Can't connect to 6700 after upgrade to 1.9.7

Stu2

Hello all -

I tried upgrading from 1.8.4 to 1.9.7 and now I can't connect to my 6700. When I upgraded, the yellow indicator bar went to 100 and stalled. After about 10 minutes, I turned off the 6700 and started SmartSDR again. The radio appears in the 'Radio's window and the CONNECT button is green. However, when I press the CONNECT button, SmartSDR stops responding and after about 5 minutes, a message appears that says to power cycle the radio. So I power cycled the radio and restarted SmartSDR with the same results.

I tried a factory reset (hold OK button, tap ON/OFF), completely removing DC for about a minute and re-installing 1.9.7. Same results.

Since the radio appears in the Radio window and SmartSDR was working prior to the upgrade, I believe the network connection is fine. The IP Address of the radio looks correct. (same subnet as SmartSDR) I'm not able to ping the radio's IP address, but not sure if was able to ping it before. So I think I must have bricked my radio when I power cycled it during the upgrade.

I also tried to downgrade with the same results. Radio appears in the radio window but unable to connect.

Is there anything else I can try to regain connection to the radio?

Thanks for your help.

charles moffatt

Mine has exact same thing and I cannot get back to 6500 with the computer or the Maestro. Prior to 1.9.7 it was working on 1.8.4.

Mack

I recommend you open a help ticket with FRS. None of the Alpha team reported this issue during extensive testing. Mack W4AX Alpha Tester

Hardy

Do _direct lan_ connect your Flex to PC with SSDR 1.8.4 (NO DHCP!!!!!!)
Then you can connect and downgrade.

Tim - W4TME

I highly recommend that you open a HelpDesk support ticket (http://helpdesk.flexradio.com) so we can investigate this issue further.

Stu2

I opened a ticket. I also figured out what's wrong, this morning.

For some reason, the radio didn't pick up a DHCP address and it assigned itself a 169.254.x.x address by default. So I added a secondary address to my workstation in the same subnet range. (e.g. 169.254.41.1) I verified the workstation IP address in a cmd window using 'ipconfig'. Once I was able to ping the radio using the 169.254.x.x. address, I downgraded to 1.8.4. Then, I upgraded to 1.9.7. After the upgrade, I was able to connect to the radio. Note - the radio should be 'pingable'. (If that's a word.)

So the 'no DHCP' is only half the story. The other half of the story is to assign an IP address to your workstation on the same subnet as the radio!

I still need to figure out why DHCP isn't working, but I think I may have a problem on my network. It worked before, but since I'm in a lab environment, perhaps something changed at the same time as my upgrade.

Thanks for everybody's help.

Stu2

I figured it out with help from Flex. The IP address for the radio (static or DHCP) must be an address within the range specified by RFC-1918. e.g. 192.168.x.x.

Tim - W4TME

or..

172.16.0.0 /12
10.0.0.0 /8

Tim - W4TME

This restriction will be user configurable with the next release of SmartSDR for Windows.  Make sure to read the release notes for instructions on how to set configure it.

VK7WH Winston

I know this is probably a dumb question, but what does the additional /12 and /8 at the end of the IP address mean? I've seen /24 and /64 on the end of other IP addresses. Is it anything to do with IPv6 addresses? Thanks in advance Winston

Stu2

The /24 describes the number of bits in the IP address used to define the network. The other bits describe the host. So /24 says the bits 0-23 (read from left to right) are used to define the network. Bits 24-31 are the host bits. This is probably clear as mud. I recommend searching google for the term 'subnet mask' and you'll find all kinds of much better descriptions!

VK7WH Winston

Thanks stu2, your post is very helpful as it gives me a starting point to find out more. Best 73 Winston