Can't establish connection to my server

[chefdwsaute]

New issue for me, been a user for a long time but can't figure this one out. Subsonic control panel says that Subsonic is running. When I try to access via web on my home network, I get the error that Firefox can't establish connection to my server. I also tried to access via my smartphone, without being on my wifi, and I get a connection failure. This just happened this evening. I went into my router settings and everything, port forwarding, is as it should be. I uninstalled the latest Windows updates and did a system restore to a few days ago when Subsonic was working. Still no dice. I changed the Windows update settings to not automatically install updates. I'm at a loss as to why I can't connect to my Subsonic server. I even went to websitedown.info and it is telling me that subsonic.org is up. Can anyone help please? Thanx in advance.

[chefdwsaute]

I'm back up and running. After playing around with my router, I realized that the router had changed the ip address for the server. No idea why this happened. For those of you having similar issues, I went into http://localhost:4040 (which is one of the ports that I forward) and was able to access it that way and realized that the ip address had changed. Then I went back into my router settings and changed the Subsonic virtual server to the correct ip address. This solved my problem. Hope this helps anyone having these same kind of issues.

[GJ51]

It will only solve the problem until DHCP assigns the server a new ip address. If you assign a static address to the server above the designated DHCP range, then it will really be solved.

All this is covered in the Windows tutorial section.

On a Windows box you can always open a command prompt and type ipconfig /all to get all the ip configuration details, including the current ip address the box is using.

[chefdwsaute]

Thanx Gary. Still somewhat new at this networking thing. I have learned quite a bit since having the Subsonic server. I will look into the Windows tutorial section so I can learn how to assign a static address. It seems like this happens every couple of months and it gets frustrating. Once again, thank you for your insight again! David

[chefdwsaute]

Another question. Will this software make my assigning a static ip address easier for Subsonic? Here's the link - http://portforward.com/help/setup_static_ip_address.htm

I don't want to install this software if it's gonna make my life more difficult or it's not going to do what I need done. Thanx again for your insight. David

[GJ51]

I firmly agree that the fun of getting into Subsonic is as much for what it can teach as for the enjoyment of your music library. I would highly recommend staying away from "helper" software and take the opportunity to really get a handle on network management through your understanding gained by setting up Subsonic properly.

The first 2 posts in the Windows section are a great tutorial in this regard, with many of the concepts applicable regardless of which OS you use, but are well written for Windows.

Combine the tutorial resource with the support available here in the forum, and I think you'll find that this may be the easiest way to gain functional knowledge on the subject that you will find yourself using for years to come when you get into other projects on your home network.

It can look daunting at first, but I suggest it will go much easier if you don't try to swallow it whole in one sitting. Read through the tutorials at least twice at a relaxed pace before attempting any changes, then use them as a guide once you dig into it at the keyboard. Once you really get a grasp of the concepts at work, you'll feel a great sense of accomplishment and most likely get labeled as a geek by your friends and family.

Good luck and holler if you need help.

Gary J

[chefdwsaute]

Thanx again Gary! And yes, I was labeled a geek a long time ago by friends and family when I was building computers and websites for them. Networking is a whole different animal. I will peruse the tutorials as I'd rather learn than have some software do something for me, especially since I have no idea that the software will do what I need. Everything I've done so far has been self-taught and it's been very rewarding. Setting up the Subsonic server with subscribers seemed like a daunting task at first but it isn't as bad as I thot it would be. On to the next step of networking education, setting up the static ip address so I don't have to deal with this issue every so often when the local ip addresses get messed with. Thanx again and have a great evening! David

[alphawave7]

Thanx again Gary! And yes, I was labeled a geek a long time ago by friends and family when I was building computers and websites for them. Networking is a whole different animal. I will peruse the tutorials as I'd rather learn than have some software do something for me, especially since I have no idea that the software will do what I need. Everything I've done so far has been self-taught and it's been very rewarding. Setting up the Subsonic server with subscribers seemed like a daunting task at first but it isn't as bad as I thot it would be. On to the next step of networking education, setting up the static ip address so I don't have to deal with this issue every so often when the local ip addresses get messed with. Thanx again and have a great evening! David

