Folding Client Remote Access Stuck at Connecting

[Dissitesuxba11s]

I got a second computer going in the basement, and I'm trying to add it to my main folding computer but the status is stuck at connecting. I thought I did everything correct, but I guess not. I even allowed the port access through my firewall on both system, I think. I'm not really that familiar with what parameters someone needs to diagnose the problem, so let me know what you need to assist.

 

Any help is appreciated.

 

[Opencircuit74]

Is the client running? The control (what you have there) won’t connect if it’s not. It could also be a bug, mine’s stuck on “updating” but it’s running fine.

[Dissitesuxba11s]

3 minutes ago, Opencircuit74 said:

Is the client running? The control (what you have there) won’t connect if it’s not. It could also be a bug, mine’s stuck on “updating” but it’s running fine.

Yup, it's running, the basement computer is just locked but I set it so that it doesn't go to sleep. I also double checked if Windows being locked did anything but seems that it wasn't the issue.

[Gorgon]

Do you have the local subnet added to both the allow remote access fields and have you stopped and started the folding or rebooted since?

 

I find I have to add:

 

127.0.0.1 192.168.1.0/24 (or whatever your home lan is)

 

to both then for windows usually just rebooting fixes it.

 

You can test the connectivity by telnetting to the port the control runs on:

 

telnet <ip of remote host> 36330

[Dissitesuxba11s]

3 minutes ago, Gorgon said:

Do you have the local subnet added to both the allow remote access fields and have you stopped and started the folding or rebooted since?

 

I find I have to add:

 

127.0.0.1 192.168.1.0/24 (or whatever your home lan is)

 

to both then for windows usually just rebooting fixes it.

I set the IP addresses like you showed but just the static IP of the basement computer. Let me change it to a range "0/200" and restart Windows on both systems. I'll be back shortly.

 

5 minutes ago, Gorgon said:

You can test the connectivity by telnetting to the port the control runs on:

 

telnet <ip of remote host> 36330

Will try this after restart.

[Gorgon]

The client on the remote (basement) computer has to have the IP of the system your running the advanced control on.

 

0/200?

 

a mask on the FAHclient should be either expressed as a subnet mask (/255.255.255.0 typically for a Class C used in most home routers) or in Classles Interdomain Routing (CIDR) notation (/24) which is the number of bits set.

[Gorgon]

14 minutes ago, Dissitesuxba11s said:

I set the IP addresses like you showed but just the static IP of the basement computer. Let me change it to a range "0/200" and restart Windows on both systems. I'll be back shortly.

 

Will try this after restart.

The nice thing is once you get remote access setup you can start and stop folding remotely and change the remote end's folding config.

[Dissitesuxba11s]

2 minutes ago, Gorgon said:

0/200?

So the IP address of the remote system is, and I assume that that is just the IPv4 address, "192.168.1.157" which is why I put in a range of 0-200.

 

Does it matter that the remote system is on 5GHz wifi while the control is on wired ethernet?

[Gorgon]

1 minute ago, Dissitesuxba11s said:

So the IP address of the remote system is, and I assume that that is just the IPv4 address, "192.168.1.157" which is why I put in a range of 0-200.

 

Does it matter that the remote system is on 5GHz wifi while the control is on wired ethernet?

As long as they're on the same network it shouldnt matter. I have two laptops on wifi and can control them with the advanced client no problem.

 

I'm not sure if the config file accepts a range. It might but I know CIDR notation works so:

 

"127.0.0.1 192.168.1.0/24" should work. It's a space separated list. 127.0.0.1 means access from the host itself (this is a "loopback" or local host address")

 

192.168.1.0/24 means allow hosts in the range 192.168.1.0 - 192.168.1.255

 

Did you try the telnet command or a ping?

[Gorgon]

9 minutes ago, Dissitesuxba11s said:

So the IP address of the remote system is, and I assume that that is just the IPv4 address, "192.168.1.157" which is why I put in a range of 0-200.

 

Does it matter that the remote system is on 5GHz wifi while the control is on wired ethernet?

ranges will apparently work so "192.168.1.1-192.168.1.200" for example, but each time you change the allowed ranges for remote and web control you must restart the fahclient (not just the local advanced control on the remote machine).

 

This is really poorly documented in the Folding at Home documentation.

[Dissitesuxba11s]

2 minutes ago, Gorgon said:

ranges will apparently work so "192.168.1.1-192.168.1.200" for example, but each time you change the allowed ranges for remote and web control you must restart the fahclient (not just the local advanced control on the remote machine).

 

This is really poorly documented in the Folding at Home documentation.

I just changed it to 0/24 but can change to back to encompass the 0-200 range.

9 minutes ago, Gorgon said:

Did you try the telnet command or a ping?

I did try it but I got a connection failed response.

[Gorgon]

1 minute ago, Dissitesuxba11s said:

I just changed it to 0/24 but can change to back to encompass the 0-200 range.

I did try it but I got a connection failed response.

