LRTimelapse Forum

Hi

Have followed the destructions and believe I've successfully updated the firmware on the TPlink 3040 v2.

But trying to connect from my android phone (HTC 1x) I've tried

* search for USB camera (didn't think that would work, but in desperation after other options didn't work!)
* Start server - it says it's listening on 192.168.1.73
* Connect to openwrt/linux - trying connecting on 192.168.1.73 gives "No DSLR found on 192.168.1.73"
* Connect to openwrt/linux - trying connecting on 192.168.1.1 gives "Unable to connect - IO exception host 192.168.1.1"

Literally heading off to the hills to try and capture some more TL (router only just arrived in time!)

Any ideas on what's going wrong? (although please no video links as I can't view them on the mountainside with just mobile phone connection to the internet!)

Thanks in advance for any help

Quote:believe I've successfully updated the firmware

Seriously, what do you expect from us now?

Does your phone connect properly to the Wifi? What IP does your Phone get assigned? You can try to manually request an IP from the router, incase you messed something up with the DHCP Server Settings?

(2013-12-09, 15:43)saw0 Wrote: [ -> ]

Quote:believe I've successfully updated the firmware

Seriously, what do you expect from us now?

Does your phone connect properly to the Wifi? What IP does your Phone get assigned? You can try to manually request an IP from the router, incase you messed something up with the DHCP Server Settings?

Ok, having re-read my first post, apologies if I jumped straight into the topic - was posting in a bit more haste than ideal.

But you're getting my original immediate response first...

[Do you have to be so condescending to someone trying this very new technology out for the first time?! I have never connected a camera by wifi to my phone, sorry if it seems so painfully simple to you that no-one should have any insovable issues with it!

We aren't all IT specialists, and even if we have some IT experience it's probably not with routers etc...

Rant over.]

I'm trying to connect my camera to my phone with the TPLink router to use DSLR Dashboard. And I'm struggling at about the second step - I've probably missed something obvious, but I'm a newbie at this router stuff and can't see what I could have missed...

All I was trying to ask was that if someone else has had the same issue, and found a way to solve it, please could they share it.

Or if someone is sufficiently clued up with this sort of thing that they know there are some obvious things that a newbie to this sort of way of controlling the camera may not have a clue they need to do to make it work, please could you also share those.

I am posting in hope not expectation. It may be that no-one has had the specific issue I've had. Or that they don't have an easy answer. But if they have, it would help enormously as I have no idea where to go next with this.

And the reason I said "I believe I've successfully updated the router software" (to openwrt) is that is one of the first things the video (which I found on the forum) about how to set up the tplink connection said you needed to do. So I was trying to say "I think I've done that bit OK" (there wasn't really anything else I could have done at that stage, according to practice and the video). But having got to the stage where you connect via your phone, it doesn't connect. And I'm out of ideas why.

And as other folks have been ranted at for not giving error codes etc, I gave as much info as I could.

Hopefully there are some more friendly folks out there who are more clued up than me and understand that we can't all mind-read the exact way the gurus would like questions to be asked!

Hey, please don't get me wrong - apologies if I sounded rude.

I just meant we cannot be sure what is wrong when information is little and vague

You did not write however that you watched my Videotutorial and followed it step-by-step. This makes it more likely everything is properly configured if you followed along the steps.

So, what you want to check first:

Does your phone get a stable connection to the router?

If you connect to the TPLink, it should first say something like "connecting", then "getting IP adress" and then finally stay at "connected"

If this works, it is very unlikely the DHCP-Routersettings are messed up.

(2013-12-09, 16:18)saw0 Wrote: [ -> ]Hey, please don't get me wrong - apologies if I sounded rude.

I just meant we cannot be sure what is wrong when information is little and vague

Thanks, it did come across a bit like one of those yellow hot flickery things ;-) But in fairness, I realise I probably didn't really explain things that well in the intiial post either...

(2013-12-09, 16:18)saw0 Wrote: [ -> ]You did not write however that you watched my Videotutorial and followed it step-by-step. This makes it more likely everything is properly configured if you followed along the steps.

So, what you want to check first:

Does your phone get a stable connection to the router?

If you connect to the TPLink, it should first say something like "connecting", then "getting IP adress" and then finally stay at "connected"

If this works, it is very unlikely the DHCP-Routersettings are messed up.

Good to know And thanks for your video link - it was really useful, and my comment wasn't meant to be anti-video - just can't access videos of any sort again til either I'm back at base or find a strong wifi connection elsewhere! (mobile phone internet is a bit rubbish, but better than nowt!) And having only found yours and Gunther's videos as explanation for getting connected needed to say I need help in a different format to a video link ;-)

As I mentioned I'm a bit of a total noob at this (so please bear with me when I miss the blatently obvious in front of me!)

But DSLR Dashboard now seems to be doing something different!

It may be I completely missed this before, but I can now see something that says "Connected DSLR" at the top of the screen in blue type. (Sorry can't do a screen shot)

Which may have got me past the initial problem (although it still has buttons under "USB" "Search for USB camera" and 3 buttons under "Network" "start server", "Connect to OpenWRT/Linux" "Connect to WU-1a/b" and pressing these gave the original 3 responses in my original post - didn't bother with the WU-1a/b one as that's Nikon internal wifi only iirc...) So fingers crossed on that

However, I can't see what to do next as I don't appear to have any control over the camera. Downloaded Dmitri Popov's manual from the kindle store before I left, so will read tonight and see if that explains things more.

Ta anyhow, and hopefully will only be back later to say what I'm now getting wrong with this (in case it helps others going down the same path!) rather than still struggling and asking more noobie qs ;-)

It would really help if you would answer the question about the WIFI Connection on the phone. Does it get a stable IP Adress or does it hang and repeat the authentification all over again?

