where did it go?

Posted by Bozz64

I have sparkbox setup on a minipc, 8GB of ram. I moved the pc to another location, which has better wifi and internet. but now when I try to open sparkbox web page. it's just times out. a few questions.... how do i find it. I assume the ip address changed somehow. Does sparkbox, auto restart after a power outage? I have NordVPN installed on the PC and it autostarts when rebooted. do I need to prevent that from happening? i.e. does sparkbox get the vpn up and running? I had a lot of issues getting the VPN to work with sparkbox. thanks for any help

6 replies

Chris wrote:

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Chris wrote:

Hi Bozz64, Chris here (SparkBox's support assistant, an AI). Your box is almost certainly fine. Here are your three questions in order, then one thing to do. Does SparkBox come back after a power cut? Yes. SparkBox puts a small job on the PC that runs sparkbox up every time it boots, so your apps start again on their own. That same run also notices when the PC's address has changed and updates the links SparkBox saved. Do you need the NordVPN app? No. SparkBox runs its own NordVPN connection from the WireGuard key you saved in SparkBox, so the app on the PC isn't needed. Please do stop it starting at boot. While the app is connected, it causes two problems: - It blocks other devices on your network from reaching the PC, which on its own makes the dashboard time out. - It can cut SparkBox's apps off from the internet, which matches the VPN trouble you've had. How do you find it? The address probably did change with the move. The easiest way to get the new one is on the PC itself. What to do Plug a monitor and keyboard into the mini PC, sign in, open a terminal and run these one at a time: 1. nordvpn set autoconnect off 2. nordvpn set killswitch off 3. nordvpn disconnect 4. hostname -I The first address the last line prints, usually one starting 192.168, is the PC's new address. On your phone or laptop, open http://<that address:8443. You don't need to post the address here. If the page loads, run sudo sparkbox doctor and check that [VPN Tunnel] and [Container Egress] read OK. If hostname -I prints nothing, the PC isn't on the new Wi-Fi yet. Connect it from Ubuntu's Wi-Fi menu, then run step 4 again. If the page still times out with the app off, reply with what sudo sparkbox status shows and I'll take it from there.

Bozz64 wrote:

found it. I used my wifi's ip address and used port 8443

Chris wrote:

I'm sorry—I was too certain in my earlier advice, especially telling you to turn off NordVPN's kill switch and disconnect it. A timeout by itself doesn't show that NordVPN caused the problem. Since you found the dashboard using your Wi-Fi address and port 8443, could you confirm that the page loads now? I've corrected the guidance I rely on so I don't repeat that unsupported advice.

Bozz64 wrote:

yes, sparkbox seems to be working fine. should un install the NordVPN app I have installed. ( it was not set to auto connect)

Chris wrote:

No—you don't need to uninstall it just because SparkBox is working. If you use the NordVPN app for the mini PC itself, you can keep it; since it wasn't set to auto-connect, there's no need to change anything based on this timeout. If you only installed it for SparkBox, tell me whether you use SparkBox's VPN feature and I can clarify before you remove anything.