Network Gadget stopped reporting my External IP when running my VPN
1-OldFart opened this issue · 13 comments
Network Gadget stopped reporting my External IP when running my VPN It used to do that when I ran my VPN, it automatically updated my IP but now it just shows a blank.
I have created the folder for Gadgets (VPN) with the appropriate folders copied therein but, I can't figure why it stopped reporting my IP when I run Winscribe.
Hello! Sorry to hear you are having issues. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what to tell you other than just general info, as nothing in the Gadgets or Rainmeter has changed, so it's most likely the issue originates elsewhere.
The way your external IP address is reported is by the skin making a call to a website that provides a service to report your address, and the reply being processed by the skin and reported back to you. There are lots of things that can cause this process to fail.
The first thing to do is to determine if your ISP or VPN or anti-virus is blocking the website providing this info. By default, recent versions of the Network Meter ping an Amazon AWS site for IP info, but it is possible your skin is pinging a different one that is getting blocked. To check this, open the Gadgets\@Resources\NetworkVariables.inc file. Near the bottom you'll see a large block of commented out text listing the URLs of numerous External IP providers. Make sure your variables are set like this:
UrlExternalIp="https://checkip.amazonaws.com"
UrlRegExp="(.*)"If your settings match this, then you are using the latest defaults. If your settings differ, change them to match this and check to see if this resolves your issue.
If you do not have success, then you can try some of the many other providers. My list is only a fraction of the ones known to exist. Your ISP might have one too. In any case, you can try various services to see which responds. Instead of repeatedly reconfiguring the skin, one quick way is to use your browser (or PowerShell) to check. For example, open your browser and enter https://checkip.amazonaws.com into the address bar and hit Enter. You should see a simple page with your IP in the top left corner. Try various URLs to find one that works for you. If you get error messages, this might give you an idea of where the problem lies. Check my notes off to the right in the file too; some sites are known to be blocked by some AV products (https://icanhazip.com is one example). Don't pick a URL that returns only IPv6 addresses unless you want to. Most VPNs won't use these anyway.
If you want to use PowerShell instead of a browser, the command is curl <url>, for example:
curl https://checkip.amazonaws.comIf you are getting errors with everything, you might want to verify that something with your VPN software has not changed recently. If you don't get errors with curl or your browser, but do get errors with the Network Meter, it may be an issue with the user agent configuration or something being blocked. Rainmeter has workarounds for this sort of issue.
Let me know what you discover and post it here. As you can guess, the issue generally is going to lie on the web/VPN side of things, not on the Rainmeter/Gadgets side.
Another thing to check if you have not already done so... After your VPN is active, refresh the Network Meter manually (click the little blue arrows to the right of the "Ext IP:" label). If this works, then the problem could be that the skin is not recognizing that your VPN has been activated.
Normally, the skin automatically refreshes your IP addresses when it sees a change to the active network adapter or to your internal IP address. If these are not changing, the skin may not realize it needs to refresh.
If the manual refresh isn't working, that leads me to think that something is blocking the call to the IP service website you are using. Try the various sites mentioned above in your browser to see if any of them return data. Also, you might want to check the Rainmeter log to see if any errors are being recorded there. This could be something as simple as a regex parsing error.
Ok, thanks for the clarification. I have tried all I can think of to get it to display my IP with my VPN like it once did but, it just won't do it anymore and I can't think of anything that changed to make it stop doing it.
I don't think it is anything you could have done. My guess is that your VPN is the problem. Something changed, maybe with an update, and now the website is being blocked. This is why I was asking about testing other sites. Also, I noticed that Amazon's site is returning data slightly differently than it used to, so it could be them.
SOLVED:
Your suspicion was correct. I used a different location (using IKEv2) and it is working as it should.
Thank you for the help (and patience)
I spoke too soon.....Windows claimed that both Amsterdam and Frankfurt were both connected (not possible, I know) but, if connected to only one, it stopped again and I cannot duplicate it (YET :) )
I will keep muddling with it and let you know what I find....
OK! Something strange is happening for sure with your VPN. Keep an eye on the Rainmeter log to see if you get regex parsing errors, which would indicate you got something back from the website but it could not be displayed. Experimenting using a browser or Powershell might be easier to see issues since the web responses will be visible.
So, after deleting both IKEv2 VPN profiles, I was able to recreate them and it works correctly now no matter what profile I use. Hopefully, this will help someone else having VPN issues as well.
Thanx again....I absolutely LOVE the Gadgets theme.
In another post, Did I see you tell someone that the GPU module could monitor multiple fans?
So, after deleting both IKEv2 VPN profiles, I was able to recreate them and it works correctly now no matter what profile I use. Hopefully, this will help someone else having VPN issues as well.
Thanx again....I absolutely LOVE the Gadgets theme.
Great news! I will close out the ticket. Thanks for your persistence and glad to hear you are enjoying the Gadgets!
In another post, Did I see you tell someone that the GPU module could monitor multiple fans?
Yes, correct! The GPU Meter can display up to 4 fans per GPU (any four fans that HWiNFO can see, including case fans). To do this, ensure HWiNFO is configured to monitor the fans like normal. In the HWiNFO.inc file, find the HWiNFO_GPU0_FanUsage and HWiNFO_GPU0_GPUFanSpeed variables (there is a set of 4 fan usage variables and 4 fan speed variables per GPU) and set them to the HWiNFO sensor indexes. Refresh the skin and you should be good to go!