This is a bit long so please bear with me and help me understand what happened for future reference. My questions are in bold.
We took over an existing ra2 install so I tried to extract the programming. The system was connected to the home network via a 15 port switch and god only knows how it was connected to the rest of the house. Customer wanted to change some scenes and also mentioned her apps hadn't worked in 2 years.
- First, I tried the current version 13.x and wishfully attempted to extract but it said no main repeater found.
- Next I did an IP scan of the network starting from 192.168.5.1 (how the network was setup) and it showed Lutron on 192.168.5.198.
- Great. I used a browser to go to 192.168.5.198, typed in lutron and lutron for username and password and saw that it was with database version 9.2 and so I installed it.
- Attempt #2 at extracting the database also resulted in "no repeater found".
- I called tech support and he walked me through setting up static IP and connecting directly and I was able to extract the programming. Success!
Oddly enough, the address on the extracted program was 10.0.0.x or something and after speaking with the customer I guess the same AV company who originally installed the system changed their network equipment and presumably never bothered changing the settings on the ra2 system so I guess it was a different network scheme. So far so good.
Anyway, I connected the repeater back to the network and attempted to change the settings to match the current settings. Once again, wifi failed so I had to connect my laptop via ethernet in which case it found it on the first try. I changed the setting to DHCP and again 192.168.5.198 was chosen for it. To be honest, I have no clue what the DHCP range was on the network but since the customer was going to use the app, it needed a static IP so I turned off DHCP and the address changed to 192.168.5.201 BY IT SELF! How did it change by itself? Was the Ra2 software smart enough to somehow communicate with the router to pick an address that was outside of DHCP?
I then went about making the requested changes and uploaded them while still connected to the home network via ethernet and all went well, but I noticed that if I switched to wifi, it would no longer work. I could go to the HTTP page with wifi just fine but not through the ra2 software.
At this point I went to set up the customers ipads using the name and passwords in the integration section. Whether it was automatic discovery or me manually typing 192.168.5.201, the app could not location main repeater. I tried 2 ipads plus my own Android phone with the Home+ app and nothing. I tried the browser again to make sure the network itself was communicating and sure enough, HTTP worked but not the apps. I gave up and told her maybe the networking people had a firewall blocking it or something and spent an hour making some more scene changes with her and labeling the keypads and just as I was about to leave the house, I noticed my app was connecting! I tried her ipads and iphone and sure enough, self discovery wasn't working but putting in 192.168.5.201 would download the plans and voila. Why did it not work before and an hour later worked out? Does the network somehow needs to update some internal tables or was this a ra2 issue?
It all worked out but I kind of feel dumb. I'm especially curious whether the router was able to communicate that I had picked a wrong static IP. Thanks!