Having major Apex Lite issues

[mikeatjac]

Hey guys... reeeeaaaallly need some help with this thing and hoping there are some thoughts on what to do.

Okay, so my dad and I (I'm writing on his RC account right now) both bought Apex lite systems back in August. I got mine running and available remotely right away. Sure it took some time, but thats why I got it. Dad was never able to get it setup remotely with ATT Uverse, but got it to do everything else.

Fast forward to last night, I'm in town and figure "what the heck I can get it online... I've had to program mine to do it twice and its not that bad."

Look up the new guide, follow the directions for Uverse and for five minutes I have his iPhone and the apex talking... then things go south.

Not sure what happened but we stopped being able to see it remotely. I did a restart by going to System-net setup-restart and the display never came back. I've done this several times on my unit without an issue... we waited ten minutes and the display never started back up and you couldnt access it online. So... We pulled the power on the base unit, waited 15 or so seconds and plugged it back in.

When the system came back online, the display was all messed up. It was showing some off center numbers for the temp and pH which were something like 1.3 and 1.80 but off center. I got it to a home display and it said it was in Test Mode 08. We still werent able to see it via the ethernet or remotely to do anything with it. It wasnt letting us do any programming or anything and seemed like it had lost all of its programming. So, since we had lost the programming anyways and it was acting funny, we did an initialize all memory. ... STILL not able to see the webpage on the home network, but we were able to program it to at least run the tank.

The display is super dark now, even after adjusting the settings. I can see that a computer is active on the network at the assigned address, but I cant get to it as the internet will time out. (interestingly though... I CAN access it through his iPhone and turn things off and on intermittently?!?!).

We've tried everything I can think of to get to his unit. Its hard wired to the internet, the settings are all there...

HELP!

TIA

 

[mikeatjac]

OK, left the house and I can see the Apex on my iPhone. But still not able to on my local system. If I turn off the wifi option on my iPhone at my house I can see aqua notes.

I must have some local setting wrong but all my addresses match per network troubling shooting in the manual.

Also the display is dark.

 

[RussM]

Reload the firmware and web pages.

 

[aquamanic]

Have you changed the port on the Apex. If so, you have to use that at the end of the IP address, even when at home.

For example, from DynDNS
myapex.homedns.com:3350

At home:
192.168.1.50:3350

 

[mikeatjac]

I'll try reloading the firmware and webpages (will I lose the programming if I do that?). I guess, before i get ahead of myself, how can i update the firmware if I cant even see the apex on my system?

I have added the port on the end without any luck... Just get "404 Not Found", but to the first part of your question, no I didnt change the port. I left it at the standard 80.

 

[RussM]

404 Not Found from browser and AquaNotes app shows status OK? Definitely... update the web pages; preferable both firmware then web pages.

 

[RussM]

No, you should not lose the programming.

 

[mikeatjac]

Okay, thanks for all the suggestions/help guys. Update time:

I upgraded the firmware and the webpages. Now I can see the apex on my home network.

Some odd quirks I still cant figure out:
- cant connect to it using my iPhone as long as I'm on the home network. As soon as I turn off Wifi I can see it remotely.
- the display is dark and wont adjust to a brighter screen. You cant see it in the dark only in the sun when the contrast becomes more apparent. It was doing this before, but then one time I put it down and all of a sudden it got bright again.

 

[RussM]

- cant connect to it using my iPhone as long as I'm on the home network. As soon as I turn off Wifi I can see it remotely.

Some routers do not support a capability called NAT loopback, which permits a device on the local network to access another local device using an external URL. In plain English: with some routers, you can't use use your DynDNS name to get to the Apex while you are on the WiFi local network. This is probably the problem.

You have 2 options..

- get a new router

- In the iPhone app, create a second controller profile using the actual IP address of the Apex, i.e 192.168.1.50, and the real http port of the Apex.

One profile will work only when in cellular data mode, the other will only work when on your home WiFi.

 

[mikeatjac]

Works, thanks so much.

 

[RussM]

:bounce3:

Aw... you took the easy way out. If it were me, I'd be making a speed run to the nearest Best Buy to get a new geek toy

 

[mikeatjac]

I would too but I am not sure if I am going to stay on DSL. Thanks so much for the help.