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[cactusjack99]

 

folks, just would like a quick sanity check to help me decide if I have a problem or not, please.

My MyHouse Status is up to log entry 93, now at "Waiting 98s to Reconnect".  It's about 5pm central time.  I know back in the old days..... 2007, it was normal to wait hours for a connection,,,, just wondering if life has gotten better.

My system works fine, got 4 cameras, lights, etc.  Fixin to go on vaction and want to be able to check in remotely.  The last time we did this was late 2007, and have not used this functionality since.  Last time I gave it up as a bad dream and used Radmin and Radmin viewer.  That worked fine, but now have a new cable modem and new wireless router, and can't seem to get Radmin working,,, so I thought I would revert to the Myhouse Service,,, but I'm wondering at this point if I should just shoot myself.

Any help??  Any ideas???  Can anybody else connect and use remote viewing?

ps --- have a new cable installation and very rapid downloads

pps --- the connection keeps repeating,,,, "Start Connection", "Connecting to Myhouse Service", "Cannot Connect to MyHouse Service", "Verify MyHouse Plugin-in Registration", "Disconnected from MyHouse Service", "Waiting nn s to Reccect" (where nn = an increasing countdown timer value),,,, then it repeats, ad nauseum.

[-Bill- (of wgjohns.com)]

folks, just would like a quick sanity check to help me decide if I have a problem or not, please.

My MyHouse Status is up to log entry 93, now at "Waiting 98s to Reconnect".  It's about 5pm central time.  I know back in the old days..... 2007, it was normal to wait hours for a connection,,,, just wondering if life has gotten better.

My system works fine, got 4 cameras, lights, etc.  Fixin to go on vaction and want to be able to check in remotely.  The last time we did this was late 2007, and have not used this functionality since.  Last time I gave it up as a bad dream and used Radmin and Radmin viewer.  That worked fine, but now have a new cable modem and new wireless router, and can't seem to get Radmin working,,, so I thought I would revert to the Myhouse Service,,, but I'm wondering at this point if I should just shoot myself.

Any help??  Any ideas???  Can anybody else connect and use remote viewing?

ps --- have a new cable installation and very rapid downloads

pps --- the connection keeps repeating,,,, "Start Connection", "Connecting to Myhouse Service", "Cannot Connect to MyHouse Service", "Verify MyHouse Plugin-in Registration", "Disconnected from MyHouse Service", "Waiting nn s to Reccect" (where nn = an increasing countdown timer value),,,, then it repeats, ad nauseum.

Other than the obvious X10 server problems that have plagued MyHouse since day one.  It's possible that your cable internet provider is blocking ports that MyHouse uses, either themselves, or possibly as a setting in the cable modem itself.

Sorry, I don't know which ports those are.  Maybe someone with more experience with MyHouse can post those.

Good luck!

 

[cactusjack99]

  Thanks for the reply. 

I've done a little more research, and worked my way up to level III support with Charter and essentially have an answer.  Charter blocks ports, apparently on some known apps, and leaves others open.  They will not tell you which, of course.  If you upgrade from "residential" to "Business" (for increased fee's of course) they will open the locks to freedom.  Of course the Charter support guy did not come out and say this in these words, but he was nice enough to give me round about answers.

So,,,, open port mumbly peg.  I found some open ports using a port checker tool, after opening some random ports on my router, which sits behind my cable modem.  Since I was able to find open ports, the question then becomes, which ports does ActiveHome Pro use (can't find that one!), and WHY DOESN'T ACTIVEHOME PRO ALLOW YOU TO SET UP PORTS? That has to be a simple change to the program,,,, X10 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Solution,,, back to Radmin!  Charter blocks the port Radmin uses, heh heh.  But I found 5 ports in almost no time, and of course Radmin allows you to set the port configuration.  So - set it to an open port.  Drove my laptop over to a local wireless hot spot, connected in with Radmin Viewer via one of my test ports, and voila!! I'm in.  Able to fire up Active Home pro remotely, and check all 4 cameras.

Based on my 2007 experience I'm pretty sure using Radmin for a direct connect to the home PC is faster than using the X10 server, and from the comment here, I'm pretty sure the server performance has not changed.  So a remote connection tool is adequate.  As a caution, I would not open up a bunch of ports, for security issues.  I have opened a few all around the spectrum, so I have a couple back ups in case Charter decides to close down some whilst we are gone, but I think I have enough spares, fingers crossed, without leaving myself too open to hacking.  Of course I all firewalled up, and only my Radmin server is port forwarded, and Radmin has good security, so I feel pretty safe.

