FirstSpot won't start

[Anchorline]

I installed FirstSpot on a new server running Windows XP Pro SP2 and it , and FirstSpot will not start from the Config Manager.

When I try to start it, it says "Starting" but then immediately says "Stopped".

Here are the results of running 'ipconfig /all' on this server:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : palmerston
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcast
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/1000 MTD Network Connec
tion
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-12-3F-24-A6-93
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.20.7.1
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.20.7.1

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/1000 CT Network Connect
ion
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-12-3F-24-A6-92
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 206.248.143.222
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.248
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 206.248.143.217
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 206.248.154.22
65.39.192.130
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I cannot find the firstspot_gw_srv_[timestamp].log file anywhere on the server. The only log files I have are:

firstspot_drv_bootup
admin_login
install
archive folder (empty)

Any help would be appreciated.

Sheri
_________________
Anchorline Wireless Internet
www.anchorline.net

[alan]

Looks like FirstSpot fails very early in the startup process.

Please check:

1) Does your Windows user have admin right?
2) Is the FirstHop driver installed probably (ONLY the Private Network Interface should be binded)? Do you see any error at the end of the setup?
3) Do you have any suspicious error in Windows Event Viewer?
4) Do you see registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Patronsoft? It should contain a value called Settingfile which points to the path of config.ini
4) Do you have Apache, PHP or personal firewall installed before installing FirstSpot? Please remove them and try to reinstall FirstSpot

If you still have difficulties, please try to install FirstSpot in a clean Windows. It solves a lot of setup issues.
_________________
~ Patronsoft Limited ~

[Anchorline]

1) Does your Windows user have admin right?

- Yes

2) Is the FirstHop driver installed probably (ONLY the Private Network Interface should be binded)? Do you see any error at the end of the setup?

- Not sure how to tell. Although I see it was unzipped with the package, I think there may be a problem with it (see #3 below).

3) Do you have any suspicious error in Windows Event Viewer?

- Yes. I see the following two errors:

a) "The Apache service named C:\Program Files\FirstSpot\www\Apache\Apache.exe reported the following error:
>>> [Tue Jan 31 11:43:19 2006] [warn] pid file c:/program files/firstspot/www/apache/logs/httpd.pid overwritten -- Unclean shutdown of previous Apache run? <<<
before the error.log file could be opened."

b) "The PatronSoft FirstSpot Dispatcher service depends on the following nonexistent service: firsthop"

4) Do you see registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Patronsoft? It should contain a value called Settingfile which points to the path of config.ini

- Yes

4) Do you have Apache, PHP or personal firewall installed before installing FirstSpot? Please remove them and try to reinstall FirstSpot

- No, they were all uninstalled or disabled and FirstSpot was installed on a fresh copy of Windows XP Pro.

Since I have uninstalled and reinstalled FirstSpot a couple of times in hopes of alleviating this problem, I would like to eliminate other things first before reinstalling.....

Thank you.
_________________
Anchorline Wireless Internet
www.anchorline.net

[alan]

Looks like the FirstHop driver is not installed correctly.

Please check:

1) Go to Network Properties, do you see FirstHop driver installed and binded? Check out point 9 of other issues in readme.rtf for details.
2) Have you clicked yes every single time when you encounter Driver Signature warning?
3) Again, do you see any error message when the FirstSpot setup is finished?
_________________
~ Patronsoft Limited ~

[Anchorline]

Hi Alan,

The Firsthop driver was not showing up as installed on my Private Network Interface, although all the files were unpacked and it should have been installed when I ran setup.msi.

I now have the Firstspot application in "Started" mode so thanks for your suggestions.

Sheri
_________________
Anchorline Wireless Internet
www.anchorline.net

[alan]

So how do you solve it?
_________________
~ Patronsoft Limited ~

[Anchorline]

I got another copy of FirstSpot, unzipped it, walked through all the readme pre-installation steps again and reinstalled FirstSpot.

I had uninstalled and reinstalled before a couple of times, and had someone else do it as well, so not sure at what point we failed to install it correctly or if the original trial package was corrupt...

The firsthop driver showed up on the Network Properties for the proper NIC this time around. Once I did this, FirstSpot was able to start.

Thanks again!
_________________
Anchorline Wireless Internet
www.anchorline.net