Dumb Captain Needs Help with Smart Copilot

[Talan2000]

(Smarter) Pilots,

I've been struggling mightily to get the Smart Copilot plugin to work. I'm confident I have done everything right with respect to installation and aircraft config files...It's now all about the networking and misc arcane port forwarding settings.

I know, nobody wants to go there...So I'll just throw out some data and maybe you can,ahem, "forward" me to the right place...

- Initially I am JUST trying to set it up on my OWN LAN. Sure thought that would be easy.
- I have an MAC and a PC next to each other in the office.
- The Router is an Airport Extreme.
- When searching for my IP address I get a 72.190.xx.xxx number from time warner. This apparently is NOT the number to plug into Smartcopilot as every computer on my network thinks that this is its IP address (ie this is shown from sites like Whatismyip.com) for multiple machines. So that's some sort of alias the router is creating. When I used it anyway the plugin would cycle "Connect/Disconnect/Connect Disconnect." I believe I had error 54 displayed as well.

Digging deeper I have uncovered the actual "internal" IP addresses from the router itself. They are on the order of 10.0.X.XX. I thought I was home free. Just entering the respective 10.0.x.xx ip addresses into the plugin with the default TCP/UDP port settings (10000/55478) got me...nothing.

So feeling brave I went into the router settings itself and created what I believe to be forwarded IP addresses for the Mac and the PC (I've done this with Foscam Cameras following explicit direction before).

The Airport Extreme would not allow me to use the same TCP / UDP ports for both forwarded ports so I incremented the PC one to 10001/55479...Fingers crossed I tried to connect using the appropriate ip and port #s. More progress as the app actually said it was connected and stayed that way! (yeah). But nothing works - no changes in either cockpit are reflected and the location of the planes is different...

So then going to the spamtastic portforwarding.com site it tells me to first create a static IP address for the MAC and then forward that.... I do so using the same IP address it already has from DHCP 10.0.x.xx. MAkes no difference. Plugin still won't connect.

I've also watched a video on youtube where the guy uses HAMACHI...but I'm getting a bit tired and feeling kinda dumb...can anyone shed some light on what I should be doing here?

My goal is to be able to use smartconnect on my own lan (PC-MAC and PC-PC) and then to also use it PC-INTERWEB-PC/MAC. I thought the LAN option would get me up and running and all I have is FAIL so far...

Is this a MAC/PC thing or purely networking ?

Sure appreciate any help

Notes:
I have ensured that the windows Firewall allows X-Plane to pass.
I don't know how to do this with the MAC

Todd

[Keith Smith]

go to cmd prompt in windows. Ipconfig > ip.txt.

Open that file in notepad, copy and paste it here.

[Keith Smith]

Stop trying to forward ports, that is only done if you need someone from outside of your network to reach your machines.

A great start would be to try to ping one machine from the other. If you can't do that, the the addresses are probably not right, or you have a firewall on your pc or Mac that you should kill.

This is a very simple configuration, one machine connecting to another on the same network. Do not go down rabbit holes that don't apply, such as port forwarding and trying to change port numbers.

[Talan2000]

Thanks for the suggestions. Near midnight and I am out of gas.

I even went to the effort of downloading and installing this Hamachi VPN thing. On three computers...getting a virtual IP address. That didn't work either. So weird.

There's a bit of weirdness going on with my network -- as the Windows PCs see each other and can share files but a "tracert" command doesn't show the computers...more rabbit holes. And the MAC never shows up on a Windows network.

It's beyond a headache. Hopefully sleeping on it will help. I'll look to your advice tomorrow

Todd

[Talan2000]

double post

[Talan2000]

Here it is. Note I shut down my upstairs pc before I ran this. Ill run it again tomorrow. The LAN2 is for the Office PC and was generated by HAMACHI...so the MAC never shows up...

Windows IP Configuration


Ethernet adapter Bluetooth Network Connection:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : tx.rr.com
IPv6 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : ::742b:eb44eff9
IPv6 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 2605:6000403f:742b:eb44eff9
Temporary IPv6 Address. . . . . . : ::1b0:7a5c:4345:cba3
Temporary IPv6 Address. . . . . . : 2605:6000403f:1b0:7a5c:4345:cba3
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::742b:eb44eff9%11
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.1.26
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : fe80::7acafef9:53c3%11
fe80::6433:4bff:fee4:78eb%11
10.0.1.1

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
IPv6 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 2620:9b:da7a
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::95d3:7b618628%25
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 25.30.218.122
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.0.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 2620:9b:1
25.0.0.1

Tunnel adapter isatap.tx.rr.com:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : tx.rr.com
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::5efe:10.0.1.26%17
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 13:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Tunnel adapter isatap.{F43C8FD2-A9C1-4A90-8B33-25E27F9B48C9}:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Tunnel adapter isatap.{17F984D1-B949-4902-9175-671EEBCF0EFD}:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::200:5efe:25.30.218.122%19
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

[Talan2000]

I guess I'm closer this morning:

I launched the plugin on the MAC and on the office PC.