Just leave it at /24 unless you dont trusts the hosts on your lan in the 192.168.1.201 - .254 range

 

Did you restart the fahclient? (There is a way to just restart it from the command line but I'm at work and dont have access to my systems)

[Dissitesuxba11s]

5 minutes ago, Gorgon said:

Just leave it at /24 unless you dont trusts the hosts on your lan in the 192.168.1.201 - .254 range

Will do.

5 minutes ago, Gorgon said:

Did you restart the fahclient? (There is a way to just restart it from the command line but I'm at work and dont have access to my systems)

Yes, every time I make a change, I pause the folding and restart the client. Thank you for helping me out while at work.

 

Just for kicks, I tried to telnet from the remote PC to the control, and for some reason that connects, while the opposite gives the previously stated error.

[Gorgon]

1 minute ago, Dissitesuxba11s said:

Will do.

Yes, every time I make a change, I pause the folding and restart the client. Thank you for helping me out while at work.

 

Just for kicks, I tried to telnet from the remote PC to the control, and for some reason that connects, while the opposite gives the previously stated error.

How are you restarting the client? Generally when you restart the client it will kill the current folding job and when it restarts it will resume from the last checkpoint. If you do this too many times it will dump the Work Unit (WU) and you will lose all the work done on that WU.

 

I've been looking at the FAHclient documentation to try and figure out how you can restart the FAHclient from the windows command line but haven't found it yet.

[Dissitesuxba11s]

2 minutes ago, Gorgon said:

How are you restarting the client? Generally when you restart the client it will kill the current folding job and when it restarts it will resume from the last checkpoint. If you do this too many times it will dump the Work Unit (WU) and you will lose all the work done on that WU.

 

I've been looking at the FAHclient documentation to try and figure out how you can restart the FAHclient from the windows command line but haven't found it yet.

I restart by pressing Pause and closing out of the Advanced Client.

 

So it looks like I can remote access from the basement computer to the control computer, but I want it the other way around 

[Gorgon]

Just now, Dissitesuxba11s said:

I restart by pressing Pause and closing out of the Advanced Client.

 

So it looks like I can remote access from the basement computer to the control computer, but I want it the other way around 

Closing the Advanced Client on the Remote Computer does NOT restart the client.

 

There are two components:

 

The folding client itself:

C:\Program Files (x86)\FAHClient\FAHClient.exe

 

and the Advanced Control:

FAHControl.exe

 

The client does all the heavy lifting and FAHControl is just an app that is written in Python that connects to the client on port 36330

 

FAHClient is usually installed to run when you login and you either have to kill the task in task manager (ugly) or issue a telnet command to tell it to reload.

 

Hang on a bit and I'll see if I can figure out how to restart it without losing tooh much work.

 

[Gorgon]

OK,

 

When you install Folding at home it puts an icon in the taskbar

 

1. Make a change to the config file

2. Pause folding

3. You have to right-click on the icon in the taskbar and select "Quit" this will kill the FAHclient

4. Click on the "Folding@home" Icon in FAHClient in Programs on your Start Menu - this will launch the FAHclient with the new config and also lauch the web client in a browser.

Hopefully it will resume the last job.

 

Normally I just reboot but if you're a few hours in to a WU you can lose points and I've never been able to figure out when or why it resumes some jobs and other times dumps then and starts a new one.

 

I think I need to play with it and post a guide

[Dissitesuxba11s]

@Gorgon I actually found out what the issue was: some of the inbound rules for "fahclient" in the firewall had the Action in General settings set to "Allow the connection of it is secure." Changing them to "Allow the connection" let me connect successfully 

 

Either way, thank you for bearing with me and helping me diagnose the problem. Now I don't have to go down two floors to see how the basement PC is doing.

 

EDIT: I feel bad that my post is the solution.

[Gorgon]

Awesome - No reboot required!

 

I was going to mention the firewall but usually (Windows 10) the first time you fire up the client (which is actually the server) it prompts you to allow access.

[Dissitesuxba11s]

4 minutes ago, Gorgon said:

Awesome - No reboot required!

 

I was going to mention the firewall but usually (Windows 10) the first time you fire up the client (which is actually the server) it prompts you to allow access.

That is interesting. When I installed it on the remote PC yesterday, I did allow access. Weird, but I'm glad that it's working now.

[Gorgon]

It is not as polished a product as we're used to but then I only know of one dedicated programmer working on the software, likely part time, compared to a team of programmers used for most applications. They also have to get something that works across Windows, Mac OS X and Linux which is a tall order.

[Dissitesuxba11s]

1 minute ago, Gorgon said:

It is not as polished a product as we're used to but then I only know of one dedicated programmer working on the software, likely part time, compared to a team of programmers used for most applications. They also have to get something that works across Windows, Mac OS X and Linux which is a tall order.

Oh dang, now that is actually even more impressive that it's cross compatible between OS's. I guess it was just a small hiccup on me end.