Introduction

This guide is intended to give pointers which should help you to diagnose problems which are preventing you from connecting to your Vector in order to configure it.

Some of this guide is quite technical so you may need to seek further guidance from your IT department.

There are basically three types of issue that would prevent a connection from being made:
1. Cabling connection fault.
2. IP Settings problem.
3.    Hardware fault.

Hopefully by running through all the issues relating to 1 and 2 from the list above we can rule out a hardware fault.


Cabling Connections

It may be obvious but the first thing to double check is that everything is powered correctly.

Make sure that the PoE switch used to power your Vector is switched on and is showing signs of receiving power - usually LED activity.

In a live environment it should be noted that there maybe more than one network switch between your laptop and the Vector at the front of the store. They all need to be powered on.
Importantly, if there is more than one switch present the one that the Vector is ultimately connected directly to, must be PoE enabled. Note that PoE power will not go through a non-PoE switch.

Next, check that you have a physical connection from your laptop to the Vector. Make sure all the cables are connected where they should be. 

Once everything is powered and connected, you should check for a link. Virtually all switches will provide a 'link' light for each port on the switch, so make sure that the port that the Vector is connected to has a link light and also that the port your laptop is connected to also has a link light. Link lights may be on permanently when a link is present or they may flicker to indicate activity. This is normal.

Remember that there needs to be a direct network path between the laptop and the Vector, so when there are multiple switches in between they all need to be connected together to provide that path, and each port in use on each switch should have a link light on to prove the path through all the switches.

Note that most - but not all - laptops will also have their own link light somewhere (usually next to their built-in RJ45 network socket) so that should be on, or flickering, too.

Lastly, the Vector will start flashing its onboard link light located on the back of the device. Note that you won't be able to see that if the device is installed on the ceiling.

If any of the link lights between the laptop and the Vector are not illuminated then that indicates a connection issue of some kind. In those cases check the patch cable with an RJ45 cable tester and/or replace. Its also not uncommon for previous miss wiring to damage a switch port, so try a different one, or connect a known working device to prove the port is ok. Also double check that the Vector is indeed powered; an un-powered Vector won't produce a link light either.

 

IP Settings

Once the hardware is confirmed as being connected and powered correctly, you can proceed with checking the connection via software. You can do this by using the network ‘Ping’ command from your laptop.

Ping comes from a term used in sonar technology that sends out pulses of sound, and then listens for the echo to return. On a computer network, a ping tool is built into most operating systems and it works in much the same way.

You issue the ping command along with a specific URL or IP address, at which point your computer will send several packets of information out to that device, and wait for a response for each one. When it gets the response, the ping tool shows you how long each packet took to make the round trip - or tells you there was no reply.

You can test whether your computer can reach another device - the Vector in this case - on your local network, or whether it can reach a device on the Internet (yes you can ping google.com if you want to). This can help you determine if a network problem is somewhere on your local network, or somewhere beyond.

The time it takes packets to return to you can help you identify a slow connection, or if you’re experiencing packet loss.

It doesn’t matter what operating system you’re using. Just open a 'terminal' or 'Command Prompt' window, and you can use ping on macOS, Linux, or any version of Windows.

On a Windows laptop, you can open a command prompt window by clicking the Windows Start button and typing cmd. The Command prompt window should then come up as a selectable option that you can click, and the window will open..

Note that you must know the IP address of your Vector to be able to do this.

Once you have the command prompt window, just type in at the prompt "ping <ip_address>", for example:

ping 192.168.0.10

When you press return, the ping will routine will start. 

If your Vector is reachable, you should get a response similar to this:

By default the ping command will run four times, and each time there will be a 'Reply from...' message.

Four reply from messages is good and proves that something is present and using the address specified.

Four 'Replies' is good, but also note the 'time=' value. This should be pretty consistent, to indicate a stable network, and shouldn't be too large to indicate a fast network. If the four values differ wildly, or are very large, then that indicates an issue somewhere on your network.

It is important to note that the ping command does not prove that you're seeing a Vector. It only proves that something on the network is using that address and is responding.

If your network comprises of just your laptop and a Vector with a switch between then you can be very confident that it's the Vector responding but be aware that on networks where other IP equipment is present, you'll need to do extra checks. 

To prove that the device responding is your Vector, simply power it off and run the ping again. If it was the Vector the ping will now be failing but if you still get a response then you have something else on the network already using that address - it could be another Vector, but on a customers network it could be anything!
It is actually recommended that before you start your Vector checks, that you do a ping without a Vector connected just to make sure there isn't something else already present using the Vectors default IP address.
A direct connection between your laptop and the Vector should show a consistent reply time of between 8 and 20ms. For larger networks with more switches in between the reply time may be higher. Anything over 50mS is a slow network, and the higher the value the slower it is.

