Remote Assistance woes

Rainmaker

Rainmaker

Rainmaker

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SOLVED! Remote Assistance woes

Hi guys,

I'll keep this as brief as I can. I've had Windows XP Pro SP2 for a good while now, and it's been running great. I've used Remote Assistance loads of times between friends (showing them new firmware on my routers, me looking around their PC setup etc) and it was always fine in both directions.

This last week, no matter what, I couldn't get RA to work. Not through Windows Live Messenger, nor manual invites. The invite file looked fine. Tried all sorts of things, but nothing helped.

UPnP is on in the router and it shows the port is forwarding to my LAN IP. Great. Network Connections on my PC shows Internet Gateway (so far so good). My Network Places shows "Tomato" (the router) and its IP address. Again, looks good.

Right clicking My Computer, and going to Remote shows that RA is clearly enabled and set up appropriately (invites expire after one hour). Further, I've checked the services that are enabled and they seem fine (eg Remote Assistance, SSDP Discovery Service - set to auto and they ARE started).

I had a brainwave. I'd installed SP3 just before I noticed the trouble. So I rolled back to SP2. Still no joy. Could be something "left over" from the SP3 install I thought, so I completely FORMATTED and reinstalled XP Pro from scratch. Made sure the services were started and RA was enabled, and guess what? STILL it won't let my mate connect to my machine over WLM.

Yet if I go into the other room on the kids' PC, he can remote in over WLM in about 5 seconds flat. Both PCs share the same router and are on the same LAN. I don't get it! ANY advice or ideas gratefully received, I'm about ready to launch my PC LOL (well ok not quite, but you get the idea :mad::o).

Thanks in advance.
 
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AbsenceJam said:
I saw your othe topic on this, does your previous router work okay with it?
The external port should be 3389 as well so try forwarding that port manually.
Click to expand...

Yeah in the other topic I was thinking the AM200 or WRT54GL were to blame. I know for sure that's not the case now (port 3389 shows as forwarded to my LAN ip in the WRT and other LAN PCs can use Remote Assistance fine through the same router.

Even though I'm on a fresh install of XP Pro SP2, I'm sure this must be a Windows issue. The router's obviously fine, and a quick test on uTorrent on this troublesome PC gave me the "OK" re: ports and downloaded a Linux CD at 2.2 MB/sec! Clearly not a UPnP issue, I think it must be something I have (or haven't) done for the remote assistance setup.

I really can't think what it'd be though. I mean, fresh install on a network known to have perfect config... whaa'?! :confused: :o This is really doing my head in now lol

EDIT - Sorry forgot to say. The previous router (DG834GT) is exactly the same... UPnP works fine on all PCs and the router does its job... except my PC can't get remote assistance. WTF?!
 
I honestly couldn't tell you. (1) It's a fresh install and (2) I haven't really got a desktop to remote to lol Terminal Services is started and set to auto though, as well. I'm glad you agree, this is a real head scratcher lol
 
Open the remote assistance file that is sent as an email in Notepad, does it show your external IP address.
 
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Sorry guys, for some reason I didn't get an email about the replies. Anyways, yes opening the file in Notepad shows my true WAN IP - along with the ports to be forwarded and to which internal LAN IP (my static DHCP LAN IP). All matches up to the UPnP screen in the router, but the traffic just never reaches my OS :(

I'm beyond stuck. I even reinstalled AGAIN today to XP Home SP2 OEM and that has the same troubles. Since I'm the only PC on the network who can't be contacted by remote assistance, I'm loathe to blame the network/router. But yet, how can three fresh installs fail to work on RA?

Maybe I just fail in an epic way at setting up XP LOL :D System > Remote > Tick the box. Click Advanced, set to expire after 1 day (my preference). Tick the box to allow remote connections. Make sure UPnP icon is in Network Places, and the Gateway icon is in Network Connections. Yet it fails. Argh! :D
 
BTW, confirmed. I used remote desktop to connect to another LAN pc (192.168.1.3) and it loaded/logged in fine and gave me control.
 
