When Remote Clients Can't Connect | Blog

Virtual TimeClock Support Blog

When Remote Clients Can’t Connect

May 1, 2015

Many of us like to solve our own problems. If something's not working correctly, we dive right in and fix it ourselves. We encourage this same approach with Virtual TimeClock. When troubleshooting remote client connections, start with the local client troubleshooting tips. If that doesn't resolve the issue, consider the following:

  • Public IP of the router at the time clock server location changed. If your ISP (Internet Service Provider) hasn't issued you a static pubic IP address at the time clock server location, then it may change from time to time. This would only affect remote clients, local clients will continue to function. The long-term solution is to contact your ISP and have them update your router with a static public IP address. The short-term solution is to bring up a web browser and go to www.whatismyip.com to discover the new public IP address. The remote client will need to add a manual connection and enter the new public IP address in order to reconnect to the time clock server.
  • Port forward in the router/modem is no longer valid. This is a symptom of the local IP address changing on the time clock server computer. The long-term solution is to set a static IP address on the time clock server computer. The short-term solution is to update the port forward in the router at the time clock server location to point to the new time clock server computer IP address, which can be found by launching the Server Manager and checking the TCP function.

If you need help configuring your time clock for remote connectivity, here are some instructions for using Virtual TimeClock over the Internet.