Offline Controller Troubleshooting Guide
If you see Host Communications Offline, or a Red question mark on your Controller icon, you are dealing with an offline controller.
There are a number of reasons a controller might be offline. Following this troubleshooting guide can help narrow down the problem.
Step 1: Pinging the IP Address
Check your controller’s IP address by editing your controller in Hardware Configuration,
and looking at the IP / Port section.
Open up a windows command prompt and try to ping that IP address.
If you do not get a response, your problem is with your network, or the controller may be powered down.
If you are moving from an old PremiSys server, check to make sure that the IDenticard Windows Service and IDenticard Schdeduling Services are stopped on the old PC.
If you do get a response proceed to the next step.
Step 2: Web Config
Open a web browser and connect to your controller via IP address. It can help to include the https:// or http:// before the IP address. Make sure you can reach the controller with your its IP address. Once in, make you Network tab changes as usual. On the Host Comm tab, check Connection Type is set to IP Server. Then change port to 6005, PremiSys default port. Accept these settings at the bottom of the page. Then on the Apply Settings tab, Apply Settings, Reboot.
If you cannot reach this site, but you can ping the IP, you may have another device on your network using that address. Make sure that nothing else is sharing the same IP address as your controller, and reserve the address so that your DHCP does not hand it out.
In some cases, a firewall may cause this issue as well.
Step 3: Telnet the Port
In some cases, a firewall may cause this issue as well. Telnet the port to make sure 6005 is not blocked.
Enable the telnet client using Turn Windows Features On or Off.
The default port PremiSys uses to communicate to controllers is 6005.
Stop the IDenticard Windows Service if it is running
Open a command prompt and type telnet [IP Address of Controller] 6005
If you get a response like this, check to see if the port is being blocked by your network or local firewall.
You will see a blank screen with a flashing cursor if it is able to connect.
Step 4: Controller Restart
Sometimes a controller can be brought back online by simply power cycling or pressing the reset switch on the board. If this brings the board online there is a possibility upgrading your firmware may prevent this in the future.
Step 5: Panel Commands
If you have tried all the above steps the last thing you can try is to refresh your panel commands files.
To do this, first close the PremiSys application. Then stop the IDenticard Windows Service and IDenticard Scheduling Service in Windows. Then go to C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ and find the files named PanelCommands.xml and PanelCommands.xsl. Make note of the size of these 2 files. Select both of these files and delete them. Before starting services, log into web config and reboot the controller in there on the Apply Settings tab. Finally, start both IDenticard services back up.
If you only find one PanelCommands files generates, that means that your channel name in PremiSys does not match your server’s computer name or IP address. You can fix that in PremiSys by editing your channel name and changing the Computer Name and doing the Panel Commands procedure again.
If both PanelCommands files regenerate wait until they are about the size, they were before logging into PremiSys again. After logging in, click on the Maintenance button at the top and click on Reset Controller. Close the Maintenance window and download the controller like you normally would.
Step 6: Contact Tech Support
If you still cannot get host communication, please contact tech support for further troubleshooting.
