Icebox2 Setup Problems

Started by mudjeep, July 23, 2006, 03:58:25 PM

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perthwa1

Surely IT is more akin to voodoo than to science.  Lo and behold My Icebox works.  Why, I can't say as I haven't done anything different just now that I hadn't tried before.  I did wait longer before I pinged the Icebox with the static address.  I also took all security off (but I tried that before with no success).   What I did do different was give it a netmask of 255.0.0.0 which, I was told, indicates a class A device (dumber device type) instead of 255.255.255.0 which is a class C device (smarter). I may have reversed that explanation re the device types?
Of course I rather not leave the network with no wi-fi security and will try to put it back on and report back for those who might experience the same problem in the future.
Thanks to all from the forum and the IceTv Help Desk who have been great.
Cheers,
;D

perthwa1

#16
I am happy to report further success in setting up my new IceBox2 to my home wi-fi network.  All is working well and I even have wi-fi security implemented (WPA2). For all those who are still having problems (especially those using apple wi-fi routers-Extreme Base Station, etc), I suggest the following:Firstly, it might help to understand what you're trying to do (especially if you're not an IT expert which I am definitely not).
Typical Scenario:You have a computer or computers connected to the internet via some sort of wireless device (either a wireless modem/router combo or a separate adsl modem attached to a Wi-Fi router/base station/etc that feeds that internet connection to all your computers.
Given that, the task is to allow the IceBox to connect to the existing Wi-Fi network just like one of you computers.  If your computers can do it so can the IceBox!
Once connected, the IceBox will be able to access the internet, pull down the IceTv EPG and you won't have to think about it anymore. At least anymore than you think about what happens in the background when you throw a light switch or turn on the water tap.
Now to the connection process:
Plug the IceBox into your Desktop/Laptop  ethernet port via the supplied Ethernet Cat 5 Cable Set up that port to 'see' the Icebox.  If you have a Mac you do that by going to System Preferences/Network/Show:Built-in Ethernet and click the TCP/IP tab. On the dropdown menu next to "Configure IPv4" select 'Manually' and follow the ice instructions to set up that port to the recommended ip address (192.168.1.2) and subnet mask 255.255.255.0.  Click Apply Now. This is the first step in the standard instructions supplied by IceTV.  If you have an Intel Based PC running some form of windows, there are equivalent system setting control panels or whatever (sorry, can't help you here, I don't do windows!).
Launch a browser (note that I noticed that the apple browser, Safari, and Internet Explorer behave/look a little different when going through these processes but you get to the same place in the end.
Type into the address line of the browser the recommended factory default ip address of the icebox (http;//192.168.1.2) and hit enter.
You should now see the 'special' Icebox2 page with all the selectable functions on the upper lefthand side.
Now leave that alone for a while as you have to find out some info about your wi-fi routers' network settings.
The Apple Extreme Base Station has a management utility (AirPort Admin Utility).  Other brands of Wi-fi routers would have a similar piece of software that would have been loaded on your computer when you setup your wi-fi network. Although I can only explain what I did on my set up, I think that all wi-fi routers will have a similar setup.
For the Apple product Airport Extreme Base Station do the following to find you wi-fi network info:
Launch the AirPort Admin Utility.
You should see the Airport Extreme Base Station highlighted (if not, click on its name to highlight it).
Click on the configure icon at the top of that window.
You will have to type in the password you set up to allow management of that device when you set it up.  Forgot that?  If so, check the manual to see how to do a password reset.
Once into that utility, you will see a page with 6 tabs along the top; Airport,Internet,Network, etc..  The Airport and Network Tabs are the ones where you are going to get the info you need to feed into the Icebox setup.
Click the Airport tab.  Take note of the Airport Network Name.  This is what you are going to type into the SSID field in the IceBox Wireless Settings Page later.
Also note down the 'Wireless Security' method. (I started the icebox setup by turning off all security - there is a "change wireless security" radio button on this page that allows you to choose different types of security or no security - you can change this back later). I also changed the "Channel" from Automatic to Channel 1.
Next click the Network tab. You will notice that the 'Distribute IP Addresses' box is ticked and that the "Share a single IP address (using DHCP and NAT)" is also selected.  If not, select those boxes.
Now take note of what is on the drop down menu under the "Share a single IP address (using DHCP and NAT)" tickbox.  Mine says "Use 10.0.1.1 addressing". This may be the Apple default.  Leave this as is.
Now you can click the update button at the bottom of the page.  Your base station will now reboot reflecting any changes you might have made.  Note you may have to rejoin that wireless network.  If you took all security off, all you have to do is select the airport network name in the Airport Icon at the top of your screen.
