Leonard1105 Posted October 18, 2022 Share Posted October 18, 2022 I have a Control4 EA5 and there appears to be a connection issue while trying to remote connect. I can VPN remotely and the EA5 works fine on the LAN. This came to light when I lost connection with Alexa C4 skill. About a month earlier, I changed my router to a UI Dream Station. Everything else on my network appears to be working fine. I have seen some old articles that indicate a problem between Ubiquiti and C4, but all of it old and not specific setting changes. Can someone help me determine what changes I need to make to my UDR to get C4 to connect remotely, and hopefully this will enable me to connect Alexa. As a note, my installer does not do networking, so they will not help. We have been on the phone with C4 L2, but they can not or will not tell me what network setting are incorrect or blocking. I have asked for setting recommendations with no results. I have asked what routers will support C4 and I get no answers. I am hoping someone here can assist me to resolve this issue. Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
witt312 Posted October 18, 2022 Share Posted October 18, 2022 Did your 4Sight subscription expire? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonard1105 Posted October 18, 2022 Author Share Posted October 18, 2022 4Sight subscription has been confirmed good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msgreenf Posted October 18, 2022 Share Posted October 18, 2022 re-register controller and reboot controller. Dealer will have to do so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonard1105 Posted October 18, 2022 Author Share Posted October 18, 2022 Both re-reg and reboot done multiple times with no impact. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew luecke Posted October 18, 2022 Share Posted October 18, 2022 9 hours ago, Leonard1105 said: I have a Control4 EA5 and there appears to be a connection issue while trying to remote connect. I can VPN remotely and the EA5 works fine on the LAN. This came to light when I lost connection with Alexa C4 skill. About a month earlier, I changed my router to a UI Dream Station. Everything else on my network appears to be working fine. I have seen some old articles that indicate a problem between Ubiquiti and C4, but all of it old and not specific setting changes. Can someone help me determine what changes I need to make to my UDR to get C4 to connect remotely, and hopefully this will enable me to connect Alexa. As a note, my installer does not do networking, so they will not help. We have been on the phone with C4 L2, but they can not or will not tell me what network setting are incorrect or blocking. I have asked for setting recommendations with no results. I have asked what routers will support C4 and I get no answers. I am hoping someone here can assist me to resolve this issue. Thank you. You shouldn't have any issues with the ubiquiti router unless you're doing something explicitly to block the traffic or doing something like IGMP filtering (I use a UDM at home). You could be having issues if you're using mobile internet though, or your ISP is being dodgy. Control4/most installers also can't provide active support for them because Ubiquiti themselves won't (and even the Unifi Elite tech support program was axed). There is no reason why your installer should not be able to assist with Networking though, as I would have thought it's a pre-requisite to be a dealer (at the very least, its certainly expected to have networking skills).. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonard1105 Posted October 18, 2022 Author Share Posted October 18, 2022 I don't think I am doing anything that is explicitly block or at least that I am aware of. I did check IGMP and it is disabled. I also do not think it would be the ISP, because C4 worked fine with my prior router. I live in a somewhat tech deficient area, so skills are not readily available and my installer is struggling with this problem. Right around the time, C4 support said my EA5 went off line, I was struggling with getting a IoT device adopted wirelessly. I did many iterations of changes both on my own and with Ubiquity support. I finally back doored the issue by using a second router to program in the SSID and PW on the device and it then adopted. I had also created several networks at the request of Ubiquity. Ubiquity support does not seem very structured. I am tempted to just reset to factory defaults and start over with a very flat configuration. The only things I am running today other than my base network and AP's is a guest network and VPN. The problem with starting over, is just the time it will take to do the work and the down time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olichops Posted October 19, 2022 Share Posted October 19, 2022 I would back up the system settings, do a factory reset and see if it resolves the issue. It takes only minutes to do a restore of your system. Make sure you have a local copy of the backup as well as a UI cloud account backup Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonard1105 Posted October 19, 2022 Author Share Posted October 19, 2022 Thank you to everyone who responded. Very much appreciated. Can you recommend the best procedure to reset the UDR? I found a method on the UI site but it must be old because the buttons are not in setting anymore. Should I just hit the reset button on the bottom of the device? Should the AP's be removed from the UDR with the reset button first. It sounds like there might be some specifics that may not be intuitive to me. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonard1105 Posted October 20, 2022 Author Share Posted October 20, 2022 I reset to factory defaults on the UDR and rebuilt the network from scratch. The only defaults I changed was (based on article I read): 1) Enable Multicast Enhancement ( wireless on each SSID) 2) Enable UPnP 3) Disabled Flow Control 4)Disabled IGMP Snooping Rebooted C4 EA5. Still unable to connect Alexa or Google Assistant drivers indicating that the device is still blocking the traffic. Network is simple: Fixed IP WAN, Single default network, 4 SSID's including 1 guest network, L2TP VPN Server enabled. I held off configuring any of the firewall and other security. Suggestions please! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olichops Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 My Unifi and Control4 work fine. Double check the 4Sight subscription, delete and re install the app. Are you using compser HE or Pro? Need to check to see if your drivers are updating and check that all the devices are online in the network tab. