MultiChannel not connecting issue

[Tadghostal]

I am having an issue with the multichannel feature for the Pro+ version of Prepar3d, basically yesterday I set it up for the first time and it worked as it should, but today the client instance of Prepar3d just sits at the "trying to find simulation for autostart" message box and never connects to the host version. I am using the same configs I used yesterday, which are the same as in the multichannel setup guide except for the names of the machines have been changed. The computers we are using are currently going through a network revamp, so it is possible that that might have something to do with the problems I am seeing today, but the two computers are able to ping each other and connect via VNC without an issue.

Does anyone know what protocol multichannel uses for communication? Maybe it has something to do with that being disabled on one of the machines.

Any help or advice would be appreciated.

[neilhewitt]

If you're using the machine names in the config files rather than IP addresses, and the machine names have changed, then it might be a DNS resolution error. If you bring up a command prompt on the client machine and do PING <host machine name> does it resolve an IP address (you said you can ping but are you pinging with the name or IP)? And vice-versa?

If you're using the names are you using fully-qualified names (including any domain suffix) or just the short name? I have found problems resolving names in some apps when using the short name without a suffix.

If the machines are getting their IPs via DHCP then you might try giving the machines static IP addresses and then using the IP address rather than the name in the config files. This avoids the whole name resolution issue.

Not sure what port / protocol is used for MC but check that Prepar3d.exe is allowed through the firewall on both machines - although if it used to work it's unlikely to be a firewall problem. Based on what you've written name resolution seems like the likely culprit to me.

[Tadghostal]

I am using short names in the multichannel, I didn't know IP addresses were allowed for that.

For the pinging I did just use the IP's of the 2 machines. I will give it a test today and see if either I can resolve the short names at the command prompt or if changing to IP addresses in the multichannel configs fixes things. The network we are using is all statically configured so I won't have an issue of the IP's changing.

Thanks for the help, I will let you know how it turns out.

[Tadghostal]

Okay, it didn't end up being a name resolving issue, what had happened was one of the other engineers here had installed a virtual box on the client computer, for some reason Prepar3d decided to bind to the virtual network adapter instead of the real adapter, so all the traffic was being diverted there. I got it to work by disabling the virtual adapter before I started Prepar3d, after it had started I was able to enable the adapter again with no issues.

I will try to either find a way to make sure Prepar3d only uses the correct adapter or setup a route that makes sure the traffic gets sent out on the right adapter.

[neilhewitt]

Ah, that makes sense. Did the TAP get set up as the default gateway? That would explain it.

You should be able to config things so it all works with the virtual adapter in place, but it's been a while since the days I could hand-edit the routing table :-)

Hope you get it sorted soon!