At the moment, we do not even now whether your Router is properly configured or it is something with the Android or with the App.

I hope we'll get this sorted out so you enjoy your Timelapses

(2013-12-09, 20:16)saw0 Wrote: [ -> ]It would really help if you would answer the question about the WIFI Connection on the phone. Does it get a stable IP Adress or does it hang and repeat the authentification all over again?

At the moment, we do not even now whether your Router is properly configured or it is something with the Android or with the App.

I'm not entirely sure how to check this, but I suspect not as it hasn't ever said "getting IP address", but instead asks me to enter an IP address.

I have now achieved a connection once on 192.168.1.1 - but only after trying an alternative 168.192.1.177 (which appeared to be mentioned in the openwrt admin panel) after failing on 192.168.1.1 initially. 192.168.1.177 also failed, but the first time after trying this 192.168.1.1 did briefly connect to my camera. Wouldn't give control with liveview at any time, but did appear to take a picture and could change shutter speed.

Unfortunately the app then crashed and since then I've not been able to reconnect at all. Instead it comes back with the error "Unable to connect - IO exception host 192.168.1.1" as I first mentioned. Which kind of suggests it can't see the router?

One thing I can rule out now, is that I now have the wifi ESSID setup - which I'd missed the first time round.

One other thing - no idea if it's a seperate issue or a symptom of the first - but (in case it's related) when trying to switch the camera off (to restart it) with the tplink still plugged in, it hangs forever, saying recording image 1 of 1.

Sadly still utterly baffled over why it doesn't connect now - but networking tech always seems to me to be very difficult and newbie-unfriendly compared to almost anything else!

(2013-12-09, 20:16)saw0 Wrote: [ -> ]I hope we'll get this sorted out so you enjoy your Timelapses

But many thanks for the help saw0 - was looking forward to this helping me get some holy grail and starry night shots while the cams nicely wrapped up against possible stormy weather and I'm nicely wrapped up inside a nearby tent...

Fingers crossed it's still something daft I've missed that's easy to spot by someone who knows what they're doing with this

(PS If I'm slow to reply, I may not have mobile signal, but all replies much appreciated and will be read as soon as I have connection again )

Quote:I'm not entirely sure how to check this, but I suspect not as it hasn't ever said "getting IP address", but instead asks me to enter an IP address.

It has nothing to do with the App, but rather with our phone. Go to the settings (Wifi/Networks) and check the State of your connection to the router. So it has to do with Android, rather than the DSLRDashboard

This must always be the first step of bugtracking, because if the phone does not manage to get a proper connection to the TPLink, you can mess with the app however you like, it cannot work.

Quote:"Unable to connect - IO exception host 192.168.1.1" as I first mentioned. Which kind of suggests it can't see the router?

This can be of mainly two reasons:

It does not recognize the router, as you said.

The router fails to route the camera through, mainly because of a wrong FW Version or so. I think this is not applicable in your case, as you (hopefully) installed the right version.

(2013-12-10, 11:45)saw0 Wrote: [ -> ]

Quote:I'm not entirelyeut I suspect not as it hasn't ever said "getting IP address", but instead asks me to enter an IP address.

...Check the State of your connection to the router. So it has to do with Android, rather than the DSLRDashboard

Done, and status = connected.
Well, it is as long as I'm not also trying to use mobile Internet too! But I guess that's a fair excuse

(2013-12-10, 11:45)saw0 Wrote: [ -> ]

Quote:"Unable to connect - IO exception host 192.168.1.1" as I first mentioned. Which kind of suggests it can't see the router?

This can be of mainly two reasons:

It does not recognize the router, as you said.

The router fails to route the camera through, mainly because of a wrong FW Version or so. I think this is not applicable in your case, as you (hopefully) installed the right version.

I was very careful about downloading v2 of the FW as my router has the 3way switch... (Thanks for that tip in the video) So if that's only reason it wouldn't route my cam then sounds like that's not the reason.

If its of any help with diagnosis, I noticed the router has 3 out of 4 green lights lit. Which i guess are power, WiFi transmit and camera connected?

And then of course I discovered that for whatever reason it will connect today...
(without doing anything different. Very odd. Only thing i can think of is that I'm up a mountain now so there's no possibility of any other wifi etc interfering with it... Well, nothing other than the remote controller (intervalometer) of the first cam I set going before looking at this again... )

Only it doesn't run for long...

Now the app seems to crash very soon after entering live view.
(I'm very unsure that its actually liveview crashing it.... But it could be, and stupidly I didn't think to check whether it crashed without trying to enter LV at the time... Will try that next time - but both cams now occupied with intervalometers running night-time TL.)

Slowly beginning to get my head around a few things with this, but it still seems a very dark art that's not easy to get to grips with!

Many thanks for your patience with my fumblings on trying to make this work, saw0, and also many apols my replies are probably going to be coming once a day (& only when I have signal, as moving 25kg+ of kit on foot around a mountain then setting up TL takes a bit of time!)

But fingers crossed I can be running one cam from the comfort of a LV screen on my phone in my tent before I head back to base again

Just been looking at the other thread about failing to connect to DSLRDashboard.

It seems that if trying to use the router in a place where other wifi signals may exist, it might need the IP addy to be something other than 192.168.1.1

So possibly my router's failure to connect previously was someone else's wifi getting tangled with it (was in an urban area last night and day before, so entirely possible...) Not sure how to do that yet, but suspect I need a laptop to do that... Which is back at base... (On an ipadmini/phone while away) Doh!

Although that probably doesn't explain the app crashing...?