Texecom Comwifi

[delluybeanhead]

I am an IP network engineer and I struggled to get this to work. It seems that the ComWifi will not exchange MAC address with some routers.  Mine is a SKY router and it would not work. This makes DHCP not possible. So I had to set it with a static IP address. Remember to make sure that the static addres is outside of your routers DHCP address pool or you will get a clash at some point in the future.

 

Also the dynamic update of IP address is very intermittent so the mobile phone app will often fail when trying to connect remotely. I created two sites in the app for my site. One with the local LAN IP address of the Comwifi and did not tick the Update IP box. I use this when on the local home wifi.

The other with a dynamic DNS hostname (instead of an IP address) which I use when accessing remotely. Again make sure that the Update IP box is not ticked. This works perfectly every time.

 

One thing to watch out for.

It is best to configure your comwifi via the panel rather than the web interface. The reason for this is that when your router talks to it it will screw up it's ARP cache. I am not sure why. Maybe it learns the MAC address of the wrong interface from the comwifi. This is evidenced by not being able to communicate with the comwifi when connecting to your home wifi.

 

To test this you can add a static IP Address into your local arp cache to prove that this is the issue. e.g. on a windows machine open a CMD prompt and

ping IPADDRESS

where IPADDRESS is the address of your comwifi

if you get a reponse then your comwifi is working OK. 

If you do not then you may have the MAC/ARP issue.

type:

arp -a

If you have the issue you will not see an entry with the IP address of your comwifi.

 

Then to temporarily fix/prove the issue add a static ARP cache entry you can type

arp -s IPADDRESS MACADDRESS

replace with the IP address and MAC address of your comwifi.

type arp -a again and you will see your comwifi address in the list.

You should now be able to ping it.

remove the entry from your arp cache by typing

arp -d IPADDRESS

then type arp -a to check that it is no longer listed.

ping will not work again.

 

This is not a fix! just a test to prove that the issue is with the comwifi and your local network ARP cache updates.

 

If you are confident that your Comwifi is configured correctly then you need to reset the comwifi so that your local network router can refresh it's MAC table correctly. Use the panel to remove and add the COMIP module from whatever COM port you have it assigned to. This will reset it and your router should then learn the correct MAC address and resolve it's IP address for your other devices on the wifi network.

You should be able to ping it from your command prompt.

DO NOT connect to the Comwifi local wifi network. This will screw up the ARP cache again. You will lose local connectivity and will have to do the a above procedure again..

 

Hopes this helps somebody.

Edited August 20, 2016 by delluybeanhead

[Nova-Security]

On 1/20/2016 at 10:40 PM, bennynoneck said:

I'd love to know! I turned the router off for 10 mins but that didn't make it fail.

All done via the keypad.

 

The reporting time is defaulted to 15mins, so when you have first set it up it might not of registered the ip address with texecom for 15mins

[sixwheeledbeast]

34 minutes ago, delluybeanhead said:

I am an IP network engineer and I struggled to get this to work. It seems that the ComWifi will not exchange MAC address with some routers.  Mine is a SKY router and it would not work. This makes DHCP not possible. So I had to set it with a static IP address. Remember to make sure that the static addres is outside of your routers DHCP address pool or you will get a clash at some point in the future.

 

It is advisable to use a static IP that is outside of the pool over DHCP.

 

35 minutes ago, delluybeanhead said:

Also the dynamic update of IP address is very intermittent so the mobile phone app will often fail when trying to connect remotely. I created two sites in the app for my site. One with the local LAN IP address of the Comwifi and did not tick the Update IP box. I use this when on the local home wifi.

The other with a dynamic DNS hostname (instead of an IP address) which I use when accessing remotely. Again make sure that the Update IP box is not ticked. This works perfectly every time.

 

This sounds like a server side issue that happens on occasion.

Linked into your own DDNS service or Static IP with Update IP off is best solution IMO.

 

35 minutes ago, delluybeanhead said:

IIt is best to configure your comwifi via the panel rather than the web interface.

 

There is setup required on the panel and with the web interface.

If you follow the manual word for word and you understand the terms you shouldn't go wrong.

 

41 minutes ago, delluybeanhead said:

DO NOT connect to the Comwifi local wifi network. This will screw up the ARP cache again. You will lose local connectivity and will have to do the a above procedure again..

 

 

I would switch off the COMWiFi local network while in the interface configuring it.

If you do get the ARP issues you mention above and are not sure on clearing them, you can simply reboot everything wait for connection to come back up and then continue.

[secureiam]

had a lot of fun with these initially.

 

certainly outside the dhcp pool makes life easier,

making sure nothing can automatically connect to the com wifi ssid seems to keep it focused.

 

wrt to the app, change the polling to 1 minute and it soon updates the ip, or with notifications on send an event via the keypad and it will be updated.

the polling changes between 5 minutes(in engineering) and 15 minutes normally.

 

as for routers, I have had issues with talk talk routers not liking the app on an external network so had customers with both a local and external connection.

 

as for the notifications themselves I have a system with a comip and a GSM, gsm is only set for alarm events at the minute but find it more reliable than the app.

 

Find the Risco cloud much more reliable and instant for notifications over The Texecom App, but I digress theres good and bad in all things,

 

 

[SSD]

Hi,

 

 

I know it's been a while since the last activity on this thread, however, I've stumbled upon an issue with the app. Couple of months ago I set it up as per @delluybeanhead instructions above. I created two profiles, one local and one remote. All worked fine till last couple of weeks. Now the local profile still works fine, and the remote profile keeps disconnecting. To make everything even more interesting,  notifications keep coming when off-site through the remote profile each time the alarm is armed and disarmed.

 

Has anybody else had similar experience with Texecom app? I've noticed the app hasn't been updated since iOS 9 was roaming on iDevices back in Feb 2016...and we're now far into iOS 11. Any help or suggestions what to try to get the app working remotely again would be great.

 

 

Thanks.

 

P.S.: the module is ComIP, if that makes any difference.

[sixwheeledbeast]

Doesn't sound like it's programmed correctly.

If you can connect locally that proves the alarm equipment is fine.

Never had an issue with the app on any version of iOS.

[SSD]

You mean the control panel is not programmed correctly? If that is the case, how come for a period of time the remote access was working fine? And that even now, when the app doesn't want to get connected properly remotely, it still gets notifications when the system is armed and disarmed? That's the part that's bugging me, as there were no changes made on the control panel between when it was working and when it stopped working. Nor have any changes in the app been made since.

 

 

[sixwheeledbeast]

Hard to say without checking all the settings.

I'd guess from what you say, the panel programmed to send open closes and the router has been factory reset.

[SSD]

Hmmm...I don't know about that, I'd say that if the router reset itself to factory settings, then all the port forwarding, DDNS etc. would also fail, which is not the case here. Which makes me believe that either:

 

1. Texecom panel [or comIP module] changed something by itself (which according to the thread above doesn't seem to be impossible), and/or

2. there's malfunction in the app itself [that might have come alive with one of the iOS 11 updates], and/or

3. alternatively issues with texecom servers perhaps?

 

I'll have some time to look into it tomorrow, however I wanted to see if anybody else might have had similar issues, so I don't spend better part of the day messing around needlessly.

[sixwheeledbeast]

The only setting that is changed from the server is the polling time to 015.

Other two points are possible but had no reported issues with iOS11 myself, also bear in mind that you can't login if it's trying to contact the server to push a notification, it all runs on the same port.

So for example if the server was busy or set wrong it will keep trying for the amount of retries set in the programming, you wouldn't have access until it times out. If you had this issue I would expect you not to be able to access the Com-IP at all which I believe is not the case.