SmartSDR no longer finds the 6500. Worked for several weeks then nothing. Any suggestions?

Ed_NZ1Q

My 6500 no longer appears in SmartSDR when it launches on the shack PC, but is listed on all other PC's on the network running SmartSDR (wired and wireless). Anyone have any ideas? The shack PC is an XP SP3, kind of slow system but worked well for the first two weeks until a trojan hit that PC (zero.access.B), which was removed by a Norton 360 scan. After clearing the trojan everything seems to work as usual, however SmartSDR no longer showed the 6500. Any ideas? I can successfully ping the 6500 from the PC. Shack PC is wired to the network, I've changed it to wireless, still not listed. Turned off the firewall and antivirus, no difference. Nothing else running on this PC. How does one troubleshoot this kind of problem? Are there an PC diagnostics that could help.

Ken - NM9P

Start by completely uninstalling SmartSDR & SmartSDR Cat, rebooting your computer and reinstalling them again. Then see what happens. That is always a safe place to start troubleshooting.

Eric-KE5DTO

If other computers are connecting to the radio without a problem, then it is most likely a network setup/software firewall issue. If you have a typical network, you will want to ensure that your network card is set to DHCP and any third party software firewalls are configured to allow broadcast packets. Don't overlook the obvious stuff like a network cable gone bad. Good luck and let us know how you progress.

Warren Elly

The DHCP trick worked for me when I first put the 6500 on line. More recently I set transmit bandwidth out of range and crashed, and could not get the radio to re-appear in SmartSDR. Dudley recommended a RESTART. Turn off the radio. Hold in the OK button and turn it back on...it will go through a RESET routine and then it ought to reappear in SmartSDR. Good luck... been there! 73...

Eric-KE5DTO

Note that if you have a database problem (unusual, except in rare cases like described), this is a good thing to do. However, you don't want to do this except as a last resort as you will lose all your settings. While this doesn't seem like a huge deal right now, very soon persistence will be storing many more items to the database. tl;dr Use the database reset as a last resort so as not to lose your data.

Ed_NZ1Q

Many thanks for the responses! Ok, I just tried this, rebooting the PC in between uninstalling and reinstalling and also restarting the 6500, no change. Also I had tried both versions of SmartSDR 1.0.0 ands 1.0.5. I'll try some of the other suggestions next.

Ed_NZ1Q

Thanks Eric, the nic card is set up for DHCP and is assigned an IP address from the router, as is the 6500. Only one firewall (Norton 260) is operational and I've appempted to disable it to test the SmartSDR witht he radio - no difference. I'll have to check to make sure it it is configured to allow broadcast of packets. I've also disabled the NIC card and installed a wireless adapter in a USB slot. It connected to the network allowing full Internat access, but with the same results of the radio not being listed. This eliminated the cable question (from the PC) and NIC card itself. Any other thoughts would be appreciated.

Ken - NM9P

Do you have the rig directly connected to the computer? or are you going through a router or switch? If not, you might try the direct connection to rule out any weird router interference... just a stab in the dark...

Ed_NZ1Q

Thanks Warren. I did try the reset early in the chase. Eric, your point is well taken about resetting. After other tests, like accessing the 6500 from other PCs, I realise that resetting the rig appears not to be the issue/cure.

Ed_NZ1Q

Ken, I've tried the direct connection too. Good point. The direct connection gives me the same results as with the network. However, the direct connection does work with another PC. This points further to the shack PC, which had worked for a few weeks and then stopped when I had the trojan issue. Many thanks for your input on this issue. I will retry the direct connection again tomorrow just to double check things.

Ed_NZ1Q

This morning's attempts include rebooting in SAFE mode w/networking - no difference, booting with Diagnostic Startup in msconfig (basic devices & services) - no difference, and changing node type. Calling up ipconfig /all in a cmd window, the node type was "Hybrid." I changed this to "Broadcast" by editing the registry - no difference, the 6500 still does not appear in SmartSDR. Everything else in ipconfig /all looks the same as the other PCs that do list the 6500 in SmartSDR. Any other ideas? - analysis continues on my end.

Dudley-WA5QPZ

Ed, I think that you have a network issue.. How is the radio connected to your network, or is it direct connected to the computer? If direct connected , go to Windows device manager, disable your Wireless , turn the DC off to the radio , reboot the computer, wait for the computer to completely boot up then turn the radio on , then bring up SmartSDR.. This is the link-local mode and the IP address should be a 169.254.x.x Then after that, re-enable the wireless .

Ed_NZ1Q

Hi Dudley, thanks for your recommendation with direct connection. Followed your suggestion, SmartSDR on the shack PC still does not show the rig. To confirm, I did the direct connection on a notebook computer (even without the rebooting or restarting of the rig) and the 6500 shows up in SmartSDR on the notebook. Since the shack PC worked well with the 6500 for weeks on the network and the rig still shows up on all other PCs on the network, I think you might agree that it is a PC specific problem, which seemed to occur right after the Trojan issue mentioned in my original note above. The shack PC seems to work normally otherwise with either Ethernet adapter wired to my router or with a wireless connection to the router (changing between the NIC card and a wireless USB adapter). Either gives the usual Internet access and browser but no SmartSDR rig connection. Also, I can successfully ping the radio from the shack PC when it is on the network (DHCP address 192.168.1.12). In another step, since I felt it could be related to something in Norton 360 that changed as a result of eliminating the Trojan, I have uninstalled Norton 360 and anything else related to Symantec. Still no progress. Next, disconnected Flex Control. Uninstalled SSDR, rebooted the PC, reinstalled SSDR and no progress, still using direct connect. While I am very curious why this one PC will no longer make the connection, I’m coming to the point where I may swap the shack PC with another, which I have along side of it now and works fine with the 6500 (direct or network) just a slower/older PC. I can only think there must be some networking setting in the registry that is preventing a connection. If you have any other thoughts, I would try them later today. Otherwise tomorrow I may do the swap. Or maybe I’ll swap hard drives in these 2 PCs to eliminate hardware issues form software issues. Again thanks for your input.

Ken - NM9P

An Ideal I just had... In an effort to open a port out of your computer to steal information, the Trojan may have altered some of the network setup parameters like dns server, default gateway, proxy settings, etc. The antivirus may have cleaned the virus up but may have missed some of these settings. If you have not already done so, you might go through all of your network card and networking driver properties with a fine-tooth comb and see what may be secretly altered....... viruses are tricky. If you have original disks, you might do a complete uninstall of the network card and reinstall it with a fresh file. Beyond that, I am stumped.

Ed_NZ1Q

Ken, thanks for your suggestion. That is an important step to take so I went back and double checked every thing I could regarding the NIC card, drivers and anything network related. I found nothing different than I would expect or different from another PC (also running Win XP) on the network that does see the 6500.

Ed_NZ1Q

Good News! Thanks to all of you who helped me through this problem, especially Eric (who worked with me off line). It would be Fantastic news if I could have pinpointed the issue, which I prefer to do in these cases. However, I will settle for just Good News since I chose to take the brut-force way out. Eric helped me determine that packets from the radio were indeed going into the PC as we observed by using WireShark to track the packets. But we could not figure out why SSDR would not respond to the packets. We attributed the issue to something the Trojan had altered deep inside the software. At that point I decided to reformat and reload the PC from scratch. After several days of loading the Op Sys and everything else I can report that the FLEX-6500 is back on the air. Many Thanks Guys!