If you are experiencing problems with the BridgePal app on your phones/tablets not communicating with the PC, please follow this sequence of checks and troubleshooting steps which should enable you to determine where the problem lies:
- Check that the PC and the tablet are both connected to the same wifi network name
- On the PC, in the taskbar, you should have an icon which looks like two cogwheels. This is the BridgePalServices Monitor application. Click on this to bring up its window. If it is not on the taskbar you should have the icon on the desktop. Double click on that to start it running
- The BridgePalServices Monitor should show the status of three services as "Active" - these are bridgepalBroadcast, Web Server, and PHP Server
- Check that the "Run BridgePal Broadcast" checkbox is ticked (it will be if bridgepalBroadcast is shown as "Active")
- Under "Active Interface IP Addresses" you should see a timestamp and the ip address of the PC. The timestamp shows when the last broadcast message was transmitted on the interface. It should be no more than about 20 seconds ago. If there is no IP address shown it means the PC is not connected to the router
- Assuming that all the above is ok, start the BridgePal app on the tablet. If it doesn't connect then select "More>>Find BridgePal Server" from the BridgePal app menu
- Watch the screen for 20 seconds. Within this time you should either see a message briefly popup reporting the PC's ip address or a message saying that the PC address was not detected. In the latter case, double check the router and PC wireless connections again - the app should have received the ip address if the earlier steps checked out ok
- If the broadcast message is received by the BridgePal app it would normally connect to the PC automatically. However, if a connection error message is on display it is sometimes necessary to give it a bit of help. Try tapping on the Retry button, or select "Refresh" from the app menu, or choose "More>>Select BridgePal Server" from the app menu and then tap on the name "BridgePal" in the server list (which will normally contain only one entry)
If the BridgePal app connects you will either see the message "Connected - Session Not Yet Started", if you have not initiated a wireless scoring session from the scoring program, or you will see the BridgePal app Welcome screen (the one with the Start button).
If you still can't connect, the most likely explanation for your problem is the wireless connectivity (i.e. either tablet or PC not connected to the wifi router, or connected to different routers). You should make sure that the phone/tablet is only configured with the password for a single wifi network, otherwise if it loses connectivity it may connect to any wifi network within range to which it has previously been connected. You can tell it to "forget" a wifi network by doing a long press on the network name in the list of wifi networks and then select "Forget Network".
