This article offers tips and techniques for troubleshooting problems with accessing FrameFlow's interface when the interface is running on our integrated web server.
To access FrameFlow's interface, the FrameFlow service must be running. Use the Windows Service Manager, found in the Administrative Tools section, to verify that the service is running.
FrameFlow includes an integrated web server that is used to deliver the user interface pages. New installations use the integrated web server by default but you can switch to using IIS if you want to take advantage of HTTPS/SSL encryption and other features offered by IIS.
FrameFlow can lose the port number it is configured to use if another program grabs it first before FrameFlow starts up. This sometimes happens when you install another web-based product and then restart the system. During the restart, the other product may grab our default port (8080).
In this situation, FrameFlow will try to use the next available port number, trying 8081, 8082, etc until it finds one that is available. Once it finds an available port it will record it in the "config.ini" file found in the main FrameFlow folder. To check the current port number setting, open the "config.ini" using Notepad. Look for the following in the "config.ini" file.
[WebServer]
Port=8081
Then you can access the interface by browsing to:
http://localhost:8081/
After verifying that you can access the interface locally, try from a remote machine by using the hostname of your FrameFlow Server. You can use an address similar to the one shown below, making appropriate substitutions for 'hostname' and 'port'.
http://hostname:port/
If you are able to access the interface locally but not externally then Windows Firewall or some other security software is likely blocking access to the port that FrameFlow is using and you'll need to add an exception for it.
If you want to put FrameFlow back on the original port you'll need to find which program current has the port reserved. Windows includes a command line tool to see which port numbers are in use. Try the following to determine which program is using the desired port number and then configure that program to use a different port.
Open a command line window on your FrameFlow server and run "netstat -ab". The results will list which binaries have reserved which TCP ports. It's sometimes better to redirect the output to a file with "netstat -ab > ports.txt" and then look through the "ports.txt" file using Notepad.
Once you have identified the other product that is using the port you can go to its configuration to change it to something else and then follow the steps below to set FrameFlow back to the original port.
Edit the "config.ini" file found in the main FrameFlow installation folder using Notepad. Look for a section called [WebServer] and after that a line that looks like "Port=8080". Change the port number to the value you want to use and save the file. Then stop and start the FrameFlow service. Once the service has started, check the "config.ini" again to verify that the port is the same. If FrameFlow was still unable to get the requested port then it will have updated the "Port=" line to show the value it is using.