Rainmaker said:
Sorry guys, for some reason I didn't get an email about the replies. Anyways, yes opening the file in Notepad shows my true WAN IP - along with the ports to be forwarded and to which internal LAN IP (my static DHCP LAN IP). All matches up to the UPnP screen in the router, but the traffic just never reaches my OS :(

I'm beyond stuck. I even reinstalled AGAIN today to XP Home SP2 OEM and that has the same troubles. Since I'm the only PC on the network who can't be contacted by remote assistance, I'm loathe to blame the network/router. But yet, how can three fresh installs fail to work on RA?

Maybe I just fail in an epic way at setting up XP LOL :D System > Remote > Tick the box. Click Advanced, set to expire after 1 day (my preference). Tick the box to allow remote connections. Make sure UPnP icon is in Network Places, and the Gateway icon is in Network Connections. Yet it fails. Argh! :D
Click to expand...

And the firewall on the troublesome PC is set to allow port 3389 (Remote Desktop, Remote Assistance)?
 
The firewall has UPnP, WLM and Remote Assistance set as exceptions. When that didn't work I turned the firewall off altogether and rebooted and tried again. Still nothing.

As a point of interest, since I was able to use Remote Desktop to log into the PC downstairs, I got my fiancee to sit at it just now. We opened MSN, I sent her a request for RA and it failed as per usual. I asked her to send ME a request, and voila. I can use remote assistance to get into that machine, do what I want etc etc. Works perfectly.

So, new symptom (well ok, the original symptoms are narrowed somewhat). I can remote into other people, but they can't remote into me. I'm guessing that'd be for WAN and LAN connections. Weird huh? Specially since we're on the same router etc, so it's definitely my install which has something not set right?!

EDIT: In case it's helpful, here's what the WRT showed on UPnP page (real-time monitor)... As well as the usual MSN entries just for being connected to the service, a helpctr.exe (something like that lol) popped up for a few seconds, followed by these entries which stayed around til we'd finished:

sessmgr (192.168.1.2:3389) 38860 TCPYes388603389192.168.1.2TCP
sessmgr (192.168.1.3:3389) 38604 TCPYes386043389192.168.1.3TCP

They appeared both times (once when I tried to remote into the other machine, which worked, and once when the other machine tried to remote into me, which failed). So the ports are opening properly (and obviously working where the OS is willing to respond) but only one way. Discuss?! :confused:

Thanks so much for all the helpful replies so far. 5* wins all round :D

EDIT 2 - Sorry, but the more info I have the less of your time I waste (that's my logic anyways lol). I flashed the router today as well, to new firmware. From the latest Tomato to the very latest v24 DD-WRT (released this week). I reset to factory defaults and left it on DHCP, just in case I'd fubared a setting earlier on the router specific to ethernet connections or my LAN IP. So we can rule that out too, as the "clean" DD-WRT still has the issue too. Crate of lager to the person who helps me solve this! :D
 
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Hi guys,

I guess nobody could help even for the free beer LOL :D Anyway I fixed this. You have NO idea how relieved I am. I spent literally the last 24 hours at my PC, sweating over this.

The problem? Nvidia's graphics driver for my GeForce 8600GT!! :rolleyes: Who'd have thought?! I uninstalled the gfx driver, rebooted, and voila. Remote assistance works fine. Now to find an older version of the driver that DOES work lol

Anyways I thought I'd post back for the benefit of any other poor soul in future who does a search for the same problem. Nvidia's epic fail loses the day. Thanks to all for their considered responses, and help.
 
Final post on the thread... sorry to drag this out but I've sorted out which driver causes the trouble and which one works, in case anyone ever needs to know. The latest (at the time of writing) Nvidia 8 series driver - v175.16 - is the one breaking remote assistance. Moving back to v169.21 fixes the issue with no noticeable ill effect on games, HD media playback etc.

I did try to join the Nvidia forums to let them know about the issue (as I found no other bug reports with similar problems), but despite activating my forum membership there the system didn't recognise my username or password. Password reset didn't fix it, so I guess it's not only the latest GeForce driver that's buggy LOL
 
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