IT seemed to try to connect from the mac as slave but nothing happened -- at least no connect/disconnect cycle or error codes appear.
From the PC it was the same. Never got any data transmission rate. No apparent function. Stops after milliseconds:

Here's the MACs log snippet from this morning:
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+ SmartCopilot - Event log +
+ (http://www.xsmart-plane.com) +
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
2015-Jan-28 08:07:52.933713 - SmartCopilot Mac version 1.21b.1895 - started!
Server started - 1 thread(s) in use
User ID - tpayne2000@yahoo.com[2]
2015-Jan-28 08:17:16.316066 - Set to Slave
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+ Start read settings file +
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Config file - /Users/toddpayne/Desktop/X-Plane 10/Aircraft/General Aviation/Baron B58//smartcopilot.cfg
Autopilot sequenser is active!
Found - 3 (3) slow integer DataRef's
Found - 38 (38) slow float DataRef's
Found - 2 override DataRef's
Found - 58 (47) triggered integer DataRef's
Found - 33 (11) triggered float DataRef's
Found autopilot datarefs.
Found - 2 continuing DataRef's
Found - 5 back DataRef's
Found - 0 string DataRef's
Found - 26 commands
Found - 0 click DataRef's
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+ X-Plane Data Image completed. Ready! +
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Connection data:
Remote host - 10.0.1.26
TCP port - 10000
UDP port - 55478
2015-Jan-28 08:17:52.687284 - Trying to connect
2015-Jan-28 08:17:52.767111 - Connected
2015-Jan-28 08:17:52.914863 - Stopped

I'll post the PC version in a second from that machine

[Talan2000]

Hope this doesn't double post...Here's what the PC log shows.

Tries to connect. Stops immediately. Receives commands to switch from slave/master. NO errors shown . No data shared.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+ X-Plane Data Image completed. Ready! +
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Connection data:
Remote host - 10.0.1.21
TCP port - 10000
UDP port - 55478
2015-Jan-28 08:17:26.841981 - Trying to connect
2015-Jan-28 08:17:56.930702 - Connected
2015-Jan-28 08:17:57.123713 - Stopped
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+ Start read settings file +
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Config file - C:\Users\Todd\Desktop\X-Plane 10TWO\Aircraft\General Aviation\Baron B58/smartcopilot.cfg
Autopilot sequenser is active!
Found - 3 (3) slow integer DataRef's
Found - 38 (38) slow float DataRef's
Found - 2 override DataRef's
Found - 58 (47) triggered integer DataRef's
Found - 33 (11) triggered float DataRef's
Found autopilot datarefs.
Found - 2 continuing DataRef's
Found - 5 back DataRef's
Found - 0 string DataRef's
Found - 26 commands
Found - 0 click DataRef's
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+ X-Plane Data Image completed. Ready! +
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
2015-Jan-28 08:24:04.198708 - Set to Slave
2015-Jan-28 08:24:07.705909 - Set to Master

[Talan2000]

Another random thought: Could this be a licensing thing?

I bought TWO licenses. I'm not sure if the license on each machine is different. As in - should I have put one file in one machine and another in the other? I thought I had done so (they are named the same). But surely this wouldn't be an issue. I'd imagine the license file content is the same and its just two copies. Grasping at straws and leaping for rabbit holes

[Keith Smith]

I even went to the effort of downloading and installing this Hamachi VPN thing. On three computers...getting a virtual IP address. That didn't work either. So weird.

A VPN is when you're trying to replicate a LAN-like setup over the internet. You don't need that, you have a LAN. You are making your setup many times more complex than it should be.

The reason the Mac doesn't show up in your network browser is because the Mac isn't responding to the protocol that Windows uses for file browsing. This is why I suggested you PING the machines (a protocol they all support).

Since you didn't post the full smartcopilot log, can you verify that ONE machine is configured as slave (ie, you clicked on the 'master' button and it turned to slave) and that the other machine is running as the master?

The procedure should be thus:
1) start the master (ie, it will have a status of "Listening" if memory serves), make sure it is configured to talk to the slave's IP address
2) on the slave computer, click the Master button so it now reads 'Slave' then click the connect button. Make sure it's configured to talk to the master's IP address.

If the IP's are right, and the master/slave configuration is right, this will work. I have done this with a Mac and PC...it worked on the first try and took about 30-45 seconds to configure, start to finish.