Pi working at home but /noVNC/ not working in another home

[AlfLavCH]

Thank you so much to Kevin. Jambox is totally awesome.
I was able to set up a Pi for one of my choir members. It worked great with my iPad and also on my Mac in Chrome.
I set the choir member's name, voice type, etc.
I mailed the box to his address.
We connected later by Skype in screen sharing, but noVNC dit not work in the browser.

I could deduce that the Pi memorized the IP of my home and that is why it does not connect to noVnc via the browser.
Is that so? (I’m a newbie)

My intention is to set some other Pi for other members of the choir.

It is best to send them a « clean" box? or a clean card?
Or, please, is there a solution to make work the Pi that was already connected in my home, in another home?

Best regards from Switzerland and thank you again for this amazing tool.

[kdoren]

@AlfLavCH It's fine to mail the box around, the Pi doesn't remember anything.

The memory is in the urlrelay.com service, it remembers the local network access url that the Pi gives it when it boots, and hands it to the browser as a redirect. It's stored by the source IP of the router (your router's external IP address). If you send the box to a different location, it will just register again under the new IP address.

What happened when they tried to connect to urlrelay.com/go ? was there any message from urlrelay.com? From the browser?

Possibilities:

1. Network connection to the Pi is bad (network cable, router port). (in this case urlrelay error message will say there is no device registered for her source IP)
2. Pi and browser are not on same local network. (pi on wired network and browser on wireless can't communicate)
3. multiple devices registered for same source IP (unlikely in this case, but if you have more than 1 jambox on same local network, you need to give them different node ids, and use ?ID=<NODE_ID> when you connect to urlrelay.com. urlrelay.com will give an error message about multiple devices)
4. problem could be as simple as a mis-typed url
5. I have seen at least one case (in Italy) of the ISP's router being the problem.

Questions:

1. what was the message from urlrelay.com (if any)?
2. what message from the browser?
3. Did they see the noVNC screen?
4. what is the external IP (public ipv4 from https://www.whatismyip.com/ )
5. have them try connecting to http://jambox.local:6080/?password=jambox
6. what make/model of router? what ISP?

[kdoren]

@AlfLavCH
Normally, everything behind the router, wired and wireless, counts as "same local network". it's the router's job to move traffic between the two. (you might want to print from wireless laptop to wired printer).

The Pi was able to register with urlrelay.com, and is behind same IP (same router) as browser (otherwise you you not see the message "192.168.1._ _ _ :6080/?password=jambox ".

So Pi is working and connecting to internet, but router is blocking browser access from wireless segment..

The router might block the traffic for 1 of 3 reasons;

1. the browser device on wireless is connected to a "guest" network. router is blocking for security.
2. (unlikely) the wired device is configured in a "DMZ" for security.
3. (also unlikely) there are multiple router boxes/extenders in the network (multiple NATs), so traffic can't go in the direction you want.

Possible solutions:

1. connect a browser device to the wired network. This is inconvenient but it will work.
2. if browser device is on a "guest" wireless network, change wireless connection to regular network.
3. Go into router config and see what is wrong (i.e. change wireless to not be a guest network).

[kdoren]

There is one other (also unlikely) possibility that I have seen, which is:

The router changed the IP address of the Pi, after it had registered with urlrelay.com. This shouldn't happen, if so it's due to a bug in the router firmware. I saw this recently on a Netgear Orbi with 18-month old firmware, IP address changed around once per hour. The fix in that case was to update the router firmware.

Rebooting the Pi will cause it to acquire a new DHCP lease (that's how it gets it IP address) and re-register with urlrelay.com. Normally you would prefer to properly shut down (to ensure no SD card corruption) but in your case you'll need to power cycle. Then try to get in via urlrelay.com again.

Also, In most routers, there is a way to view "DHCP leases". If they can login and look, they may be able to see the IP address of the Pi. Then compare to the IP address (192.168.1.xxx) that is failing when you try to connect via urlrelay.com.

If a router firmware update is available, I suggest you update.

[AlfLavCH]

@kdoren
It was about the browser.
Everything works fine now I have done other tests with another Pi that I just set up. Tested in two different homes and everything ok. Thank you very much for the help!

[kdoren]

@AlfLavCH What browser, and why didn't it work? What did you do to get it to work?

[AlfLavCH]

@kdoren
Chrome, and also Safari. IPad Safari also Ok.
I did this test with 2 different Pi and two different homes (at home and my mother's in law home).

In the case of the singer: I send her another SD card an also an ethernet cable.

Not success at the beginning in Chrome and Safari via wifi.
She said that her internet connection is not the best.
We tried to connect a browser device to the wired network, as you advised. ->This works.