To recap, you should now have the name of your Airport network, the addressing range and, if you didn't turn off the wi-fi security, the type of wireless security ande password written down.
Next go to that browser window that you opened before when you connected to the IceBox.  If you closed that window just open a new browser window and type into the address line the recommended factory default ip address of the icebox (http;//192.168.1.1) and hit enter.
After that loads up, select the Wireless Settings Page.
If you removed security from your base station, select no security from the dropdown menu of the Security field. A number of the fields will now disappear.  In the SSID field, which came up as a default saying "IceBox2", type in your "Airport Network Name" that you wrote down.
Click the save button. The screen will change telling you that those setting have be saved (Done) and that the network setting have been applied.  After that process is finished, click on "Network Settings" on the lefthand side of the page.
Select "manual-static" setting not the auto-DHCP from the dropdown menu of the Network Configuration field.
Next, type in a unique IP address that wasn't being used by the networked devices (computers, printers, etc) that are on your wireless network.  On Apples, it is hard to determine what IP addresses are being used without going to all of the devices individually and checking this out in the System Preferences of those devices.  An easy way to deal with this is to make up a number that is way more than the number of devices that you might have connected either by Cat 5 Ethernet cable or Wi-Fi to your base station.  If your base station was using the 10.0.1.1 range, for instance, then the base stations IP address is 10.0.1.1. The computers or printers attached to the network (either via cable or wirelessly) would, say, have the ip numbers of 10.0.1.2, 10.0.1.3, 10.0.1.4, etc..  I chose the IP address for my Icebox to be 10.0.1.25 and I typed this number into the IP Address field on the Icebox Network Setting page.
Now here comes the crunch!  The next field down is the Netmask field.  I gave it a class A device number of 255.0.0.0. Before I tried to use 255.255.255.0 and all my attempts of connecting the icebox failed so I suggest you try the 255.0.0.0 number in this field.
In the next two fields (Default Gateway and DNS Server) type in the IP address of your Wi-Fi Router.  Which for my Apple Base station was 10.0.1.1 and click save.
Now, this is where things had been going haywire before.  What you have done is change the IceBox's IP address so now you can't connect to it by addressing http;//192.168.1.1 anymore  Up until now this is how your browser was interfacing with the IceBox.  If you try and select anything on the browser page that you have, up to now, have been working on, it will just timeout and ultimately give you the message "Can't find the server etc". The IceBox should now have the address 10.0.1.25 (if you used my numbering system).  
Note that this process takes a while (a minute or so) to happen and it seems that everything has crashed.  No fear!  Open a new browser page and type in http://10.0.1.25 and you should see the IceBox page again.  Select the Information Page from the list on the left and you should see all your new settings. You should now be able to follow the rest of the Ice instructions as to connecting to the Toppy or otther PVR and downloading the EPG.  This all worked flawlessly for me but was I happy? No!  I was not comfortable by not having any security on my wireless network.  So, I started the process all again.  First, I went into my base station via the AirPort Admin Utility software.  The only thing I changed was to select WPA2 as my wireless security method (you have to create an eight character password- write this down as you will need it later). Click update and let the Base Station reset (takes a minute or so). When that was done I reset the IceBox by pressing the little button on the back of the unit.  I connected the Icebox to my laptop via the Ethernet cable again and connected to the Icebox via a browser window by typing in the http;//192.168.1.1 address. Then I started at the Wireless Settings page again.  This time I chose WPA/WPA2 in the Security field, WPA-PSK,WPA2-PSK in the WPA Mode field, AES+TKIP in the WPA Crypto Algorithm field and also typed in my 8 character password that I just created in the AirPort Admin Utility's security section into the WPA-PSK Passphrase field.  Save those settings as before. When that is done input the same info into the Network Setting Page as explained above.  Follow the same procedures and you should be OK. When you do reconnect to the IceBox using the http;//10.0.1.25 address, go to the Information page to see all the details you put in.  I suggest that you print this out for your records.  You should also follow the IceTv instructions for downloading and reconnecting and restarting your toppy/PVR.  You should now be able to place the Icebox at the back of your entertainment unit/etc. and let it gather dust, secure in the knowledge that you will never have to hassle this again.
Cheers,
;D

chrisll

Thanks to all who contributed to this post- has been most helpful. I had my IceBox2 up & running, connected to a Topfield 5000, but disconnected to upload a new TAP. Since then have been unable to reconnect (similar to original posting) but cannot even get wired connection to the IceBox via ethernet port & instructions on this thread. Support have been helpful but cannot solve problem. I'm beginning to think it must be a problem with the IceBox itself. Any way of determining this ??
Chris

johnminna

I had an issue with Icebox2 Setup, after reading some posts I found solutions.
Thanks
Regard
John