since someone mentioned windows 10....

Be very aware of windows 10 and all the helpful features microsoft has created. For instance our driver station laptop managed to download an update while in the competition venue and rebooted and installed it - without our giving permission. This wouldn't have been such a problem if we weren't trying to USE IT with the robot to, you know.... drive.

It also re-enabled the firewall during the update, causing us 20 minutes of "why can't we connect to the robot" afterwards.

Windows 10 has a fantastic feature where it doesn't even have to connect to the internet to download updates. As long as another windows machine has it on the network you are connected to it will utilize a peer to peer system to grab the update.

[SuperBK]

Can you ping the roborio by host name? Does it display the correct IP when you ping? You might try ipconfig /flushdns (from a prompt) to clear any cached names.

Has anyone by chance modified the hosts file by adding the host name to it?

We switched to static addresses this year, added its name to the hosts file and connected at our first district competition just fine. We set to roboRio to .2 and the driver station to .5 Note that the driver's station must have a mask of 255.0.0.0. Also, I believe we did turn off IPv6 on the DS. I haven't heard about needing it. Maybe Greg McKaskle could comment on that.

The other tip that keeps coming up is plugging the roborio into the connector on the radio closest to the power plug.

Brian

[rich2202]

but we can connect via IP (10.54.28.90)


Try giving your RoboRio the IP address of: 10.54.28.2

[tr6scott]

Was told the IPv6 has something to do with the Driver Station idiot lights on the communications tab. Even when it was working the Driver Station never reported the "correct" lights.

Enet Link
DS Radio
Robot Radio
Robot
FMS

In pit only Robot and Robot Radio would turn green, yet we could enable the robot.

[Mark McLeod]

Was told the IPv6 has something to do with the Driver Station idiot lights on the communications tab. Even when it was working the Driver Station never reported the "correct" lights.

Enet Link
DS Radio
Robot Radio
Robot
FMS

In pit only Robot and Robot Radio would turn green, yet we could enable the robot.
That sounds normal.
In the Pit the lights that are green depend on how you tether.
You'll see different lights while on USB then on Ethernet directly to the roboRIO, or Ethernet through the robot radio.

[Hsifeulbhsifder]

Can you ping the roborio by host name? Does it display the correct IP when you ping? You might try ipconfig /flushdns (from a prompt) to clear any cached names.

Has anyone by chance modified the hosts file by adding the host name to it?

We switched to static addresses this year, added its name to the hosts file and connected at our first district competition just fine. We set to roboRio to .2 and the driver station to .5 Note that the driver's station must have a mask of 255.0.0.0. Also, I believe we did turn off IPv6 on the DS. I haven't heard about needing it. Maybe Greg McKaskle could comment on that.

The other tip that keeps coming up is plugging the roborio into the connector on the radio closest to the power plug.

Brian

We are not able to ping by hostname, although we can ping by IP.

[Hsifeulbhsifder]

Try giving your RoboRio the IP address of: 10.54.28.2

How exactly do you do that?

[SuperBK]

But what happens when you ping - do you get no response or it unable to resolve the host name? If it does resolve the host name to an IP address is it correct?

[Alan Anderson]

Was told the IPv6 has something to do with the Driver Station idiot lights on the communications tab. Even when it was working the Driver Station never reported the "correct" lights.

Enet Link
DS Radio
Robot Radio
Robot
FMS

In pit only Robot and Robot Radio would turn green, yet we could enable the robot.

Enet Link should light when there is a physical Ethernet connection active. It will be off in the pit when tethered with USB.
DS Radio should light only when you're doing something fancy with a wireless access point connected to the Driver Station computer and with the Robot Radio configured as a bridge. It will be off in the pit when tethered with USB.
Robot Radio should light when you're connected to the robot via wired or wireless Ethernet. It will be off in the pit when tethered with USB.
Robot should light any time you have a network connection to a properly configured roboRIO.
FMS should light only when you are plugged in on the competition field. It will be off in the pit when tethered with USB.


I'm surprised Robot Radio was lit. Are you not using the USB connection to tether to your robot in the pit?

[Hsifeulbhsifder]

But what happens when you ping - do you get no response or it unable to resolve the host name? If it does resolve the host name to an IP address is it correct?

It doesn't resolve the hostname.

[Hsifeulbhsifder]

So it turns out I can ping roborio-5428-frc.lan, which gives me 10.54.28.90. But I can't ping the local, even though this is done over wireless connection.

[Hsifeulbhsifder]

We also have a raspberry pi attached to the radio, which has the static IP 10.54.28.13. And I can't ping or connect to it by its hostname either, although I can connect via IP. The rPi is running an avahi-daemon, so I can connect to it from other laptops by hostname.

Interestingly enough, I can ssh into the raspberry pi via IP and once inside the pi, I can ping and connect to the rio via hostname.

[rich2202]

How exactly do you do that?

