Expired login

[JRHill]

Pisses me off when I compose something and want to get back in a few minutes (hours). But my login expired and the composition is gone when I come back to the Outback Power Forum.

It is always like this and always has been. It's just another weird thing and has nothing to do with Optics. The forum and OpticsRE are, if I can say, are cheap shit things. We harp and whine but theoretically we haven't paid a dime for these 'things'. Even though many say they would do a subscription, the currentt OB folks cant get the old system up and running. That is not something of confidence. Worse would be a subscription and it never worked going forward. Worse it works for people who pay and doesn't for those who don't pay..... Ouch.

Raysun did it correctly - he migrated from Outback. And he's a happy guy. I'm a bit jealous.

I think he is an Iranian agent. How could he know all this stuff in advance? Love ya buddy. Glad the weather was if a minor thing for you.

[raysun]

Heh! Some of my greatest works timed out, or didn't survive a page back command. I'm certain it was all for the best.

I won't lie. Outback changing hands put support and parts availability at risk, and the arc of OpticsRE resulting in an unmaintainable system were two drivers that brought me to the decision to cut my losses and move on. I've seen this pattern too many times.
Regarding the OpticsRE difficulties, I'd commiserate by saying I feel your pain, but I took very radical steps to avoid just that. I do feel bad for how this is proceeding.

[shastatodd]

Heh! Some of my greatest works timed out, or didn't survive a page back command. I'm certain it was all for the best.

I won't lie. Outback changing hands put support and parts availability at risk, and the arc of OpticsRE resulting in an unmaintainable system were two drivers that brought me to the decision to cut my losses and move on. I've seen this pattern too many times.
Regarding the OpticsRE difficulties, I'd commiserate by saying I feel your pain, but I took very radical steps to avoid just that. I do feel bad for how this is proceeding.

So when you say you "cut your losses", can you please share what you did? I am assuming you tore out all your OB gear and changed to an entirely different architecture.

At 70 with several layers of spare parts redundancy, I am loath to tear out my 30 year system and reinvent the wheel, but the longer this clusterfuck goes on, the more tempting that becomes... especially living 5000 miles away in the UK now, where remote system monitoring/access is important. I AM considering a less intense rube-goldberg work-around of putting a $40 wi-fi camera facing the Mate3s to "see" the system even when optics is down!

[raysun]

I'll send you a PM

[Echo5]

.. especially living 5000 miles away in the UK now, where remote system monitoring/access is important. I AM considering a less intense rube-goldberg work-around of putting a $40 wi-fi camera facing the Mate3s to "see" the system even when optics is down!

Fun fact: the UK does not use the term "Rube Goldberg". The UK equivalent is "Heath Robinson". It means exactly the same thing for pretty much exactly the same reasons.

Oooohhhh I do like a bit of trivia I do.

[raysun]

I AM considering a less intense rube-goldberg work-around of putting a $40 wi-fi camera facing the Mate3s to "see" the system even when optics is down!

Another possibility is putting in a small consumer grade firewall that supports a VPN to your "home" LAN. Then one can look at the Mate's Web server directly.

[JRHill]

Back to the subject.... outback is cheapshit. They are limiting connections so they educe connections faster than you expect. Active connections cost $. So they are disconnected. Again, we didn't pay for any internet stuff. We paid for a stout box, not the internet stuff.

[shastatodd]

"Another possibility is putting in a small consumer grade firewall that supports a VPN to your "home" LAN."

I am somewhat of a network nerd but do not know how to do this.

[raysun]

"Another possibility is putting in a small consumer grade firewall that supports a VPN to your "home" LAN."

I am somewhat of a network nerd but do not know how to do this.

There's hard ways and easy ways. The easiest way is to install a small firewall device with VPN server built in.
I used to use Cisco and SonicWall pro-grade gear, but its too expensive and complicated for most folks - including me.
Now my go-to device is Firewalla.
https://firewalla.com/collections/firew ... -purple-se
As firewalls go, these couldn't be simpler to deploy. The built-in WireGuard VPN takes a handful of clicks to set up.

Me accessing my version of the "Mate" display via 5G and my VPN. I can do this anywhere I have an internet connection.

[shastatodd]

Thank you for that link. I will look into this. The screenshot you included is different than the LAN display I see when looking at the IP address of my mate.

Another super easy solution I have considered is a wifi camera set up to physically look at the display on my mate.

[raysun]

Yes the display is different because it is a system controller from another vendor's product line. Their version of the Mate if you will but a design two decades advanced.
FWIW, that display is entirely local to the system in my home and fully controls every aspect of it. I can pretty much make any operational change there.
It also communicates with a cloud service that is accessible with any web browser.

Notice the update from the local system is realtime.

I can bring up the local interface into the web browser session of the cloud server if I care to. However, now I'm just showing off.

Yes a camera pointed at the Mate system screen will show the status.

[JRHill]

Well, back to the OP. I really was only harping on logging back into the forum after a few minutes.

Seems that life sucks for some of you.

[The Electron]

........ Again, we didn't pay for any internet stuff. We paid for a stout box, not the internet stuff.......

That isn't correct. It was all marketed with Optics included. We absolutely paid for it. And as troublesome as it has been, turns out we are still paying dearly