Can't OTAP on other sites?

Q. We have a working MOTOTRBO IP Site Connect with Multiple sites and are using OTAP successfully through the Master Site. We have been unable to successfully add a second OTAP repeater (Yes it has NAI installed). We haven't been able to find any documentation on adding additional repeaters to OTAP.

A. You don't need to "add repeaters" to send OTAP data through them. 

In my experience, the most common causes for the symptom you are seeing are:

Firewall. The quickest and easiest way to check whether Windows Firewall is blocking something, is to simply turn it off temporarily. If OTAP works when the firewall is off, then that's the first clue. To see which port/protocol is being blocked, you need to turn Windows firewall back on and enable logging of dropped packets. Try performing a write job etc. then take a look at the pflog file to see what was blocked.

If turning Windows Firewall off makes no difference, that's not the cause.

To turn Windows Firewall on or off navigate to Windows Firewall from the Control Panel or (a bit quicker) press Windows+R, type firewall.cpl an click OK. In the window, click Turn Windows Defender Firewall on or off (on the left). Then select on all the Turn off radio buttons and click OK.

⚠ Do not forget to turn Windows Defender Firewall back on once you've done this check!

To enable logging in Windows Defender Firewall (to see what it is blocking), do the following:

1. Make sure Windows Defender Firewall is turned on.
2. Open Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security 
3. Press Windows+R, type wf.msc and press OK.
4. Once the window is open, go to the global settings for the network profile used by MNIS. In the centre pane, look for the Overview section.
5. Click on Windows Defender Firewall Properties (usually located in blue text under the Domain Profile section).
6. A window with several tabs (Domain, Private, and Public) will appear.
7. Select the Private tab or whichever tab represents the MNIS connection.
8. Under the Logging section at the bottom, click the Customize... button.
9. In the "Log dropped packets" dropdown, select Yes.
10. Click OK.

Once you've done this, try doing an OTAP job (yes, it will fail) and look in the log file to see what the firewall blocked. 

The log file can be found at at C:\Windows\System32\LogFiles\Firewall\pfirewall.log.

If it is empty, the firewall blocked nothing, or MNIS is using a different profile (i.e. (Domain or Public) and you might have to go back and turn on logging for them.

Don't forget to turn logging off once you're done with this.

MNIS not set up correctly. A quick and simple way to confirm whether MNIS is working properly, is to try pinging it and then pinging a radio.

When installed and running, MNIS creates an IP tunnel connection (see it as a virtual ethernet port) on the PC. It also sets up a static route to the 12.0.0.0/8; 13.0.0.0/8 and 14.0.0.0/8 networks via this tunnel interface. This route tells Windows or any applications running on that PC where it should send data intended for the above IP addresses.

The IP address that the tunnel uses is set in the MNIS application under General.

If MNIS is correctly set up and running, you should be able to ping the above IP address. If you are able to successfully ping the above address, you can then try pinging a radio.

To ping a radio, you must use the -w switch in the command. This is because DMR does not inherently support ICMP and does not support frame scheduling like an ethernet network would. Also, you would need to know the radio's Air Interface IP Address: this can be found by converting the Radio ID manually or using this online tool.

For example, if the radio ID is 2626054, in the Command Prompt window, type:

ping 12.40.18.6 -w 5000

As you can see from the below screen capture, the ping time is quite high. Without the -w 5000 switch, the ping would fail.

RM not set up correctly. The interface been MNIS and the Radio Management Database is the Device Programmer (and Job Processor which we'll leave aside for now). For OTAP to work, the following needs to be in the settings:

• Over The Air needs to be ticked.
• The Assigned Radio Group must match the group the radio is in or must eb set to All.
• PN Server must be ticked and the IP address where DDMS is installed must be added. If DDMS is on the same computer as the Device Programmer, you can set to this to 127.0.0.1. The port number is (by default) 3000.
• If you are using MNIS TCP Control, this needs to be ticked and the address of where MNIS is installed must be added here. If MNIS and the Device Programmer are on the same PC you can leave this unticked.

If there was a problem with one of the above settings, you would not be able to ping any radio.

Repeater not set up correctly. Apart from needing a NAI Data licence, in order to send OTAP data through a Peer repeater, it needs to be connected to the Master. A quick and simple way to confirm whether this is the case, is to call another radio user whose radio you know is on (or has roamed to) the Peer in question (or even better send them a text message). If you can communicate (via text or voice) then the repeaters are connected.

The repeater firmware ought not to make a difference in this case though to get (official) support from Motorola Solutions, you will need to be on the latest (currently M2025.03) or something not older than two major releases back (M2023.03).

Radio not set up for OTAP.  Although unlikely, this could also be a cause. However, if you are able to OTAP a radio when it's on the Master Repeater site, then this is not the cause.

None the less, if you would like to check, have one of the users - whose radio you were able to OTAP before - roam to the Peer Site and then try writing a small arbitrary change (e.g. change one setting on a button) to their radio via OTAP. If you can OTAP the radio on one site but not the other, it's not the radio at fault.

Another useful tool for problems like this, is Wireshark. In some cases, having an el-cheepo managed switch with a mirrored port, on hand can be useful. The mirrored port allows you to tap into a network interface.

Without further details, this is the best answer I can give.

If you would like to ask a question, you can always do so via the contact form. If you need me to look at screenshots or files, you can simply reply to the confirmation email you get when you submit. I cannot answer all questions but I'll do my best.

Not so long ago, I created a MOTOTRBO Radio Management Setup Guide that covers the setup and use of this software. To view and download a copy, click here. There is a small section at the end that offers some diagnostic tips which might help you. I will also be adding the above information to the next version of this document -  if it isn't there already.