This is a short summary of what I experienced last night. I'm presenting it here to avoid others getting the same heartache I had.
My replay 4320 was set on a fixed IP address and connected to a WET-11. This worked great for months (you haven't seen me here, have you? ;-)
Then last week I changed the house network to a different subnet and at the same time changed WEP encryption key size keys, and SSID. I did remember to change all the laptops, but forgot about the WET-11 stuck behind the audio rack
Everything was fine for about a week, except that last night when I went to check the channel guide there was nothing there. Naturally I went to the Messages log, to see it hadn't talked to the mother ship in a week.
***TIME POINT ONE***
It took me all of 4 jiffies (80 microseconds) to remember that I had forgotten to update the WET-11. I then updated the WET with the new key, SSID, and key length.
After rebooting the WET-11 to make the changes take place, I tested it (yes, the laptop got a DHCP address from the wired server over the WET-11). I then plugged the Replay into it.
At this point the replay told me it needed a reboot, (yes, that message flashed on the screen in the middle of an empty channel guide) and I assumed it was unhappy with the unplugging for a few minutes of the 10BaseT cable while I putzed with the WET11.
***TIME POINT 2
I let it reboot, and it appeared to do so quite slowly. When it appeared "up" it really wasn't all there. The message light was not lit, for example. I waited a while (5 minutes) and still no change. No response on the keypad, although of course the remote power and local power keys made the screen turn off, no other functions elicited a response. Occasional blinking on the WET-11 activity
light but no major transfer or even minor transfer.
(Unfortunately everything is in a collapsed backbone inside
one BEFW11S4, so it's impossible to dump the packets.)
I then soft-reset it by holding down power for 15 seconds (or until it turned off and started resetting, whichever occured second).
Again it took it a long time to come up, and it never fully came up, same symptoms as before.
I power-cycled it by yanking the plug, waiting for capacitor discharge (5 seconds worked) and replugging. This reboot was identical to the previous.
I then turned it off first, then power cycled, hoping that coming on in "off mode" would allow it to focus 100% of its meager resources on whatever its little problem is.
Same problem.
This time when I hit the power on, the screen went from
nothing to black... but the red power indicator LED did
not light, nor did the messages or new content LEDs.
I then told my guests that I would quit "messing" with it
for now, and would let it reboot once more on wired and
then reimage in the morning
I hooked up the wired lan, set the unit off, and power
cycled. The unit appeared to boot as slowly as ever,
and then turned itself off when done.
I let it sit for about an hour, maybe a bit more, while
we had conversation that did not revolve around what to
try next (my guests were a couple that both work in the
computer troubleshooting field
Finally after the long time I turned it on, and it was
on and working. I turned to the network settings area
and found it STATIC IP on the WRONG NET.
I fixed it to DHCP, and it found an address, and was
happy. To test the "fix" I rebooted, and it came up
clean and quick.
I then did a 243-zones connect, got the guide, and was
rolling.
The moral of the story is the Replay has a fervent
desire to communicate with someone on its way up. If
it cannot do so it tries a long long long long time.
I don't know if this is part of 4.3's service activation
or not... but I do know that it is useless at that point.
Which makes me say if you go back to where I wrote:
TIME POINT ONE, if I had at that point changed the
replay to DHCP, and even turned it off... then I could
have avoided the whole problem.
At TIME POINT TWO I could have resolved the problem
by changing the backbone switch from new-net to old-net
so that the replay could phone home, let it boot, then
change it to DHCP, and change the switch back.
Knowing nothing about the problem or what was causing
it, I took no useful corrective action at 1 or 2
I hope this helps others,
Mman ;-)
My replay 4320 was set on a fixed IP address and connected to a WET-11. This worked great for months (you haven't seen me here, have you? ;-)
Then last week I changed the house network to a different subnet and at the same time changed WEP encryption key size keys, and SSID. I did remember to change all the laptops, but forgot about the WET-11 stuck behind the audio rack
Everything was fine for about a week, except that last night when I went to check the channel guide there was nothing there. Naturally I went to the Messages log, to see it hadn't talked to the mother ship in a week.
***TIME POINT ONE***
It took me all of 4 jiffies (80 microseconds) to remember that I had forgotten to update the WET-11. I then updated the WET with the new key, SSID, and key length.
After rebooting the WET-11 to make the changes take place, I tested it (yes, the laptop got a DHCP address from the wired server over the WET-11). I then plugged the Replay into it.
At this point the replay told me it needed a reboot, (yes, that message flashed on the screen in the middle of an empty channel guide) and I assumed it was unhappy with the unplugging for a few minutes of the 10BaseT cable while I putzed with the WET11.
***TIME POINT 2
I let it reboot, and it appeared to do so quite slowly. When it appeared "up" it really wasn't all there. The message light was not lit, for example. I waited a while (5 minutes) and still no change. No response on the keypad, although of course the remote power and local power keys made the screen turn off, no other functions elicited a response. Occasional blinking on the WET-11 activity
light but no major transfer or even minor transfer.
(Unfortunately everything is in a collapsed backbone inside
one BEFW11S4, so it's impossible to dump the packets.)
I then soft-reset it by holding down power for 15 seconds (or until it turned off and started resetting, whichever occured second).
Again it took it a long time to come up, and it never fully came up, same symptoms as before.
I power-cycled it by yanking the plug, waiting for capacitor discharge (5 seconds worked) and replugging. This reboot was identical to the previous.
I then turned it off first, then power cycled, hoping that coming on in "off mode" would allow it to focus 100% of its meager resources on whatever its little problem is.
Same problem.
This time when I hit the power on, the screen went from
nothing to black... but the red power indicator LED did
not light, nor did the messages or new content LEDs.
I then told my guests that I would quit "messing" with it
for now, and would let it reboot once more on wired and
then reimage in the morning
I hooked up the wired lan, set the unit off, and power
cycled. The unit appeared to boot as slowly as ever,
and then turned itself off when done.
I let it sit for about an hour, maybe a bit more, while
we had conversation that did not revolve around what to
try next (my guests were a couple that both work in the
computer troubleshooting field
Finally after the long time I turned it on, and it was
on and working. I turned to the network settings area
and found it STATIC IP on the WRONG NET.
I fixed it to DHCP, and it found an address, and was
happy. To test the "fix" I rebooted, and it came up
clean and quick.
I then did a 243-zones connect, got the guide, and was
rolling.
The moral of the story is the Replay has a fervent
desire to communicate with someone on its way up. If
it cannot do so it tries a long long long long time.
I don't know if this is part of 4.3's service activation
or not... but I do know that it is useless at that point.
Which makes me say if you go back to where I wrote:
TIME POINT ONE, if I had at that point changed the
replay to DHCP, and even turned it off... then I could
have avoided the whole problem.
At TIME POINT TWO I could have resolved the problem
by changing the backbone switch from new-net to old-net
so that the replay could phone home, let it boot, then
change it to DHCP, and change the switch back.
Knowing nothing about the problem or what was causing
it, I took no useful corrective action at 1 or 2
I hope this helps others,
Mman ;-)