Test for LIVE internet connection

[MelJ]

I'm writing a small script to take my users to a website. The "Open URL" script step is a cakewalk. But I'm looking for a way to test if the user has a "Live" connection before I send them to their destination. This way if the user happens to have dial up I can inform them that they need to go online before they can continue.

Any Ideas?

Thanks,

Mel

[normanicus]

I had to mess around a bit to do this. You appear to be on Windows so I used vbscript:

1. Make a vbscript that pings a known IP address that is sure to be outside a local network. I use one of the OpenDNS addresses for this.

This script is copied from here:

http://www.connectingdata.com/downloads.htm

in the file: VBscripts_repository_v1_0.zip

It is found in Category: Hardware, Category 2: Monitoring.

Here is (adapted) the vbscript:

strComputer = "."

Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _

& "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!" & strComputer & "rootcimv2")

Set colPingedComputers = objWMIService.ExecQuery _

("Select * from Win32_PingStatus Where Address = '208.67.222.222'")

For Each objComputer in colPingedComputers

If objComputer.StatusCode = 0 Then

Wscript.Echo "Remote computer responded."

Else

Wscript.Echo "Remote computer did not respond."

End If

Next

Just paste that into a file and call it testnet.vbs

I hope this is OK with Wim Decorte!

2. Create a Filemaker script as below (I called it pingit):

Set Variable [ $$Path; Value:"filewin:" & Get ( DesktopPath ) & "testnet.vbs" ]

Send Event [ open document/application; File Name: “$$Path” ]

[ Bring application to foreground ]

The FM script is set to find the vbscript on the desktop. You can change this to where you place yours.

Running the script produces a pop-up window outside FM that reports on the availability. Better would be to get a return value into Filemaker. I might try that,

Norman

[gregincolumbus]

Does anyone know a cross platform way to test for a live internet connection while running FMP9? I would like to kill a script if there is not a connection, but I have not found anything that works on both platforms

Thanks

[LelandLong]

Yes, load a common, almost always available webpage (google, fmforums, etc) in a webviewer. If the user doesn't need to see it make it 1 pixel tall.

Use GetLayoutObjectAttribute in a calc to pull the html source data. Create a script loop that will find PatternCount ( [theHTMLsource] ; "

[gregincolumbus]

Leland

Thank you! I will give this a try. It sounds like the perfect solution. It would be nice if there was a Filemaker error code on the web viewer that indicates no connection (it displays a message of "no internet connection") to make this a bit easier, but your solution sounds great!

Thanks again.....Greg

[gregincolumbus]

This solution works perfectly.

I created a blank html page on my website, created a layout with a webviewer that looked to that page.....

added a 3 second pause to allow time for the page to load...

then scraped the data from the web page and loaded to a local variable.....I then checked the contents of this variable.

If it is not empty, then there is an active internet connection.

Thanks for the help!

[LelandLong]

Actually, the way you phrased it may be wrong...

Test it. Run your test on a machine that has the ethernet cable unplugged, or aircard off, or whatever to guarantee no internet. Now run your test.

Reason I say this, with no internet connection the webviewer may still load an error page. If so, your variable may still not be empty.

Instead of a blank page, maybe have a success message that you can look for...