I have been using Fielmaker 3,4,5 &6 for years and before anyone says upgrade to 7 or 8 and your problems are gone - I refuse to pay to upgrade until I know it will work - but alas I think it is maybe not a filemaker issue.

I am trying to host 6 x FMP6 files over IP but not as web access each user has client access. I have used 4 different PC's in different locations, different firewalls - different ISP's - from no router to full router with all port mapping done and running XP-Home to XP Professional and I cannot get anything to show in the hosts list - I have set multi-user with TCP protocol - I HAVE 5003 open I have turned off ALL firewalls. I can access on lcoal hosts but over the internet - I can read a packet log showing the 5003 UDP and TCP request arriving BUT no response - never in 12 months. I even tried this with FMP5 and FMP4 and all the same - but i know that 6 years ago I used to use FMP4 over an internet IP connection no problems just slow.

I have aged 10 years on this so if you have suggestion please email me as well as replying [email protected] - help me pls!

Edited December 9, 200520 yr by Guest

UPDATE - The files we are trying to access are on a PC (let's call it a server but it is simply running FMP unlimited) it is in a different geographic location DSL with static IP..

I can now access the files from that server on my local PC which is acting as ICS (MS internet connection sharing) however still no files listing on the PC's connected to the ICS machine. WHAT is really strange is that I can access hosts from other servers on these PC - so why can't I access our server - obviosly the port mapping is correct and the firewall is ok otherwise I wouldn't access any hosts??

However I then disconnected from the ICS and dialed direct and still no hosts list from that server. So I had a colleague 2000 kms away try and he can't see hosts list either!!

I have compared all services and applications running on the two PC's and I cannot see why one should work and the other doesn't

Edited December 9, 200520 yr by Guest
just further clarification

Could it be one of the points mentioned here:

http://www.filemaker.com/help/Non-TOC%20Topics47.html

--sd

Check out this thread. I don't know if it solves your problem but there is A LOT of good info contained in the post that might point you in the right direction.

http://www.fmforums.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/54314/

Update - I have discovered from my logs that my remote PC is connecting via 5003 UDP to the router's IP (DSL router on peer serving the database) but when it tries to connect on TCP on 5003 the remote connection tries to connect to 192.168.1.1 which is the serving PC's local IP and thus not available over the internet!!!

I have had another colleague in another state connect with no problems :

Any ideas

Yet another update - my new laptop which is connected to through my offending desktop happily shows the files in the hosts list - this indicates that Filemaker running on the PC is losing the path or changing it to the local IP reported by the remote router - how can I force Filemaker to use an absolute path.

AND THE SOLUTION WAS......

Purchase an additional external IP (well actually 4 IPs) for the server ie: rather than use internal IP with port routing from the router - just run the server with full external IP - what a complete pain in the butt.

The solution costs $8 per month - the problem cost me thousands in time lost. :B

Wow. I'm sure it worked but it's probably entirely insecure. You solved the issue of routing by placing everything outside the firewall, out there in the open, ready to be attached...

I strongly urge you to get a good network consultant in to help set up your router/firewall