MP1 Advantage: parts of MP1 "call home" (or somewhere else) (1 Viewer)

[Pat Clark]

I recently got cell service with unlimited wi-fi tethering. I was worried because it says tethering will turn itself off after a few minutes of no activity. (I can't find out what a "few minutes" means.)

But, I have found that while MP1 is running, tethering stays active and does not turn itself off. When MP1 is not running, tethering does turn itself off. Apparently, MP1 or some plugin accesses the internet often enough to keep the tethering alive. This is saving me big bucks, since I can cancel my slow DSL service and land-line.

So, my question is what parts of MP do I need to keep active to assure that this continues?

[Edit: This is for Windows 8.1 -- I wrote a little bat file that pings 8.8.8.8 every 2 minutes. This keeps the tethering alive, but windows apparently will not let such a bat file run indefinitely. After some long time, it gets cancelled and the tethering dies unless MP1 is running.]

 

[mm1352000]

MP probably only accesses the internet randomly to get media information, guide data etc. There's nothing built in that intentionally calls home. My advice would be to focus on getting a solution that's external to MediaPortal. For example, if your bat file can't run continuously, have Windows schedule it to run every 2 minutes.

 

[Pat Clark]

I'll try that when I get access again. Right now we're stable because wife is monopolizing that machine -- with MP of course.

I suppose task scheduler will be able to run ping directly.

 

[mm1352000]

I suppose task scheduler will be able to run ping directly.

I'm not familiar with W8/8.1, but I would have thought you'd have to schedule a bat script that does the ping internally.

 

[Pat Clark]

A task scheduler task I created that executed ping directly worked, but flashed a command prompt up for a few milliseconds -- it also "broke through" onto the MP full screen display. Unacceptable, of course.

So I ended up executing a run hidden program every 5 minutes to run the ping command. No .bat file -- all was done inside task scheduler, given that I had a run hidden program to use. (There are many available.)

It's hard to tell if its running or if it will keep tethering alive. Time will tell.

[Edit: It runs, but does not keep tethering alive.]

 

[resa]

i can't get all the detailed circumstances and setup descriptions out of this thread that are needed for the bulls-eye solution, but maybe i can give some hints:

the fact that mp keeps tethering up is maybe simply founded on keeping the network interface awake enough due to tv-service or mp-client running and waiting for client/server activities... thinking about green ethernet functionalities, which are activated by default...if there is no activity for the network interface, the port speeds down and finally entering a state comparable with shutting down the machine and having the network interface waiting for MagicPackt or Patterns to perform WoL ... meaning... the interface is waiting for serious activity to leave the energy-savings i.e. user requests an connection or router is forwarding an incoming connection etc. to put it simple here: all the managment packets and broadcasts like ICMP, ARP etc. on the network are ignored or only basicily handled... in another manner this applies also on wlan interfaces...

try playing around with a) the energy management in windows, also the deeper advanced settings there and b) the advanced network-adapter settings on driver level, reachable from within the network-center and in the the device manager as well... try to prevent your network interface appearing inactive to the tethering-device...

next thing... ping is not suitable to keep anything alive for more than miliseconds... even more... ping is only ICMP traffic, meaning network management traffic that is frequently and constantly exhcnaged between all the network devices on lan/wan for several reasons... ping is not considered to be important like traffic that carries real application-data... no serious connection will be established... to compare the difference... stop your internet-activity for some minutes and open cmd, then ping an not so common websites... i.e. asus.com .... and enter "netstat - a" shortly after the ping... you will see a list with open connections and most of them are internal connections on the machine itself... now open an browser, enter the same url here and again type "netstat -a" into cmd.... now you will see a much longer list with opened connections to external targets, at least one of them are server(s) from asus, others are servers from google, facebook, twitter, advertising companys etc. ... you can repeat the netstat -a for some time and you will notice, these connections/ports are traced as active for a quite long time ... now you have seen real network activity, considered as valuable traffic that cant be ignored by any tethering-device or its firm/software...

keep in mind, that mobile networks have only very limited network-ressources to connect the clients and therefore they disconnecting inactive clients EXTRA-ASAP in order to set the network free for other clients... you can call it sort of client-balancing.... )

BTW... pinging the google dns servers constantly/frequently is not really a great idea (but do so on other servers is even an much worser idea ) ... you are simulating an classic DDos -Attack with such an behaviour

i recommend to do some real traffic for keeping things like mobile network-connections and your tethering up... i.e. you can open an ftp-connection to a tiny webspace etc. and refresh directory listing or overwrite a small txt frequently... an basic commandline ftp-client comes with windows and can be used in bats also... or use telnet... or simply start some minimized social-network or chat-thingies... etc. etc. ... but after all, don't rely on having the same IP for long or having an active or funtioning/usuable connection always and for ever on mobile networks with this at all...

to be honest... personally i never would give up the physical internet-connection, no matter how slow it is... wireless thingies have the habit for malfunctioning especially in that moments they urgently needed

best regards and good luck