A networking tutorial that was particularly well done back in the day was Linksys.com...they had an 'Educate Me' Link to a decent rundown...thanks to archive.org we can still access it and burrow down a few links:
https://web.archive.org/web/20050406041 ... s.com/edu/

Still, the folks at dslreports fora are exceptional when it comes to resolving any tech issue, and their networking forum is outstanding.
http://www.dslreports.com/forums/all

[chefdwsaute]

Gary,
Hope you're doing well! Here are some recent issues that I have been having that have nothing to do with the ip address changing. Figured you might be able to give me some insight if you have time. Once again, thank you for your time! David


I've been a Subsonic premium subscriber for a long time and have been slowly learning this networking thing. The last few weeks I've been getting lots of errors, seems like most of them are Java errors. The first one started when I opened the Subsonic app on my Android phone. Gave me a SQL exception error. I uninstalled the Android app, reinstalled and everything worked fine for a day or so. Then, when I opened the app the library would come up but when I would go to open a folder, it would say "Directory Not Found". Once again, I uninstalled and reinstalled and everything seemed fine. During both of these issues, I had no problem opening up Subsonic on my PC and accessing my music. Now, once in awhile, when I open Subsonic on the PC, I get Java errors that won't let me do anything. Sometimes, I even get a HTTP service error 503. I have had to uninstall Subsonic on the PC and reinstall again. This sometimes fixes the problem, sometimes it doesn't. I then have to go back in and add all the users and passwords again. These issues have been happening a lot the last few weeks. I was running Subsonic 4.9 the first time it happened so when I reinstalled, I installed Subsonic 4.7 and things were fine for a few days. Today, it happened again on 4.7. I have now installed 4.9 again and am scanning the media folders again. I am now running Java 7 update 51. Is there something that I might be missing that has been causing these issues lately. I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1 64-bit. Thank you, David

[GJ51]

That's a rather interesting array of issues that make it difficult to pinpoint. The first noteworthy detail is the description of an SQL error. This is a bit noteworthy in that to the best of my knowledge Subsonic doesn't use SQL. You also point out a problem with the Android app, java, and a 503 error.

With such a wide range of inconsistent behaviors, my first suspicion would be that you probably have a hardware issue the may be causing these problems.

The 503 error is pretty well documented as being a database corruption most commonly associated with an improper shutdown or reboot that powers the host down before the database files get closed. The SQL error may be the result of the same problem although SQL is usually more resilient then Jetty.

The other issue that needs to be clarified is how you do a re install. Are you using Control Panel to uninstall Subsonic and then deleting the C:\Subsonic directory on the hard drive? If not, you may just be picking up the original error again as the installation process will look for that data and reuse what's there. To truly get a clean installation you need to clear the C:\Subsonic directory before installation so that the program creates it clean with no historic data or reuse of a corrupted database.

You can save the directory in an archive directory in case you determine at some point that the problem wasn't there and then just restore the data if you've fixed whatever was causing the crashes. In any case. I frequently encourage users to make at least a weekly backup of C:\Subsonic so that you have restoration data available in case you crash.

So, I would suggest trying a truly clean install letting Subsonic create the data directory anew. If that doesn't seem to fix it, then you might need to back up a bit further and uninstall Subsonic again, then uninstall all Java references in Control Panel/Programs and Features. Then do a clean Java install, then install Subsonic.

One tip I picked up from my son when he was on a data research project at NASA was to only install the 64 bit Java on the 64 bit OS. They seem to think it's more stable and that's what I've been doing for some time now without any issues.

Once you get the desktop back up, give it some thorough testing to ensure it's stable. Once you're confident that the desktop is ok, move on to the phone app. If it starts having issues try a delete re-install there as well.

I hope some of these tips help, but at this point, you have such a wide range of issues, it's tough to definitively identify a single cause. If all these ideas don't pan out, I'd be looking at the Windows logs to see if you can spot OS or hardware entries that give clues to problems in those areas.