"Setting Time From NTP" every 15 seconds?

[tandar]

I am not able to sync my isy/99 (v 2.7.9)(Windows 7) with an NTP server. Not a big deal to manually sync to my computer but, when I enable Syncing (set to sync every 24 hours) the event viewer shows activity every 15 secs:

 

Sat 01/30/2010 11:03:20 AM : Setting Time From NTP

Sat 01/30/2010 11:03:35 AM : Setting Time From NTP

Sat 01/30/2010 11:03:50 AM : Setting Time From NTP

Sat 01/30/2010 11:04:05 AM : Setting Time From NTP

Sat 01/30/2010 11:04:20 AM : Setting Time From NTP

Sat 01/30/2010 11:04:35 AM : Setting Time From NTP

Sat 01/30/2010 11:04:50 AM : Setting Time From NTP

 

Is this normal?

 

I'd like to sync automatically

I've tried numerous NTP server addresses: pool.ntp.org, time-b.nist.gov, etc. as well as the IP equivalents. I always get the

"[-60006] NTP server not responding" error

 

My computer syncs just fine to time-b.nist.gov

 

Any help is appreciated -

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi tandar,

 

It seems as if ISY cannot get to the Internet. Do you see a red exclamation mark in the config tab for NTP server?

 

If so:

1. does your ISY have a static IP address?

2. can you send emails from your ISY?

 

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[tandar]

Hi Michel,

Yes, I do have a red exclamation point

Yes, I configured the ISY with a static IP

 

I just tried to send an email using smtp.comcast.net and I get;

[-50001] Mail server failure [AUTH LOGIN not Accepted]

I've double checked user ID / password

 

When I check "Use TLS" I get:

[-50001] Mail server failure [Connection failed]

 

Thanks for the help!

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi tandar,

 

Thanks so very much for the info. In most cases, the routers do NOT relay DNS requests for IP addresses that they have not issued themselves (using DHCP). I think this is the case with your situation.

 

To rectify this issue, please use DHCP and then in your router, please reserve the IP address in the DHCP client table. This way, the router will never give your ISY a different IP address and it's happy that ISY is one of its DHCP clients.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

 

Hi Michel,

Yes, I do have a red exclamation point

Yes, I configured the ISY with a static IP

 

I just tried to send an email using smtp.comcast.net and I get;

[-50001] Mail server failure [AUTH LOGIN not Accepted]

I've double checked user ID / password

 

When I check "Use TLS" I get:

[-50001] Mail server failure [Connection failed]

 

Thanks for the help!

[tandar]

Michel,

Once again thanks for the help. Unfortunately my router (Linksys WRT54g V5) does not allow for DHCP reservations. Any other suggestions are of course welcomed but I think I'll just have to live with the limitation for now.

 

On another note... It doesn't take a whole lot of reading in this forum to realize that you and Universal Devices have set the high water mark when it comes to support and listening to your customers. Two replies over the weekend are certainly not the norm for tech companies. I just hope that as your company continues to grow, you'll continue to place an emphasis on this level of customer support. This really differentiates you from most other companies and ensures long term customers.

 

Thanks Again

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi tandar,

 

First of all, thanks so very much for your vote of confidence. It actually means a lot to all of us at UDI.

 

Would you be kind enough to try an address within the DHCP range of your router (at the higher end). Some rudimentary routers might just look at the number ...

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[MarkJames]

If I may add my two bits to the email issue.

 

In my case I had to be particularly careful with my mail server settings. I'm on Shaw in Canada and their mail server - which I assumed would be smtp.shaw.ca was actually gv.vi.shawcable.net.

 

The other thing that is significant is that some ISP's will require a user id/password from within their own network in order to use their SMTP server - in other words you don't have to use their email address for incoming mail - but you have to HAVE an email address with them that you can use to authenticate for their SMTP server to allow you to use it for outgoing mail. For instance - in my case - being on Shaw I don't use their email service - I use gmail. But in order to have ISY send email I opted to just create a shaw email address and use that to authenticate. You can use the gmail SMTP server as well but it requires changing ports and setting up TLS - too much fuss for something so simple.

 

 

If you're setting up your own static IP make sure you have the settings configured properly. The IP obviously must be right or you wouldn't be able to access your ISY. the subnet mask is usually 255.255.255.0 for most users. THe gateway should be the address of your wrt54gs - usually 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1. The DNS Server is key - as ntp.pool.org won't resolve unless your ISY can find a DNS server. You can usually put in the same port as your gateway here as your router will usually forward DNS requests outside of the internal network to the WAN DNS server it obtained by DHCP. If that doesn't work then simply go to one of your machines that got an IP by DHCP, run the command prompt and type ipconfig/all. It will give you both a primary and secondary DNS server address that was assigned to you by your ISP. You can use the primary DNS server address in the ISY and it should be fine.

 

Anyways - long story short - you MUST fix your DNS issue first. If pool.ntp.org is not working then you have an issue with DNS - after all - pool.ntp.org IS there and there are no other settings required. Not seeing it is an indication that you are not resolving pool.ntp.org to its physical IP address.

 

On the wrt54gs the status screen will tell you the IP of your DNS servers (usually 2 of them). Usually the router will be set up so that DHCP will assign all the correct settings for devices that are configured by them but not necessarily. To make life really simple just set up your ISY like this

 

note the IP it's assigned to

unclick automatic (dhcp)

put in the IP it already had in the IP address

put 255.255.255.0 in the subnet mask

put the address of the wrt54gs in the gateway field (192.168.0.1?)

put the DNS server address that you got from the status screen of the wrt54gs into the DNS field

http port is 80

https port is 443

 

Once your ntp is working you know your DNS is working and THEN you can work on the potentially more complex issue of your mail - though it'll probably start to work too then.

 

Oh.. and the wrt54gs is a great router but the firmware sucks. Check out the Tomato firmware for it - it's a WORLD better and it's free. http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato

 

Hope this helps,

 

mark

[tandar]

Problem solved

I finally got got some time to look at the issue a little closer. I tried a higher IP address as suggested - no luck.

After reading through Mark's detailed response (thanks BTW) again, I decided to go back to basics and check everything. I realized that I had the wrong Gateway! Once I put in the router as the gateway, everything works!. Syncing to the NTP server and emailing just fine.

 

Thanks again

Tom