When the Ethernet communications suddenly stop working on a biometric hand reader, there is the set of questions to ask the customer to start the troubleshooting process.  They are detail oriented so be sure to have their IT person as well as the application’s admin to answer them. 

 

-  Serial numbers of those in question

-  Type of ethernet cards (new or old version) or mixed of both.

-  Are they using any IP based phone system?  If so, what system?

-   How did they determine the unit lost communications?  Were they able to still ping the IPs when communications were lost?

-   Is this consistently occurring to all of the units or a select few at the same time?

-  Would they be able to determine the downtime from when it disconnected to when they noticed and reconnected?

-  Do you know if their IT department does any type of IP releasing or renewing at the location?

-  Do the end users have a data log from the system that can give us the frequency of downtime?  If so, can you send us a copy?

-  What’s their polling frequency?

-  If they can get this info, what type/model router, PC, and OS?

 

Please provide the following if possible:

-  Host software and what version SDK they are using

-  A transaction log of events from a sniffer program that led to the disconnect and reconnect (http://www.wireshark.org/download.html)

Please email these questions to the customer and then forward the questions back to SBS Technical Support at [email protected]