Pensamos Digital, Inc.

[rotmand]

I've been using MagicMirror for a couple of years. Occasionally I need to reinstall the program because my DHCP-assigned IP address changes.

Is there any way to just change the IP address?

If my new install fails to connect, how can I troubleshoot the connection? What port is being used? My corporate environment may be blocking some traffic, but I don't have any way to tell the network engineer what port(s) I'll be using.

Can I just delete the pstate directory rather than doing a reinstall?

[admin]

Hello David,

The default port is 6170.

Magic Mirror Backup will attempt to connect to the previously known IP addresses for other machines that it is linked with. Once connected, all the machines will synchronize the latest information that they have about who is at what IP address. So, if it is possible to keep one machine at the same IP address before and after the other machines have their addresses changed, this will allow the other machines to broadcast their new addresses, after which the original machine can then have its address changed as well. Unfortunately that won't work if all the addresses change at once beyond your control.

You were on the right track with the 'pstate' file, but I don't think deleting it would work. Are you comfortable using a hex editor? If so, make sure all your machines are on, pick one machine to change, shut down MMB from the administrative control panel on that machine, and then open the file in a hex editor. The file is binary, but the IP addresses will appear as strings and shouldn't be too hard to spot. You can just replace the old addresses with the new ones, although if the length of the string changes you'll also need to update the length too - the byte immediately before the IP address is the length, so just adjust that to the new length (in hex). Once you've made your changes on one machine, open the administrative control panel so that MMB is started again. The computer icons in the peer list should hopefully light up to indicate that the other machines are now connected. If they don't light up, repeat these steps on the next machine.

If you're not comfortable with a hex editor, reinstalling may be the best option for now. I've made a note about this and will look into adding an easier way to let the program know about new IP addresses.

Thank you for your questions.

- Tim Macinta
Pensamos Digital, Inc.