Smartlink - No radio, no login

N5NHJ

Everything was working fine few hours ago. No windows update, no network (public or private) changes that I'm aware off. Suddenly I can't login to SmartLink anymore. I see my profile picture but no name, no callsign and... no radio!

The radio is ON, can be locally reached, the remote network is working fine, the router is set-up correctly.


Any clue?

WX7Y

same here in Utah on both my radio's

Mike-VA3MW

Max

I have seen this happen on my remote when the ISP changed and then changed back the WAN address.  I had to reboot the firewall or the radio.  I can't remember which.

I assume you are looking from the outside in?

Does rebooting the radio solve it?

Mike

N5NHJ

I did reboot the radio, no luck.

N5NHJ

BTW, the remote lan is my office lan, static IP, totally controlled by us. No issues reported. 

Mike-VA3MW

I get the no issues reported part.  But, it was the same with me.  Everything worked fine but the radio dropped off SmartLink.  I had to reboot the firewall.

I didn't take the time to WireShark it to find out why.

I suspect it is a routing table issue and it clear its self up at some point.

M

N5NHJ

Mike,
what do you mean by 'firewall'? I control the router/gateway, I can reboot it if needed.
I'm looking at the traffic right now and I don't see anything strange.

Also, I just tried to connect using the IOS app (the smartphone is connected to the same network where is connected the PC) and it works.

Seems the problem is Smart link on the PC  

WX7Y

i rebooted the 6600 here and logged in again several times using both flex login and google to log in,  Re-registered the radio but still doesn't work or show my login info as Max's picture shows
Bret

Marc

same here no radios show up on SmartLink. Only the iPhone app works at the moment

Frederic HB9CQK

The same Problem here: We have no longer access to our remote station using the SmartSDR with SmartLink. The iOS access is still OK. We (HB9RYZ and HB9CQK) have exactly the same issue as Max. What is going on?
73, Frédéric, HB9CQK

Albert PA0A

The same problem with Smartlink here after last night small W10 update.

73, Albert

Frederic HB9CQK

My Win10 updates are blocked (for good reason), so no update was done last night. I have the same issue on the desktop PC as well as the Notebook.

Albert PA0A

Thanks info, so it is not MS this time.

Frederic HB9CQK

..looks like. Max also did not have any updates. 73, Frédéric

John - K3MA

Same problem here.  No radio showing available on Smartlink.  No Smartlink account info showiing in the Name and Calsign fields but Icon still shows initials.  Must be a Smartlink issue.  No windows update here.  Cannot see radio on several PC but can log in from iOS.

Frederic HB9CQK

I just opened a support ticket with FlexRadio Support providing a link to this community thread.

73, Frédéric, HB9CQK

Mike-VA3MW

Thanks all

I have alerted Engineering to have a look into this.

Mike

Frederic HB9CQK

Thank you Michael, my ticket number is: 32967
73, Frédéric, HB9CQK

Mike-VA3MW

It’s up!!

Marc

yes it´s working again tnx!

John - K3MA

Mine is back up also.  Michael would you or someone else in the Flex organization please post a brief explanation on the reason for the outage?

Frederic HB9CQK

Yes, it is working again - thank you! I would also be interested in an explanation for the reason. How about a "SmartLink Status" indicator on the FlexRadio Website? This would stop us from spending hours trying to find the reason for such issues in our own systems.

WX7Y

Question is now, WHY DID WE LOOSE ACCESS to our radio's?  

This should not happen and some of us are really depending on our Radio's in the EMCOMM  environment. 
Maybe SmartLink needs to be rethought and move it from central servers having to be in contact with the radio's to having the service built into SmartSDR and the Radio more like a VPN so this doesn't happen if we REALLY have something happen. 

Good reason to keep the VPN up and going just to bad this isn't how SmartLink works so the Maestro would work with it. 

Bret 
WX7Y

N5NHJ

I didn't have time to check on the status yet, but I'm sure it is now working according to all yours reports.
I agree we should have a note from Flex about what happened, and I also agree having a 'status' flag would save a lot of time and hassles.

The solution is just to bypass SmartLink and be able to have a direct connection to the radio, but I think Flex doesn't like it.   

N5NHJ

Update... I just checked and yes, the radio is working. Still no Name, Callsign on the SmartLink window. Something is still not right.

David Kowell

same thing here too when I try to use hughes  sat internet works fine on my other internet provider maybe someone at flex has a clue hint hint

John - K3MA

Michael Walker is more time needed to troubleshoot or might we get a short explanation of what happened and if it might occur again at some time in the future?

Some of us might want to setup alternative methods to mitigate the exposure or not.

Mike-VA3MW

The problem was resolved by engineering on the morning of the problem.  They did not pass on the reason.

They also tend not to make these things public as they could be used as an attack vector (not saying that anything external was related).  So, I don't think we are going to hear anything more.

That being said, we don't take these situations lightly and a post mortum on the situation was executed by our management team.

73

N5NHJ

I understand that, but having some kind of indication (green/yellow/red light or a gauge on the SmartLink homepage) showing the current SmartLink health status, can certainly help in preventing big headache...

Mike-VA3MW

I have passed on the request for a Dashboard for SmartLink health.

However, if your operation is truly mission critical beyond the hobby stage, having a SoftEther VPN in place might not be the worst idea.   

SoftEther is about the best choice since it allows for Layer 2 traffic over the VPN.  Most other VPN's do not.   How to setup SoftEther is well discussed in the community as it is the method that was used by everyone long before SmartLink was released.  It is best set up with 2 RPI's, one on each end, but you are not limited to those choices to have a point to point VPN.  https://www.softether.org/  It is always good to have a plan B.

The advantage of having your own personal working VPN is that when you are using any public WiFi connection for your phone or laptop for getting online while not at home, you can have a secure encrypted connection without worrying about someone in the McDonald's you are in being a 'man in the middle' and monitoring all your traffic.  Yes, this is pretty common.

In the meantime, we understand your concern and Dan and I have been discussing it.

Mike