Overview

Internet access is not required for Sync to function, but features that require off-site communication may be unavailable. Remote Support is also unavailable when Internet is suppressed. These instructions should help streamline the process to recovery on your establishment's side in (as many as) four easy steps. Be prepared to present your findings to whoever administers your facility's network.

Procedure

1. Physical Connectivity

The network card reports to Windows whether or not it recognizes direct physical connectivity to another device. To check this, right click the Network icon from the System Tray, and select "Open Network and Internet Settings:"

The icon will usually look like a computer monitor with a network cable next to it, as shown here. If connectivity is lacking, it may have a yellow or red overlay, and on some builds of Windows, may take on the appearance of a globe.

Select "change adapter options" to pull up the Network Connections screen, like so:

Under normal circumstances, what you see should resemble what is shown in the image, with "Sync Network" having an "Unidentified Network" label and "External Network" (or its equivalent on your system) being given a proper identification. In the example below, the physical connection has been severed, as evidenced by the red indicator and "network cable unplugged" verbiage:

If this occurs, then it will be necessary to start analyzing the physical connectivity, as the only three things that can typically cause such a condition are unplugged or damaged network cable, defective network card on the server, or an outage of the switch to which it is attached.

2. Addressing

Once it recognizes physical connectivity, the next step is to make sure that the system is addressed on your establishment's network. To do this, right click on "External Network" (or however the non-Sync network is named on your server) and select "status," followed by "details" on the status dialog that opens, as shown here:

To ensure usable and comprehensive Internet access, the "Network Connection Details" box, shown above, should have, at minimum, an IPv4 address, IPv4 Subnet Mask, IPv4 Default Gateway, and IPv4 DNS Server:

In situations where the switch that the server is plugged into is isolated from the network's DHCP server, you may see an "autoconfiguration IPv4 address" instead:

If such a failure occurs, then this would indicate that the DHCP server (often, but not always, your establishment's router) is isolated from the network switch that the server is connected to.

3. Reachability of router

If all four parameters are present, but there is still no Internet access, then it will become necessary to see what, specifically, cannot be reached:

Jot down what is written next to "IPv4 Default Gateway" and "IPv4 DNS Server" to start out with. In many cases, but not all, they will be one and the same. Open up the Start Menu and search for "Command Prompt."

Once the command prompt is open, enter the word "ping," followed by a space, and then the address previously recorded for "IPv4 Default Gateway," as shown here:

Press the return key ("enter") on the keyboard and observe the output:

• "Reply from..." indicates that the machine is reachable; proceed to step 4.
• "Request timed out," "general failure," "destination host unreachable," or similar, indicate a lack of response. This would suggest that your establishment's switch is isolated from its router, or that the router has hung or failed.

4. Reachability and Functionality of DNS

Repeat the ping test described in step 3 for the DNS Server address unless it is the same as the router's address (if they are identical, skip to the DNS test described in the next paragraph). In the event that there are more than one, perform the test for both. Observe the output:

• "Reply from..." indicates that the machine is reachable; proceed to testing of DNS, as outlined in the paragraph below these bulletpoints.
• "Request timed out," "general failure," "destination host unreachable," or similar, indicate a lack of response. This would suggest that your establishment's router is isolated from its DNS Server, (if DNS is on a different network) your establishment's switch is isolated from its DNS Server, (if DNS is on the same network) or that the DNS Server has hung or failed. Contact your establishment's network support personnel to troubleshoot the problem.

If the DNS server is responsive, we can test it by querying for an address that Sync would normally need, such as www.brunswickcloud.com. To do this, enter nslookup www.brunswickcloud.com and then press return. Observe the output:

• A normal response showing name, address, and alias, indicates full functionality
• *** Host can't find www.brunswickcloud.com... Indicates that the DNS server is not providing responses, most likely for one of three reasons:

1. DNS Server malfunction. If the DNS server and router are not the same, but the DNS server is on the same network as the router, then Contact your establishment's network support personnel to troubleshoot the problem. If DNS server and router are one and the same, then this does not apply.
2. Lack of response from another (different) router. A second possibility is that the local DNS server is isolated from the Internet, even though the Internet is not actually down. To correct this, ensure that the router that your server is connected to ("IPv4 Default Gateway") can itself reach any and all other routers at your facility that stand between it and the Internet. Your establishment's network support personnel may guide you through performing a trace route routine (tracert command) or do this for you to help identify the break.
3. Internet service is down at your location. Contact your ISP if all routers between the server and your ISP's gateway device are confirmed to be functional.

Revision History

5/2024 - Created by Karl