Use the RoboRio USB Interface (the square plug on the RoboRio connected to the rectangular port on your Driver Station).
You need Silverlight installed on the Driver Station.
Navigate in the Browser to: 172.22.11.2
Select Network Configuration Options on the left side (4th icon that looks like an ethernet cable).
Configure IPV4 address


https://wpilib.screenstepslive.com/s/4485/m/24166/l/262266?data-resolve-url=true&data-manual-id=24166

This will help you get to the RoboRio through the USB interface
https://wpilib.screenstepslive.com/s/4485/m/13503/l/144984-imaging-your-roborio

[Greg McKaskle]

Greg McKaskle can't actually comment on it yet. He attends his first event in a few days, and hasn't actually seen these issues in order to be able to debug them. And of course seeing isn't the same as having time to debug.

He does have a Win10 Lenovo that frequently doesn't show link when connected to the roboRIO. Disable/Enable on the interface fixes this and is somewhat faster than the roboRIO reboot. The other computers he tested with don't have this issue. He thinks this is related to power management features and is talking to folks about it.

And he isn't used to speaking about himself in the third person.

The third person

[Hsifeulbhsifder]

New discovery: If I connect via ethernet, then I can ping and connect to the rio via hostname and IP, and can connect successfully from the driver station. When I pull out the ethernet cable while connected, and switch to wireless, the driverstation remains connected, but I lose the ability to ping or ssh via hostname.

[tr6scott]

Enet Link should light when there is a physical Ethernet connection active. It will be off in the pit when tethered with USB.
DS Radio should light only when you're doing something fancy with a wireless access point connected to the Driver Station computer and with the Robot Radio configured as a bridge. It will be off in the pit when tethered with USB.
Robot Radio should light when you're connected to the robot via wired or wireless Ethernet. It will be off in the pit when tethered with USB.
Robot should light any time you have a network connection to a properly configured roboRIO.
FMS should light only when you are plugged in on the competition field. It will be off in the pit when tethered with USB.




Our symptom is that the Enet Link is never lit, even when Ethernet tethered on practice field with the bot enabled.

Rest sound right.

I have never seen DS Radio lit either when tethered.

I did see FMS work on the field.

[josephno1]

I had the same issue.
Ended up just plugging in a USB printer cable and connecting to the roboRIO (The ip when connected via usb is always 172.22.11.2).
Then I changed it to a static ip and changed it to 10.36.47.2
To connect to the robot, change your IPV4 address to a static one. I used 10.36.47.5

[SuperBK]

Third Person: Tell Greg to have fun. I had a blast at the NC Guilford County district last weekend.

Hsifeulbhsifder: Sounds like there are some issues with mDNS and Windows 10. I would just switch to static and move on.

All: Here is an interesting article that mentions mDNS support in Windows 10. I know, the FRC software installs its own mNDS service, but maybe there is something build into Windows 10 that is conflicting with it.

Check out this line:

Windows will special‐case domains ending in the .local TLD...
and
The end result of this inconsistent support is that you may or may not be able to reach other machines from programs, games, and web browsers by typing in their mDNS address (for example MacBook.local).

https://www.slightfuture.com/technote/windows-mdns-dnssd

[Hsifeulbhsifder]

Hsifeulbhsifder: Sounds like there are some issues with mDNS and Windows 10. I would just switch to static and move on.


We switched to static, but we ran into an issue at Greater Toronto East Regional where we were not able to connect to our rio after the configuring the radio. This involved switching from Static to DHCP, which made it so our rio did not have a valid IP at all, so to get an IP we would need to connect it to a DNS server, the only one being the field. Which asks another question: Do teams that are using co-processors connected to the radio, have to also undergo this process if they were static before?

Thank you.

[sanelss]

We switched to static, but we ran into an issue at Greater Toronto East Regional where we were not able to connect to our rio after the configuring the radio. This involved switching from Static to DHCP, which made it so our rio did not have a valid IP at all, so to get an IP we would need to connect it to a DNS server, the only one being the field. Which asks another question: Do teams that are using co-processors connected to the radio, have to also undergo this process if they were static before?

Thank you.

Not sure if it's related but we're having major issues!!! spent ALL day today trying to fix it and we still don't have a solution.... we currently do not have working vision simply because our vision tablet can't communicate properly and it's all because of the real field setup.... works fine at home and prac field...this issue may very well cost us the one and only regional we do a year.... I really don't know what else can be done. here is the current post on it:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=145546

[SuperBK]

Yes, read the document called "At the event" pointed out in this thread. https://wpilib.screenstepslive.com/s/4485/m/24193/l/319135-ip-networking-at-the-event.

Once you switch the roboRIO to static, you have to set everything else to a static IP address as well: driver's station, camera, etc. For example, if you make your roboRio 10.54.28.2, then make the driver's station 10.54.28.5 with a mask of 255.0.0.0. It must have a mask of 255.0.0.0 to connect with the FMS.

You are correct that once you program your radio at the completion, it will no longer deliver any IP addresses. Tethering can work at a competitions if using dynamic IP's because each device will "fall back" to an auto configure address. (169.x.x.x). This didn't always work for us. For one thing, you have to remember to unplug the driver station to cycle the network interface.

For those at competitions with this issue, aren't there control system advisors present? I would think that would get it resolved faster than posting here.