Remote Access/Port Forwarding Issue (?)

[MisterMustang]

I went out of town over the weekend & couldn't access Channels on either of my devices. I got the following error message:

Once home, I ran the Troubleshoot Tab and got the following result: "Could not connect to 65730332aa2a.u.channelsdvr.net. Check if the port is mapped"

I contacted my ISP. (Allo Fiber)Tech Support reset port forwarding & verified port 8089 was open. He also showed me how to do the same (https://myipaddress:8089). Diagnostics Submitted as: 64460b47-f530-4682-8b2a-a2ff2e15db8d.

I'm running Channels on a Windows NUC with a dedicated/reserved IP address. TCP/UDP Protocol and LAN ports set to Start & End at 8089.

Forgive me if this has been addressed in a thread I missed. I'm not sure where to go from here. Any help will be appreciated.

(pardon any delay in my replies)

Thanks in advance

[Rice]

From your home network visit and check port 8089. Does it return “true”?
https://portchecker.io/

[slampman]

Troubleshooting port forwarding issues can be easy if you think of it like links in a chain. If there is a broken link, it won't work.
Start at one end and then check everything to the other end.

1. You have verified that the port is open on the router.
   Follow the signal flow:
2. is the NAT on your router pointing to the correct IP address? You say it is reserved but verify that it hasn't changed by doing an ipconfig on the client.
3. Is Windows firewall on? If it is, disable it.
4. Is Channels set to do automatic port forwarding (uPnp)? If it is do manual since you have already set up port forwarding on the router.
5. If all this is correct and the issue still persists, turn off port forwarding in channels and then turn it back on.

Network issues can seem like they are a big mystery. In reality however they are pretty easy to resolve by tracing the packet flow. Its getting dropped somewhere and you have to figure out where (finding the broken link in the chain).

[MisterMustang]

It is a bit daunting at times. Thank you for breaking it down.
I'll give it a go.

[MisterMustang]

Yes. It does return "true"

[slampman]

On your phone turn off wifi and go to yourpublicip:8089

You should see a screen like this if everythjng is open end to end

[MisterMustang]

Yes I see it

[MisterMustang]

I'm a little tripped up on step 4 & 5. Port forwarding was set to Manual. Everything looked correct (ip address, port, etc). So I turned Port Forwarding off then back on.

Now it's telling me to configure my router "to forward TCP external port 8089 to the.ipaddress.that.was there.before:8089 - which it already is.

So I'm a bit confused

[slampman]

That's the standard message, it's ok. If you can see the message that matches my screenshot you are configured fine as far as networking goes. It might be on the channels side of things. Try it again with the channels app over cellular. I think toggling port forwarding in the webui causes a new cert to be generated. If it still doesn't work then @tmm1 might have to have a look on his end.

Edit, make absolute sure you see the msg in my screenshot outside of your network. Make sure wifi is turned off and you are not connecting to the 192 address

[MisterMustang]

I appreciate your kind help and patience. I will give it some time then check again. If it persists, I'll reach out to @tmm1

Thanks again

[tmm1]

You can also enable the new Tailscale integration as a backup.

[slampman]

No problem glad to help. If you can get to your server and it shows the generic auth page over cellular then your network is ok. It has to be something else.

[MisterMustang]

Hi. Thanks for the tip.

I activated & tested Tailscale on my phone. I was able to get it to work. It'll do (for now).

I'm still not able to get the port forwarding issue resolved. I've tested the port using mypublicip:8089 & got the "Authorization Code" screen. But I'm still getting this error message when trying to connect to away from home:

[tmm1]

Did you try clicking the "continue anyway" at the bottom?

[MisterMustang]

I have. I'm still getting these error messages:

[slampman]

do the last 2 octets of your public IP address end in 89.5? If not it may be a DNS issue. I did an nslookup on your hostname from the screenshot and I cannot reach your server but it could be because you have enabled tail scale.

[MisterMustang]

Apologies for the delayed reply.
No, my public up does not end in 89.5

[slampman]

@tmm1 I think it might be a dns resolution issue on the channels end. Not sure how that gets resolved...