Wake On Lan

[mvallevand]

Hi,
Still trying to get wake on lan to work stable. What is the sequence when starting Emulation mode?
Is the WOL command sent first, followed by 10 repeteated trials to contact the server.
Is the WOL command sent every time i enter emulation mode?.
I am just trying to understand this as it seems as if some times I can not wake the server up.

Hi OscarL. Here is the logic

When the dongle is first loaded it doesn't know anything about your LAN, but the first time emulation mode is started your computer's MAC address is stored. If you are testing don't forget this step.

After you exit emulation mode each time you try to restart emulation, the WOL magic packet is broadcast on your LAN to the MAC address. Then mvpmc sends a general Hauppauge protocol UDP broadcast message to your LAN (or IP if you have configured this) designed to find any servers. It tries this for (now) 10 seconds. Only after your server responds to this message will mvpmc try and actually connect.

Tonight I will add a bit more logic to also ping the IP after the WOL, so mvpmc knows that the machines is there, but you will need to have either a dongle.bin.config file or change the IP address from the ? in the browser.

Martin

[OscarL]

Hi Martin,
Thanks for the information. I will test some more tonight.
regards
Oscar

[OscarL]

It seems as if my problem is when the mvpmc sends command to quick after the magic-packet has been sent. I have tried to manually send the WOL from another computer, then wait 10-15 seconds before entering emulation mode. This works alright. However if I enter emualtion directly with a sleeping server It seems as it sometimes hangs the server so that it does not respond to lan activities.
Would it be possible to have a programmable delay after WOL until it starts sending the UDP message.
Note that I have it configured so that it knows my IP, could that be the difference?

[mvallevand]

It seems as if my problem is when the mvpmc sends command to quick after the magic-packet has been sent. I have tried to manually send the WOL from another computer, then wait 10-15 seconds before entering emulation mode. This works alright. However if I enter emualtion directly with a sleeping server It seems as it sometimes hangs the server so that it does not respond to lan activities.
Would it be possible to have a programmable delay after WOL until it starts sending the UDP message.
Note that I have it configured so that it knows my IP, could that be the difference?

I've got the changes made for this, are you configure the via the browser or a confile? I'm not updating the browser interface because it is supposed to get a redesign but I can add two command line wait options "wait for machine" and "wait for server"

Martin

[OscarL]

Hi,
Thanks for your continous support.
I configure through a config file, so there is no problem. Just give me some details and I be happy to test when it's done.
Thanks again
Oscar

[mvallevand]

Hi,
Thanks for your continous support.
I configure through a config file, so there is no problem. Just give me some details and I be happy to test when it's done.
Thanks again
Oscar

I have to redo my logic here because I found that my machine that is turned off still responds to pings which I used to test if the machine was on. Now I will have to somehow use the Hauppauge protocol too.

Martin

[mvallevand]

Hi,
Thanks for your continous support.
I configure through a config file, so there is no problem. Just give me some details and I be happy to test when it's done.
Thanks again
Oscar

Oscar, I've uploaded a new alpha dongle with two WOL time options. The way I decided to implement it is simply to try for two seconds with the Hauppauge protocol and then allow a delayed wait. Hopefully this won't get in the way of entering emulation mode from the main menu.

The command line option for these are

--em-wolwt # where # is the time in seconds

There is a second option to allow for gbpvr to set up completely after a connection

--em-conwt # where # is the time in seconds

Their defaults are 0 no wait.

Let me know how this works for you.


Martin

[OscarL]

Thanks,
Will try to test it tonight (if system is available)
Can you explain a little bit more about the differences of the two methods.
Also, I guess I but the commands at the top of the config file.

[mvallevand]

Thanks,
Will try to test it tonight (if system is available)
Can you explain a little bit more about the differences of the two methods.
Also, I guess I but the commands at the top of the config file.

The major difference is that em-wolwt is designed to handle the real WOL timing situation. em-conwt might deal with delays resulting from drive sleeping probably only requiring a second or two. It might not do anything if the drivers don't spin up on the intial connect.

These new options are not new command so they get added to the command line not to the config file (which is actually a script similar to a batch file or Window shell script) An example config file for you would be (since 30 seconds wasn't good enough).

mvpmc --startup emulate --emulate 192.16.1.1 --em-wolwt 40 &

I add the & for completeness, it has nothing to do with the -em-wolwt

Note that there will be a delay at Attempt 2/10 will this timeout is in effect If this works for you I will improve the user interface to show another countdown while the wait occurs.

Martin

[OscarL]

Havde done some testing tonight and it works great.
Tested both methods and both seems to work for me.
Noted a couple of things however.

--em-conwt method
Started MVP with server up to load new dongle.

1. Server to standby
   
2. Exit MVP-Emulation with Go-Back
   
3. Enter Emulation mode
   
4. Ping - No respons
   
5. WOL
   
6. Waiting for Server
   
7. Starts!!
   
8. This was repeated a number of times with success all times.

Noted that if server was awake it was still the same sequence, only difference is that there was no "No respons" message after the Ping (as the server was alive and answered the ping). But it still sended the WOL etc.

Then I tested to instead of entering emulation with Go-Back to power off the MVP with the remote.
This time the messages are as follows
Sending Ping
No response
Attempt 1
Attempt 2
....

No success in booting. This was also repeteated a number of times.

The I tried --em-wolwt with almost the same result. That is WOL works if I enter emulation mode after quitting Emulation mode with Go-Back and it is not working after power off/on with remote.

It seems as whenever I get the Attempt (x) message the WOL fails. The computer does not wake up from standby and it becomes unresponsive for any new WOL commands sent. Even tried to send WOL from another computer after this has happenend but it always fails to wake up then. For me it seems as the NIC hangs if it gets some other communication to quick after a WOL. Only way is to manually wake it up by power button and then let it go to standby again.

Anyway this was a great improvement! Would it be possible to get the same behaviour after using the power on/off with the remote?

Best regards
Oscar