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Control4Savant Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 On 10/18/2022 at 5:55 PM, Andrew luecke said: You shouldn't have any issues with the ubiquiti router unless you're doing something explicitly to block the traffic or doing something like IGMP filtering (I use a UDM at home). You could be having issues if you're using mobile internet though, or your ISP is being dodgy. Control4/most installers also can't provide active support for them because Ubiquiti themselves won't (and even the Unifi Elite tech support program was axed). There is no reason why your installer should not be able to assist with Networking though, as I would have thought it's a pre-requisite to be a dealer (at the very least, its certainly expected to have networking skills).. I would say 7/10 dealers of any brand have no idea about networking besides the AV networking brand UI specific setup training they my receive. It has never been any qualifier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonard1105 Posted October 21, 2022 Author Share Posted October 21, 2022 9 hours ago, Olichops said: My Unifi and Control4 work fine. Double check the 4Sight subscription, delete and re install the app. Are you using compser HE or Pro? Need to check to see if your drivers are updating and check that all the devices are online in the network tab. My 4Sight subscription is current. The problem appeared shortly after moving to the UDR. The first thing the installer did was to upgrade to OS3. This forced me to upgrade the phone app, so net both the app and the drivers should be recently upgraded. We have had C4 L2 engaged several times so hopefully software levels are good. L2 has said that the EA5 has not checked in since 8/31 and is showing a connection issue. Any attempt to use a function that requires C4 server access appears to be blocked because the EA5 is not communicating with Control4 servers. Installer has indicated that everything looks good in Composer (I do not have access to that data). I am beginning to think this might be a HW problem? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonard1105 Posted October 21, 2022 Author Share Posted October 21, 2022 9 hours ago, Control4Savant said: I would say 7/10 dealers of any brand have no idea about networking besides the AV networking brand UI specific setup training they my receive. It has never been any qualifier. My dealer lost the limited skill they had and is very open to the fact they do not have the networking skills. Even with C4 L2, they seemed to shy away from anything networking. I offered for them to access my network config and they said they did not know enough about UI to do that. So, this leaves me in a bind: 1) I do not have access, knowledge or experience with Composer/C4, 2)Installer does not have network skills and 3)C4 technical support does not have network skill or willingness to support network issue. Not sure how C4 stays in business with this model. Any thoughts on whether this could be a HW problem? Installer does not have a spare to try? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msgreenf Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 It sounds like network Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonard1105 Posted October 21, 2022 Author Share Posted October 21, 2022 Is there anyone on the forum that can assist me to resolve this. I get the sense that it is the network also, which is why I did a factory reset and rebuilt the network. The network is very straight forward, with nothing I think is unique. I have a static IP WAN, single network, 4 SSID's including Guest, 4 Unifi AP's and the EA5 is wired. I had the same problem with the EA5 plugged directly into the UDR or a Cisco Series 100 switch. Question from the rebuild of the network: Does the EA5 need anything other than a power cycle to reset the network connection? I have heard from the installer that re-registration solves a lot of problems. I asked him to do this remotely, but he said he could not get to the EA5 to do this. I asked if this is something I can do, but have not yet received a response. Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msgreenf Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 You can't register or controller without composer pro. And you can't do it remotely because you're not registered. It's a bit of a catch-22. You should have to re-register it. It should just start checking in once it has a network path. It sounds like with your multiple SSIDs you may have a VLANing issue? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonard1105 Posted October 21, 2022 Author Share Posted October 21, 2022 The EA5 has a wired connection. The only SSID that drives a VLAN is the guest network and this VLAN is built into Unifi. All other SSID's are on the default network. I just tried to remove the guest VLAN and tried to connect and it again failed. So do not think it is the guest network/VLAN. I was very careful to limit any VLAN's as I had read about this problem in the past. My original configuration used several VLAN's but I eliminated in an effort to resolve this problem. I had thought that there might be some remnants of the VLAN's even though I removed them, which is why I did a clean rebuild. Anything you might have on the VLAN issue or work around? Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msgreenf Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 What is your Network topology? Do other wired devices work properly? Are you doing any DNS filtering? Pi hole? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lippavisual Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 Sounds like registration to me. UDM factory defaults should allow connectivity both ways “out of the box”. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonard1105 Posted October 21, 2022 Author Share Posted October 21, 2022 Attached is a crude topology. 5 hours ago, msgreenf said: What is your Network topology? Do other wired devices work properly? Are you doing any DNS filtering? Pi hole? Attached is a crude topology and the UDR topology. Many of the devices in the UDR are still labeled incorrectly. I do not believe there is any DNS filtering and I do not know what Pi hole is so unless it is a default I am not doing that either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RAV Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 Is the EA5 static, dynamic or reserved IP? Is the router dynamic DNS or static DNS? From your picture, ideally you don't want to cascade switches, should have a mother switch that all other switches directly wire off of. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonard1105 Posted October 21, 2022 Author Share Posted October 21, 2022 The EA5 is dynamic. C4 L2 suggest that it be changed. The router is static DNS. I agree with you suggestion regarding switches. At this point, I would need to run new cables. Not sure it is practical at this point. The EA5 was connected to the main rack switch which connects to the UDR. I just tried an experiment plugging the EA5 directly into the UDR without success. So although this is a very good suggestion, and I would like to do it, I do not think it is the issue at hand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyknight Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 Did you end up making a reservation for the main controller? It's never required but at least it tends to be best practise and can speed up connection time. Also, what DNS is the controller getting? If router, that can be part of the issue, even ISP DNS isn't always great try using 8.8.8.8 (Google) 1.1.1.1 (Cloudflare) and/or 8.8.4.4 (Google alternate) - others are available of course, but those seem to work without issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonard1105 Posted October 21, 2022 Author Share Posted October 21, 2022 Do you mean static ip for the EA5. It was static but after C4 L2 changed it to Dynamic on the controller I just changed it to dynamic on the UDR. Either way there is no remote connectivity. As for DNS, they are set at 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 on the UDR. The EA5 has the same plus a third which is the UDR gateway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.