Troubleshooting

General

If there are issues when running Ardexa Remote, please try the following.

  • Enable Debug. This applies only to the ARDEXA VPN, and can be selected by the down arrow next to the START VPN button.

  • Check the output in "View Logs". This can be selected by the down arrow next to the START VPN button. Please send Ardexa the logs when contacting us about a problem with Ardexa Remote.

  • Run Ardexa Remote from the command line. This may highlight issues, which do not appear on the desktop application.

Connection Issues

You may experience connection issues such as Connection Refused or connections that don't seem to allow traffic to pass, when using nthe tunnel (not the VPN). If this is the case, please deselect the "Fast Mode" from the down arrow next to START TUNNEL, or its equivalent in the command line, which is -c reliable

Run Ardexa Remote from the command line

Windows

Firstly, make sure you have fully quit the current Ardexa Remote session.

  • Close the Ardexa Remote window

  • Find the Ardexa icon in the system tray (usually bottom right of the screen), right click it and select Quit

Open a Command Prompt. You do NOT need to be an administrator. Change directory to the Ardexa Remote folder and then launch Ardexa Remote.exe. For example

C:\Users\ardexa>cd "\Program Files\Ardexa Remote"

C:\Program Files\Ardexa Remote>"Ardexa Remote.exe"

Ardexa Remote will start up and logs will appear in the Command Prompt. Login in like normal and perform the actions the Ardexa Support staff have requested.

Finally, you will need to copy the output to send to Ardexa Support. The easiest method is to make sure the Command Prompt window has focus and then press CTRL + A to "select all" and then press Enter to copy. Alternatively, you can use the mouse by clicking on the icon in the top left corner of the Command Prompt window and selecting the Edit menu. Click Select All, then open the menu again and select Copy

Please paste the output into your support ticket and Ardexa Support will be in touch about the next steps.

Unable to access interface: Protocol not supported

This means that wireguard was not correctly installed on the Ardexa device. To fix the error, you will need to run the following command (this will take a few minutes)

dpkg-reconfigure wireguard-dkms

If this gives the error kernel headers for this kernel does not seem to be installed., then you will need to run the following command and then try the dpkg-reconfigure command again

apt install -y linux-headers-$(uname -r)

There is a chance that the VPN software has failed to install properly. Run the command

dpkg -l | grep wireguard

It should show the wireguard as fully installed ii

ii  wireguard                      1.0.20210223-1~bpo10+1              all          fast, modern, secure kernel VPN tunnel (metapackage)
ii  wireguard-dkms                 1.0.20210219-1~bpo10+1              all          fast, modern, secure kernel VPN tunnel (DKMS version)
ii  wireguard-tools                1.0.20210223-1~bpo10+1              amd64        fast, modern, secure kernel VPN tunnel (userland utilities)

However, if there was a problem during the install, you may see it marked as "Installed with error" (iF or iU), e.g.

iU  wireguard                      1.0.20210223-1~bpo10+1              all          fast, modern, secure kernel VPN tunnel (metapackage)
iF  wireguard-dkms                 1.0.20210219-1~bpo10+1              all          fast, modern, secure kernel VPN tunnel (DKMS version)
iU  wireguard-tools                1.0.20210223-1~bpo10+1              amd64        fast, modern, secure kernel VPN tunnel (userland utilities)

If this is the case, please attempt to manually install the broken packages

apt install -y wireguard wireguard-dkms wireguard-tools

Once successfully installed, start troubleshooting again from the top of this section (dpkg-reconfigure...).

If this still generates an error, then please contact support.

ERR! VPN request failed: Failed to start VPN: 0

This is the same error as Unable to access interface: Protocol not supported

VPN connected, but no traffic

This is most likely a problem caused by using a "direct" connection. Ardexa VPN will generally attempt to connect directly to the plant, but depending on the type of router (more specifically, the NAT strategy), this may not work reliably.

To diagnose the problem, run ip a in REMOTE SHELL while the VPN is connected and get the ip address of the vpn interface

...
10: wg1: <POINTOPOINT,NOARP,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1420 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/none 
    inet 172.29.0.1/24 scope global wg1
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

The VPN will always use .1 as the final number on the Ardexa device and .2 as the final number of your local machine. Using remote shell, ping the ip of your laptop.

ping -c3 172.29.0.2

If you see the following error, then you will need to use the command line to connect your VPN (ardexa-remote vpn) and add the --no-direct option.

ping: sendmsg: Destination address required

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