So, any thoughts on fixing a few bugs?

I've read your forum posts and we've taken note of them. Multiplicity hasn't been the focus the last few months. Apart from having to keep making it work on 2-3 different Vista builds because Microsoft thoughtfully deprecated features w/o documentation and closes our additional bug reports as "can't reproduce"...

I also did reply a couple of weeks ago when someone internally forwarded me your comments, but apparently I replied back to them and not directly to you.

1. We've not tracked the does not listen thing down. I've tested on two different machines with wired and wireless and it seems happy. Granted, the little "this is the interface I'm watching" dialog when you first run it only mentions the first interface.

Yes, when it's impacting you, it's much more in your face. Not every user has multiple nics.

It's back on the burner.

2. I agree there could be more work done with that. We'll see what we can do.

3/4. The latest internal builds have identified some situations where the extended keys would get unhappy. Hopefully, we've resolved that. As well as redesigning elements of the clipboard support, but "copy-paste across machines is flaky" isn't very specific.

1.04 beta is going up tonight. I've emailed you a private link, though Stardock Central can be used to grab it.

Kris

In response to your various points.

Multiplicity uses the INADDR_ANY address on the secondary machines when listening for a connection.  I believe this is the correct method for listening to all NICs and testing on machines with multiple network interfaces has shown this works correctly.  Have you tried telnet into the remote pcs and see if you get any response on the MP port?  It may be the machine is listening, but is then rejecting you based on IP address.  In which case you will get a connect before it disconnects you.

Are we talking about a primary or secondary machine changing IP address?  On the primary, the connection is reestablished when connection is lost (as it would be if you changed IP address I suspect) and the secondary doesn't care what its local IP address is (as it does not bind to any one specific address) apart from when it processes new incoming connections & you have the local subnet setting on.  But that setting obtains the IP addresses from the local PC each time.

The problem with some extended keys (though not left ctrl - that one worked) has been found internally and resolved in the 1.04 beta that kris has mentioned.  The problem occured if you held down the keys, switched pcs and then released the keys as the original machine never got a key up event. 

On the subject of Intellitype, the new 1.04 build extends support for this and now supports many of the additional MS keyboard keys being passed to secondary machines if the secondary machines also have Intellitype installed.  Likewise support for Intellimouse is extended.

The copy paste issue may be related to something else which is fixed in the 1.04 build.  The fix is actually related to MP detecting disconnects, but testing with a user who had problems found it also helped them with some unpredicable clipboard problems they were having.

I recall mention of multiple DNS entries for the one PC in a mail.  This is something we never considered as its somewhat unusual.  We will see about implementing support for this, but it does require some changes to how MP connects to machines.

Regarding the comment on Galciv2, nobody who works on the MP code was moved onto GalCiv2, but there was a problem with internal testing of updates which caused a backlog problem.  The developers have not been idle in this time as the 1.04 build shows.  There are also some internal changes added for some features which will probably be added in the 1.1 release.

RE: multiple NICs

Yes, I've tried telneting to the 2nd NIC's port and it didn't work.  I do not get a connect.  I've set Multiplicity to allow any IP to connect.  Since you're already listening on INADDR_ANY, perhaps this is related to not hooking Address Changed events and restarting your listener.  If you open a socket to listen and then the ip address on the nic changes, the socket is no longer listening even though you requested to listen to INADDR_ANY.  We're talking about a secondary machine.

I think the secondary keys problem I was seeing is different.  I would be using the secondary machine with multiplicity running but no connections (laptop, had taken it to a meeting).  I'd be in the middle of doing something and then suddenly the laptop would start acting as if a couple of keys were stuck and broken.  I never isolated which key specifically it thought was stuck, but the left CTRL and SHIFT would stop working at this point.  Right CTRL and SHIFT continued to work.  Removing Intellitype and upgrading to 1.04b fixed the issue.

Copy/Paste is working better for me in 1.04b, but I sometimes find I need to "double copy".  Symptom is that I'll hit copy on the secondary machine, paste on the primary machine, I get the clipboard buffer from the primary machine.  I go back to the secondary machine, hit copy, come back and hit paste on the primary and it works.  I believe I've seen the same symptom the other way (switching primary and secondary).  I've also noticed a pretty long (2-5 seconds) pause on the Paste machine with 1.04b upon Pasting that I don't think I saw on 1.02.

It's common these days for a machine to have more than one IP Address registered with DNS.  For instance, if you have two NICs you'll have two DNS entries.  With IPv6 coming, it's typical for a machine to have 2-5 IP addresses per NIC.  The Windows DNS Resolve command sorts the IP Addresses into the "most likely to connect" order for you so that IPADDR[0] generally works, but this is not guaranteed.  You connection algorithm should definately loop through all IPADDRs returned and attempt to connect to each one.

Thank you for the update.

Jay,

I have a laptop with 3 nics and couldn't get it to connect properly until I went into the Windows Firewall and added a trusted port for 30564 after that everything worked. 

[edit] the rule was placed on both machines.

Where is that 1.04x release? In SDC, I still see only 1.02.x.

Have you set SDC to show prereleases?

Yup. Tried deselect, reselect, etc. I have the latest SDC build. Can you send me a link to my email address (the one I use for SDC subs)?

I found I had to install 1.02, then 1.04 showed up.

I've been tracing down my cut-paste issues more.  It seems that using Ctrl-C on the secondary is not working properly.  If I used Menu Edit - Copy instead, it works consistently.

Haaaah! Interestingly, I just received a pop up when starting SDC few minutes ago offering me a new SDC build, which, after installation and restart of the app, now offers me Multiplicity 1.04[b].003, dated 03/03/06! I guess I'll give this build a shot and see what happens with IntelliPoint.

I reproduced the problem of MP 1.04.x not showing up in SDC and it wasn't because of the SDC build I had. Actually, uninstalling MP would then allow SDC to offer build 1.04.x. If MP 1.02 is installed, nothing about 1.04 would show up in SDC. Uninstall it, restart SDC, boom, 1.04 appears. Interesting, to say the least.

Anyway, now that I've install 1.04.x, i'm an happy customer (for now ). IntelliPoint issues are gone! Make sure though you read the readme file so you don't forget things, such as installing IntelliPoint on the secondary machine as well.

I reproduced the problem of MP 1.04.x not showing up in SDC and it wasn't because of the SDC build I had. Actually, uninstalling MP would then allow SDC to offer build 1.04.x. If MP 1.02 is installed, nothing about 1.04 would show up in SDC. Uninstall it, restart SDC, boom, 1.04 appears. Interesting, to say the least.

Anyway, now that I've install 1.04.x, i'm an happy customer (for now ). IntelliPoint issues are gone! Make sure though you read the readme file so you don't forget things, such as installing IntelliPoint on the secondary machine as well.

JBeavers: I suspect you are just too quick at switching machines when you use ctrl-c.  You need to give MP time to see the clipboard change before switching between machines.

If you find you have a long pause, try moving the mouse slightly.  Does that make it start to copy?

IntelliPoint issues are gone!

Therefore Logitech scrollbuttons only work on the primary now, even when switched to the secondary

FYI, I think your "too quick at switching machines" statement was accurate.  Since I've been consiously 'a little more leisurely' after Ctrl-C, things have been working well for me.  Thanks for the help.

I actually noticed it doing that the other day when moving some files to a vista machine.  Its on the list of things to look into along with a possible solution for the problem of ip address changes of the secondary not being seen by the primary quickly when on a busy network.