That's my report on the situation.  Bottom line, if you are a Charter Cable Internet subscriber, you WILL NOT be able to connect to the ActiveHome Pro server via the ActiveHome Pro program.

thx
cactus

[-Bill- (of wgjohns.com)]

Better late than never, I guess, I found the following post:

In addition to port 80 MyHouse also uses port
8001.

Might help, might not. 

 

[cactusjack99]

More for info than anything else,,,,, since I just upgraded to a new pc, this topic rears it's ugly head again. (new installs, new network, etc etc) Although myhouse online appears to be improved (it says it is connected, but I don't think it is,,,, it's lying!), and everything runs super fast on my quad pc, still nothing gets through Charter.  Both ports 8101 and 80 are blocked, and AHP STILL has no obvious way to use other ports.  WHY??

I mean, really, I've been using this package now for 5 years, the issue with ports and port forwarding has been known since day one, AHP knows that cable companies, and other service providers, block ports.......... how hard is it to add a tool to change ports??!!!!!!!!

sigh

[lodtrack]

I had initial problems using AHP remotely until I opened a port (8777) on my router. I was able to connect after that. But as mentioned here it is still dependant on the X10 server availability. What I use now is "logmein" from Logmein.com , even the free version allows you to connect and remotely control your home automation PC. The video resolution is satisfactory and I have never had a problem connecting using their service.

[cactusjack99]

Update for anyone interested:

I found a myhouse online port list, 80, 443, 8080, 8888 via a google search, it pointed to an x10 forum.  Port forwarded those ports on my router, to my AHP pc.

Then I clicked "connect to myhouse online.....",,,, and....... I'm pretty sure it was getting through, because it began acting as previous,,,,, "connecting to myhouse.....", "cannot connect to myhouse...." "disconnected ....." "trying to reconnect.....",, "start connection", "connecting to....." "stop con....." , yada yada yada     

So, in my case, it's working just like it was before I upgraded to my new win7 pc.  Geeze!!!   

But,,, I initiated "logmein" (free), and it works just fine, easier than radmin, no ports to forward.  Response time decent, and I popped for the iphone/ipad/ipod version and I can check remotely on the small screen, no need to lug my laptop with me if I don't wish to.

So,,, working well, without myhouse online.  I really wonder why they continue to hype that,,, I've used AHP for 5 years now, and it never has worked.  You'd think they would either put in a decent server farm for it, or drop it.

oh well,,,,,

[lorcott]

OK...here's one for you. I purchased MyHouse so that I could run AHP on a computer in the basement and allow everyone in the house to access the control panel via the LAN at home. Homeseer has a very nice home web interface that works wonderfully. I wanted to stay with AHP and was under the impression that the software could do this. If anyone has a recommendation, I am at    slevine@lorcott.com

thanks...s.

[Noam]

There is free software out there that will allow you to do this.

I currently am using a few different methods:

1) X10 Commander, which essentially gives you a web server port for sending commands. You can write your own web page for it (there are examples on their forum). There are apps for iPhone and Android, but the server portion is free, and works fine for me with an HTML page. I use it to control lights from my Blackberry (using the browser) from anywhere in my house. If I chose to open a port on my firewall, and use my DDNS name, I could theoretically do it from anywhere.

2) Remote-control software, like VNC (or one of its many flavors) or LogMeIn. These give you full remote-control capabilities to your PC, so you can do more than just control your X10.

3) Create scripts with the AHCMD.exe in the SDK, and then use PSEXEC (free from Microsoft) to run them remotely from another PC. I have shortcuts in the Start Menu on a number of PCs to turn on or off certain lights. It works great for me.

If you need more details, I'm happy to try and help.

[lorcott]

Thanks Noam...I'll give it a try!

[Noam]

You can find X10 Commander here:
     http://melloware.com/products/x10commander/ , just look for the link called "X10 Commander Server".
Download, unpack, and install.

You can find the code for  creating the web page for it here:
     http://forum.melloware.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=8571&sid=002294d9aefc7ec10f570d4dff84aa02
There is a bit of editing you'll need to do with the code, but it isn't too complicated if you know some HTML. Once you see how it works, you can modify it for your own needs.

You'll need to install the AHP SDK for this to work. You can get it here:
     http://www.x10.com/activehomepro/sdk/index.html

[lorcott]

If it doesn't already exist, perhaps we can start a thread of custom HTML control panels.

thanks again.