Remote Connectivity Troubleshooting: Why can't I connect to my system remotely?

With this guide, we'll try to cover the most common reasons a user may have difficulty connecting to their System remotely.

Note! This guide omits cases with incorrect credentials input. All clients return corresponding messages on such connection efforts.

Issues Connecting via Port Forwarding

In order to connect to Nx Server, it's always been a connection option using TCP port forwarded with your router (or firewall settings) from your Media Server to the public web. If you can't reach the Media Server with address <host_address>:<forwarded_port> please follow the steps below for the initial troubleshooting:

1. Check that the Media Server service is running. At the server PC you can find information about that at:
   
   - Windows: tray tool or Services list
   - Ubuntu: using the terminal command $ps max| grep mediaserver 
   
   Please run the service if necessary.
   
   
2. Check that server is running correctly:
   
   - Any OS with GUI: try to connect to Media Server Web-page from the Server PC using web-browser. For the default installation URL to be entered in the address bar is http://localhost:7001. If the browser asks for your credentials, the test passed. 
   
   - Headless Ubuntu Server: try to run the terminal command $wget http://localhost:7001. If the server is running correctly it will reply index.html file. In the opposite case, you'll get connection refusal.
   
   
3. Check that the server has functioning networking. It must be reachable from your router(or any other host at the Local Network). A simple ping request is quite enough.
   
   
4. Check that your port forwarding settings are working as you expect. There are plenty of online tools for that on the Internet now. Like ping.eu or yougetsignal.com where you can input remote address (ip or hostname) and port. If they say that port is open -- test is passed.
   
   
5. If you reached point 5 it's time to troubleshoot the client-side. At first, you need to check that the client host has an internet connection. One more thing -- firewall options must allow outgoing TCP connections to port 7001 of the remote host.
   
   
6. Check that Media Server is reachable from the client host using a web browser. If you were requested to input credentials -- all communication is processed correctly.

In case if all 6 checks are passed but you still can't connect using Nx Client -- there's likely some software issue which must be resolved by our tech guys. Feel free to submit a support ticket or open a topic on our support community referring to this article.

Issues Connecting via Nx Cloud

With Nx Witness 3.0, our team introduced a new approach to reach and maintain the systems without the necessity to struggle with router settings to forward ports. More information about this new technology can be found at our Nx Cloud support article. But there are still points that can lead to a lack of connectivity:

1. Check that the Server application/Mediaserver service is currently running.
   
   - In Windows
   Tray tool or services list
   
   - In Ubuntu
   Enter the terminal command $ps max| grep mediaserver 
   
   Manually run the service if necessary.
   
   
2. Check that server is running correctly:
   
   - Any OS with GUI: try to connect to Media Server Web-page from the Server PC using web-browser. For the default installation URL to be entered in the address bar is http://localhost:7001. If the browser asks the credentials, the test passed.
   
   - Headless Ubuntu Server: try to run the terminal command $wget http://localhost:7001. If the server is running correctly it will reply with index.html file. In the opposite case, you'll get connection refusal.
   
   
3. Check that the server has a functioning network. It must be reachable from your router (or any other host on the Local Network). A simple ping request is quite enough.
   
   
4. Optional. Using another PC in the same LAN log in to Nx Cloud with Nx Client and check if your System has status "Cloud-Online"(blue cloud icon).
   
   
5. Nx Cloud requires both Media Server and Client hosts to be able to reach some ports of main Nx Cloud Portal. I.e. firewall must allow outgoing TCP and UDP connections from your server PC to nxvms.com ports (http and https to check system availability, service port to maintain the Client-Server connection):
   
   80 -- conventional http port. Can be checked with just opening http://nxvms.com at web-browser from your server PC
   
   443 -- conventional https port. Can be checked with browser by opening: https://nxvms.com
   
   3345 -- Cloud Service port. Can be checked with any telnet client(e.g. in ubuntu terminal with command $telnet mediator.vmsproxy.com 3345). Needed only for 3.1 or older.
   
   
6. Check the router NAT mode at both Server and Client hosts. Nx Cloud won't work if any of them work in Symmetric NAT mode.

See our Firewall Pass List article for more details.

Questions

If you have any questions related to this topic or you want to share your experience with other community members or our team, please visit and engage in our support community or reach out to your local reseller.