MYSQL Networking Problem

[FJReckDMD]

Hey Gang,
I'm an Open Dental user since 2007, set up just 2 computers, one at frontdesk to be the "Mother Computer" running Windows 7 Premium, and the other is an older Laptop running WindowsXP Professional as the "Treatment Room" computer. Had everything networked peer to peer with an Ethernet switch connecting the 2 computers, fed by a cable modem into a router, feeding the switch. Everything was working well until my internet modem (between the cable modem and the Ethernet switch), bit the dust....The Mother computer still works with Open Dental, but when I try to access the program from the Treatment Room laptop, I get a box saying that no specified MYSQL host is connected. I replaced the bad internet modem with a new Wireless Internet Modem, and have only been able to get the Treatment Room laptop to sign on to the Mother Computer once the other day....Today, I got the same error message box saying no specified MYQSL Host available...Needless to say, I'm very frustrated because I set this up back in 2007-2008 following the online help guide, and now I'm stuck...I'm aware that the old laptop with XP Pro will be going out of date with Microsoft, but I will deal with that in a few months if I have to...
Any ideas on how to get the Treatment Room laptop to "see" the Mother Computer?

Thanks for any ideas or suggestions!

Franz in NJ

[Arna]

1. **Unlikely as you mentioned that one workstation is working, however I start at the beginning: Your Windows Firewall could be blocking the connection. Check if port 3306 (or whatever port your MySQL uses) is open on the server.
2. From the workstation, trying pinging the server by name. To do this, open up to command prompt and type in ping server (server=whatever your server name is). If you get a reply, you are probably looking at a DNS issue (assuming you were trying to access Open Dental using server name).
3. Type the server IP address into Open Dental instead of the Server Name on the 'Choose Database' screen. If you don't know the IP address of the server, you can check what it is by using the command (in the command line) ipconfig. The ipv4 addresss is the IP address you should enter in the choose database screen. If this works, yay! however, this is not a permanent solution, as you may be using dynamic IP addresses which can theoretically change, so this will get you operational until your underlying IT issues are resolved.

If these simple steps are unsuccessful, then I can dig a little deeper, however I don't want to throw too much at you all at once.
Let me know how it goes.

[FJReckDMD]

Thanks Arna,
To reiterate, the only workstation I have worked Tuesday to see the Server, I logged out, re started OD and it allowed me to log back on to the server Tuesday...
Fast forward to this morning, and the workstation would not see the server this morning...Nothing really changed except the 2 days on the calendar!
The original set up had me name the server "FJRDMDFRONTDESK", and that is what is in the top box on the database screen that worked on Tuesday...
I'll try to find out what the servers IP address is on Monday AM and I'll try entering that IP address into that top box on the database screen on Monday, hopefully this will resolve the issue.

Thanks for the reply and I'll report back any success/failure!

Thanks again!

Franz in NJ

[sam-I-am]

I had a similar thing happen to me...the solution I was given was, where the program firsts asks for the database, to put in the IP address instead of the computer name, i.e., type in 192.168.1.50, for example, instead of "server-name" (substituting the correct numbers, of course)

I was told it was a DNS issue, which, frankly, I haven't looked further into, 'cause my system is working now. BTW, the solution was given to me by an excellent tech at opendental who logged into my system, and went through it.

[sam-I-am]

And if I had read the previous post fully, I would have realized I was repeating the same info!

[FJReckDMD]

Thanks again, Arna and Sam-I-Am,
Your advice worked and got me out of a jam, typing in the IP address of the Mother computer (server), did the trick. My only other question is how would I get the data path to remember where the Open Dental Images folders are so that I don't have to enter it in every time we log in to both the server and the work station? It never did this until I had this difficulty. Every time we start the server machine and the remote workstation in the treatment room, upon starting Open dental, we have to manually change the first box in the data base screen to point the program to the Open dental Images folders. Is there a way to save the location so that it will look there the next time we boot up the computer?

Anyway, Thanks again for the help!!!

Cheers!

Franz in NJ

[stjames70]

Hi Franz,

Once you point your workstations to the 'mother' computer's network folder containing opendentimages, the workstations should remember that and not require you to find the path every time you start them up.

That being said, sometimes you just have to wait for the workstations to 'self-discover' the 'mother' computer and all the other workstations in your network. I have run into problems similar to yours in the past, and I just had to wait sometimes a few minutes, sometimes an hour, for the workstations to 'see' each other. At worse, a restart was necessary. I never put my computers to sleep because it is sometimes a pain to have to wait for all the computers to network to each other. They all have internet access at start up, but they are not always able to join the workgroup quickly.

Don't know what to say. Your problem is not unique, it is annoying, and it does not happen very often, but if anyone has any solutions on how to maintain a rock solid intranet in your office, please do tell.

As far as your laptop goes, if you have a handy upgrade for Win 8.1 available, you will be able to get an extra few months if not years out of it. Otherwise, toast it.

[Ryan]

Franz,

It sounds like Open Dental cannot save some of your settings. Without getting into too many details, I think you can fix the problem by right-clicking on your Open Dental icon and "Run as Administrator." This is no guarantee, but it may resolve your problems. Let us know if that works.

[jsalmon]

You might want to double check that all your computers are on the same workgroup or domain.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... =windows-7