If your Vector cannot be reached then you will get a different set of messages:

'Request timed out.' and 'Destination host unreachable.' messages mean that the Vector is not replying and so there is a problem somewhere.

If your Vector isn't replying, double check that the Vector is definitely powered on, as are the switches between, and that all cables are connected and the corresponding link lights are illuminated on each port in use.

If everything looks good, but your Vector isn't replying, make sure that the Vector and your laptop are on the same IP range. The default IP settings for the Vector, as set by the factory, are IP address 192.168.0.10, with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. Full details of how the IP address and subnet mask work, and relate to each other, is beyond the scope of this guide. But, in the example above, the laptop would need to have an IP address of 192.168.0.X to be able to communicate correctly with a counter configured with this default configuration (where X is a value of 1 – 254 excluding 10).

To check your laptop’s IP address the easiest way is to type the command ‘ipconfig’ into the command window that you have already used above:

It should be noted that modern laptops will have multiple network connections, and you'll need to look through the various sections to find the relevant one. Here's an example output:

In the above example, this particular laptop is connected to the main network via a Wi-Fi bridge, so the relevant settings are under the "Wireless LAN adapter" section in this case, but importantly a valid address is shown. The 192.168.0.119 address used by the laptop is on the same range as the Vectors 192.168.0.10 address and so a ping should be successful, and is, in this case.

But if your laptop is completely different to the Vectors IP address you'll need to change the settings on your laptop in order to connect. Unfortunately you'll probably need to contact your network administrator or IT department for assistance with changing your laptop’s network details as security concerns usually mean that is locked down requiring specific admin rights and password entry.

Once you've got your laptop on the Vectors IP range try the ping again, and if successful go ahead and make a setup connection.

Don't forget that once you've got a setup connection to your Vector, you are free to change the Vectors IP address to something more appropriate to your own network, and then put your laptops original IP details back.


Duplicate IP Addresses

It should be noted that all Vectors that come from the factory will be set with the same default IP address details, and as such, it is not recommended to connect more than one Vector at a time to the same network. Only once you have connected to the first Vector and changed its IP address to something unique, should you then connect and power up another.

This is very important to remember as you can get very strange errors when two Vectors with the same address are on the same network and you try to connect to one of them. Firstly, it may not work at all, but occasionally you will get a connection, but it is completely random which one of all the devices with the same IP that you're actually connected to. Even if you connect to te one you wanted, configuring a device on a network where it is conflicting with another device will most likely not allow configuration changes to be saved correctly to the right device.

Additionally if you ping an address which multiple devices are all configured to use, you will get strange errors, time outs and large reply times.

Importantly, any two or more IP devices on the same network with the same IP address details will be interfering with each other and potentially disrupting the rest of the network, so extreme care should be taken when connecting devices to a customers network.

The other issue with devices having the same IP address is to do with the underlying mechanism that associates the IP address that has been configured with the MAC address used by the device.

Any IP enabled device is given a MAC address when they are built in the factory. This MAC addresses is a unique 48 bit value, consisting of twelve hexadecimal characters.

Irisys Vectors have their MAC address printed on a label on the back of the unit, and on the outside of the box, and it is also displayed in the Summary tab in the settings for the units.

You should never see two devices with the same MAC address; in this way, every network addressable device can be uniquely identifiable across the internet. The computer automatically associates the IP address with the MAC address using address resolution protocol (ARP).

When you attempt to connect to an IP address, the MAC address associated with that IP address is determined and the connection is made. The details of IP and MAC addresses are held in the computers ‘ARP’ table. This can be looked at by using the ‘arp’ command, with the ‘-a’ switch:

Here you can see the Vectors default IP address and the associated MAC address.

Importantly, this means that adding another Vector to the network with the same IP address will not be reachable because the IP address is already pointing to another devices MAC address.

In most cases if you disconnect the first Vector and then add a second, the ARP table will update automatically, but this is not always timely, and until the existing ARP entry is updated you won't be able to communicate with the second device, or any device with the same IP address.

In reality this means that configuring lots of Vectors at time of installation, all with the same default IP address can sometimes be problematic and/or slow moving as you wait for the network and ARP table to catch up. But there is a way to flush the ARP table manually and then communicate with the next device without having to wait for a system update.

To do this use the arp command again, but this time with the -d (for delete) switch, and the <IP_Address>:

Note that if successful no message will be displayed. But if it fails you will get an error message.

You can then do another ARP table check, using the arp -a command, and you'll see that the 192.168.0.10 address has been deleted:

You can now power on and connect your next Vector, ping it, and configure it. Optionally checking the ARP table will show the new MAC address associated with the 192.168.0.10 address.