Router Issues...I THINK???

Vince,

How do you fix the problem?

Make sure the router is plugged into a battery backup.

When the connection goes down, can all of the machines still connect to the Internet?

Did you replace the router with the same make/model?

If both registers go down at the same time, then the issue is the back office computer, maybe the network card in/on it, the network cable from the back office to the router or the router itself.

If both registers go done, but can still access the Internet, then the issue isn't the router.

Try something simple first, while all machines are out of all programs, unplug and then plug the network cable on the back office computer. Has seen issues with a dirty cable connection, especially in humid climates, usually the fall and beginning of summer. May have to go to Radio Shack and get some electrical contact cleaner to spray on them. About $8.

The registers aren't going to sleep, are they? Check your power management settings in the control panel and for your network connection--the defaults will turn off your network connection to save power, resulting in a lost connection.

GL, Tom

Jeff, Thanks for the response. As for the router, it is different I had a linksys, now it's a d-link. They are all plugged into battery back-ups, so there should not be an issue there. I'm not sure if anything can connect to the internet or not, I was not here when the machines went down. Both machines did go down at exactly the same time...you say this could be a network card issue? If I'm not mistaken the network card came with the computer, and is an internal card...so I can't do much with that, at least I don't think so. As for cleaning it, how would I go about doing that? By the way Jeff, everyone else thank you for all of the help I apprecaite it :)

If both machines lost their connection at the same time, the problem is likely with the back office machine. As I mentioned in my previous post, if you're not running a true server OS, you need to check your power management settings for both the system and the NIC.

Tom

"V> Jeff,

TT has a very good point.

Here are some other points of interest. mostly troubleshooting and router setup/loosing your lease etc...

Vince,

Network card or cable. The key is the Internet availability. If they are down but still have Internet, its the backoffice machine or the cable. If no Internet, its a router issue.

Again, how do _you_ fix the problem to get it working again. Just turn off the machines? The router? Close the doors and come back the next day? ;-)

To quickly clean the cable, just unplug it and re-plug it in. Its not a real fix, it just dislodges any dirt or grime that may be on it. If the machines start working again, without doing anything else, go down to RadioShack and get a can of Electrical Contact Cleaner or if you have an auto parts store closer, get Distributor Cleaner. Both cost about $8 a can,

After getting the cleaner, turn off all machines, disconnect the network cable and spray the cleaner on the cable end and the socket on the computer. No more than a 2 second spray. Let it dry for about 30 seconds, plug the cable back in and move to the next machine. If you have any wall connects, do the same to them. Basically what you want to do is to spray it on each network cable connection in the store.

It sounds like this is occurring randomly, right? So its probably not a machine or network card going to sleep issue.

Guys...it actually happened again today, but only to register #1 not both...all that the cashier does is click on the POS button, and MS POS starts up again...nothing really happens to anything else, he still has access to the internet, because our CC transactions are through RMS. So to answer your question Jeff...we don't just shut down and come back the next day...anymore bright ideas? :)~

P.S. Have not yet tried the cleaner idea...working on it.

so you are loosing your databse connection and not the network connection?

Okay, yes root...although the reason I think I stated that it was the network was because up until yesterday both the computers would be going out at the same time...yesterday was the first time that only one went down...make sence? But we never did have to shut down, all they would do is click the MS POS Icon, and back in business...can you suggest a next step for me to look into?

Usually when you loose the sql connection you will get a dialog box on the client machine telling you the SQL error number and details. Being you can re-connect straight away I would assume that the SQL server (msde) service is still available (running) on the office machine. I would still check the office machine when you loose the connection to make sure the SQL service is still running. There is a setting in the SQL itself to have it automatically re-start if it kills so it can be tricky.

try the basics first: You may want to start by running the client network utility on both of the POS registers. Make sure TCP/IP is listed. I recall that MS suggests Mulitprotocol as well (maybe for a mixed OS environment) but we also have Named Pipes listed. Named pipes is not as fast or smooth as TCP/IP.

Run the administrator application on each of the client machines and make sure you are connecting to the Store Operations database using the IP address of the office machine rather than the machine name.

Sorry...I'm not familiar with how to make sure that I am connected to SO database using IP adress rather than the machine name...is this pretty easy to figure out?

On each client machine (register) log-on as an administrator and start the SO Administrator program and go to File | Configuration. There will be a field for Server Name on the Database tab. You will want to enter the IP address of the machine the database is located on instead of the name. Then test database connection..

If you do not know the IP address of database machine, go to that machine click Start | Run then type cmd then OK. In the new window type ipconfig and hit enter. This will display the IP info for that machine.

You must have static IP on each machine in order for this to be reliable.

I will give this a try...thank you root, and everyone else :)