Connecting to the Web Interface

At the moment I can only connect to the Modduox via my laptop.
With the desktop the connection fails, no matter which USB port the Modduox is connected to - I have tried them all. I used Firefox and Chromium, I had the extensions disabled.

I didn’t find anything in https://wiki.moddevices.com/wiki/Troubleshooting and now I have no more idea. Have I forgotten something important? What can I do?

Desktop: Debian, XFCE4
Laptop: Debian, Gnome

What does lsusb on the desktop say when the Duo is physically connected? If the Duo is detected you will see something like 0525:a4a2 Netchip Technology, Inc. Linux-USB Ethernet/RNDIS Gadget. If this is not the case, we got a problem on the USB hardware level.

What network devices are present when running ip a? Usually the last device in the list is the Duo. Does it have an IP address assigned? If there’s an interface with no IP, is the network manager running?

Also try running sudo journalctl -fk before plugging the Duo into the USB port and look at the USB and network related messages.

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The moddoux is recognized by lsusb.

However, according to “ip a” it is not assigned an IP address.
XFCE4 has a network manager in autostart. But no matter if it is switched on or off, the moddoux has no IP address.

“journalctl -fk” shows me on some USB ports that the USB cable is defective, on other USB ports it detects the Moddoux without error messages.

With the laptop, the Moddoux has an IP address, everything runs smoothly - plug and play.

Ok then try dhclient <insert interface name here> and see if you get an IP.

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This just seems like a quirk of XFCE not automatically assigning or connecting

Thanks for the quick and successful help.
Everything works now and: I have learned something.

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This is so fucking finnicky – I’m on POP OS with a frameowrk laptop, and haven’t had an issue AT ALL, but everytime i try to connect via USB, fmy laptop won’t connect to http://moddwarf.local.

This is expensive gear; and it only works when I’m at home. PLEASE HELP.

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moddwarf.local depends on the local network, it needs to support mDNS and zeroconf.
some routers and/or network setups block this (as seen recently in another thread when using a VPN)

the best is to use http://192.168.51.1/ which is the IP assigned to the internal USB network.

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disconnected could be for various reasons, are you not able to simply reload the page?

the disconnect in that case could be due to plugins or something in the pedalboard crashing the audio engine.
if you can load the web gui url on a browser, it starts to load and then shows disconnected - that is very likely the issue, something crashes as soon as it is loaded.

rebooting the unit might help, so it starts with a clean state.

I dont get how this happens when connected to one PC but not another… that is the weirdest part to me

no such thing exists for the moment.
but you can change active pedalboard from within the device itself, then load up the web gui.

the audio and pedalboard/web-gui management are separate parts. even if audio host crashes we can still change the pedalboard

very odd… I suggest to try changing the “USB Mode” in the device settings to “Net+MIDI”, which exposes the USB ethernet in a different way. Dont pick the last option as it is Windows specific and doesnt work on macOS, the middle one is the one to use on everything non-Windows.
See if that works better

I had this weird problem that it connected sometimes but other times not. Same computer, same browser. I was just looking into the issue and that is why I am reading this. And I just tried unplug the power, it stayed running but then the browser window loaded…when unplugged from power. I had been trying for 20 minutes before that on both URLs. Very weird.

You still experience the same problem?

Not really. Just that you can only access the WebGUI with your device connected via USB to the computer and the device should be fully booted when you try to access it.

My experiments lead me to the following conclusion.

  1. Bluetooth is no go, it is slow as hell, true. At least 4.0 does not worth the trouble configuring it. Bluetooth 5, while theoretically faster - seems to have compatibility issues, almost every topic mentioning 5.0 dongle ended up with “it was not tested”.

  2. Wifi is much better, speed feels not worse than USB, pretty much usable, but it does not work as an access point, it works only as a client.

It is not your tablet/phone connecting to MOD device WiFi, it would be MOD device connecting to some WiFi access point you’ve configured in wpa_supplicant config.

This means you need a hotspot to connect, and a way to determine an IP address of connected mod device to type into your browser.

As a hotspot you can use:

  1. a small usb wifi router as in this topic: Work! Access over WiFi with GL.iNet GL-MT300Nv2 - #4 by eggsperde I had not tried that, but author of the topic seems to be satisfied.
  2. Your android phone tablet itself in “wifi hotspot mode”. Probably Ipad should be capable of something similar.

Issues are the following:

  1. Wifi connection is not managed at all from the physical interface of the mod device, all configuration should be done in advance via ssh console in advance, there is no status information. Everything is quite blindfolded.

  2. If using android phone as a hotspot - I found that it is hard to determine MOD’s ip address at all - mod device does not show it all, and on android side it was very tricky to get it. (List of network interfaces on physical UI) I do not know if on Ipad it is any better. Also using dns name modduox.local did not work for me in case of phone-provided hotspot on all my phones. ( Works with my home wifi router though. That’s why I often used WIFI approach at home) Still, have no idea about Ipad.

  3. Also sometimes I had to reconnect the dongle after powering on my MDX, because it does not always connect reliably on boot, but reconnecting forces another connection attempt.


To conclude, my current approach is configure MOD to connect to my home wifi and use it that way most of the time, accessing it via regular modduox.local url/name.

For a field trip I take my phone, raise a hotspot on the phone named the same way as my home router with the same password, and use a long unsatisfying termux workaround to get an IP. The termux part is so time consuming, that usually I still bite the bullet and take a laptop with me instead if possible.

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For what is worth, the WiFi support is unofficial and just something I started testing out of curiosity.
The usual method for connecting is through USB.
In case the usual USB network setup does not work, there are options via device settings to change to alternative Network+MIDI

We did more tests and have Dwarf working as WiFi hotspot, which is much easier to setup vs having to connect to an existing WiFi network which requires giving a password.
When that comes as system feature is not yet fully defined, but should be either 1.14 or 1.15.

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Yes, it should.

I have been using the USB and bluetooth connections with my iPad, dwarf, and MDX.

Bluetooth is slow, and has gotten noticably slower. USB is the way to go.

I highly recommend using a mouse/trackpad with your tablet, as the touch screen interface is not great.

I recommend the port splitter for the ipad, so you can have data and power.

192.168.51.1 in safari for gui access over USB

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