running xlights from a laptop issue

[mrgimmeone]

Ok. I have it plugged into my range extender/booster out in the garage and it is up and running at moment.

[keithsw1111]

This really shouldn't be this hard. Best practice is not to have your wired and wireless networks using the same subnet because when your laptop needs to send out data it is not obvious which adapter to use. Putting your controller in manual mode and fixing an IP address in a different subnet and then also manually setting your Ethernet to that same domain is best. You should t need a crossover cable   That is old school. Do not set a gateway on the wired network. On your pc you should then be able to ping the controller. You can then also force the local ip in XLights to the wired ip of the computer as well if you like and this will force XLights to only output to the wired adapter. If you get desperate wireshark can validate where the data is actually going.

[Ebuechner]

I was trying to help him get it connected just working from one end. I figured after he had that success we could walk him through the rest ( and he'd still be able to go back and forth with the controller to the other computer). I know a crossover cable is old school but I don't know if his laptop is old school.  I figured he was starting to get frustrated and I was trying to take it just one step at a time and keep it simple.

[MikeKrebs]

A simple check of direct connections is to see if you have lights on the ethernet port of your laptop.  So plug into known working connection (router) and observe the lights.  Usually green light is good.

Then plug in directly and observe light.  You should have similar light on your pc port.

After you know the physical connection works,  the next task is to get the ip set to same network.

[mrgimmeone]

yes if i plug the laptop directly into the router it does show a link with my network and does connect. but if i plug it into the controller it shows as unidenified network and will not talk to it. the laptop is maybe a year or 2 old.

[Phrog30]

yes if i plug the laptop directly into the router it does show a link with my network and does connect. but if i plug it into the controller it shows as unidenified network and will not talk to it. the laptop is maybe a year or 2 old.

And when you plug straight into it are you setting a static IP on your laptop?

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

[jnealand]

When you unplug from the router and you have your connection set to DHCP you loose any ip address you had while connected to the router so you MUST put a manual static ip in your network settings and it MUST be on the same network as the controller.  However if you also have you laptop wifi connected to the same network it will probably never work.  That is why people keep saying you must have a separate network (3rd digit of ip must be different).  You can also turn off the wifi adapter in your laptop.

[ozaz]

my 2c worth

as others have said it's best to run the controllers from a different subnet/range of IP addresses.

My laptop and show PC  are connected to my home router/internet modem, via Wi-Fi, which is IP address range 10.0.0.x and I connect to my controllers via LAN port on IP address range 192.168.0.x For instance, the laptop Wi-Fi adapter gets a DHCP address from the modem of, say, 10.0.0.12 but the laptop LAN port adpater is set as a static IP of 192.168.0.1 controllers are also set as static IP addresses (such as 192.168.0.50).

Note: if your home router is already in the range 192.168.0.x  you could set your controllers to something like 192.168.10.x  It will partly depend on what controllers you have and what IP range they can be set to (they should be able to be set to anything).

If you're not sure how to set this up there are various guides that can help. There's one at HC http://www.holidaycoro.com/kb_results.asp?ID=118 for their controller but it does show how to set the static IP on the LAN port (look for line that starts: Setup the PC Network

[mrgimmeone]

ty i know i have a static setup on my FFP. i'll figure out how to do that on the laptop. ty for all the comments.