RE: Strange Viewer issue

["Kevin Hawkins" <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Patrick Lidstone (Personal e-mail)
> [mailto:patrick@xxxxxxx]
> Sent: 02 June 2004 08:35
> To: xAP_developer@xxxxxxx
> Subject: RE: [xAP_developer] Strange Viewer issue
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Kevin Hawkins [mailto:lists@xxxxxxx]
> > Sent: 02 June 2004 04:07
> > To: xAP_developer@xxxxxxx
> > Subject: [xAP_developer] Strange Viewer issue
> >
> >
> >
> > 	I'm having a strange problem and we had something a
> little similar at
> > UKHA2004.
> >
> >  - I have Viewer running in hub mode and the Homeseer
> beta. I have a
> > script that sends a class=message.display xAP message
> when something
> > changes. Sure enough when it does change I see the
> message appear in
> > Viewers window but it doesn't display on Watcher which
> is on another
> > machine :-( - However if I select the message and resend it from
> > Viewer then it does appear in Watcher on the other
> machine. What is
> > different here ???
>
> The sending app is different - could sending from *within*
> Viewer use a different mechanism to sending *via* Viewer? (Stuart?)
>
> > 	I ran another copy of Viewer on the PC that also had
> Watcher (the
> > remote PC) - it saw both messages OK - I have copied
> them at the end
> > of this message - so what was different ?? I wondered if
> Watcher was
> > sensitive to the order of parameters and that Viewers hub was
> > shuffling them - so I used another hub and it made no
> difference. I
> > tried Patricks hub but it picked up a 0.0.0.0 ethernet
> address - now
> > that got me wondering - I have a Firewire network port
> and the WiFi
> > port on this machine showing in 'networks'. But then I
> reasoned that
> > Viewer on a remote machine saw both these messages but
> Watcher only
> > acted on one - consistently. Strange
>
> It would be pretty common for an application bound to
> 0.0.0.0 to receive messages but not be able to send them.
> I'd speculate that multiple apps bound to a 0.0.0.0
> interface might all interact normally on the *same* host,
> but that broadcast messages would not escape to the LAN.
>
> > 	Now at UKHA when P sent a message from his machine to
> my Rabbit xAP
> > controller it didn't action it - but on another
> intermediate machine
> > running Viewer where it did see the message if I resent
> it then worked
> > - stranger and stranger.... other people could send
> messages to the
> > Rabbit OK.
> >
> > 	So last test - I copied the two messages below to
> individual .xap
> > files and tried sending them from the machine where
> HomeSeer failed -
> > and both worked - so I'm not totally confused - anyone
> any thoughts
> > ???? Could it be something to do with the interface or broadcast
> > address that HomeSeer is using or perhaps the ephemeral
> port its using
> > ???
>
> This behaviour mirrors the same kind of erratic behaviour
> that Andrew Roberts was seeing the other day with
> xap-desktop, xap-viewer and xap-comfort connector. In his
> case, the xap-comfort connector appeared to "go deaf" to
> xap-desktop, although he could see messages from
> xap-desktop in the viewer. Switching from viewer to my hub
> improved, but didn't completely cure, the issue - which I
> find very odd, given that my hub code is now a couple of
> years old, and has never played up before, and the same is
> also true of the comfort connector.
>
> It smells to me like there might be two or more
> independent issues that are compounding to cause problems.
> I'm not pointing fingers, but Viewer does seem to be a
> common denominator in these issues.
>
> Kevin, do you find restarting components causes different
> behaviour?
> If this is the case, I wonder whether the defect might be
> related to not interpreting the "port" parameter in the
> heartbeat correctly.
> Especially as we've recently switched the ocx to using
> ephemeral ports.
>
> An early problem I had with my hub was with premature time
> out of heartbeats cancelling active connections. I think
> this would be pretty obvious in the viewer because an item
> turns grey - unless it is happening for a really short
> time, between heartbeats, resulting in intermittent
> dropping of messages.
>
> Finally (not relevant to your situation) - how does xAP
> desktop handle hosts with multiple interfaces? James, do
> you know if this code is "right"?
> Is there a way of manually verifying the broadcast address
> being used (perhaps adding it to the about box or
> something would be a useful diagnostic).
>
> Patrick
>

There's one big contradiction here though - Viewer running on the remote
machine (the one with Watcher installed) sees both messages whereas Watcher
on that same remote machine only responds to one (the one resent via Viewer
1) - I am wondering if it's to do with the subnet mask or address used for
the broadcast address by the original sender - in this case HomeSeer - or
as
received in some way by in this case Watcher ??

PC1						PC2

xAP HomeSeer
xAP Viewer 1 (hub)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>xAP Hub
xAP Viewer 2
xAP Watcher

xAP Watcher doesn't respond to message.display messages sent from HomeSeer
targeted at it specifically. However if xAP Viewer 1 resends them it does.
xAP Viewer 2 does see both these messages.

Stuart - could xAP Viewer in any way correct a problem with a slightly
malformed message (one that it didn't flag as malformed). Other
siginfificant issue is sending a message.display message a slightly
different way from HomeSeer does display on Watcher making me feel the
messages are constructed differently. hs.plugin("xAP
Conduit").sendhi works

There are a few combinations I can try here to narrow things down eg
Watcher
on local PC - or no hubs at all or using a third PC.

P how do I force your hub to use the correct ethernet adaptor was it
something like  -eth0 or something ?

K