PC Anywhere - can't connect to host

Yes, I configured port forwarding on both routers.

what antivirus do you have? might be only a incoming port block from a firewall.

Both my computer and the host were running AVG antivirus. I disabled it on both PCs, but it didn't help. I was able to connect to the other PC with GoToMyPc, and played around with the settings on the host computer (verified the port forwarding, turned on DMZ, disabled the Windows Vista firewall, etc.) and am stll having no luck connecting Mom's PC Anywhere host.  I tried putting in the first 3 numbers of Mom's IP address and using 255 for the forth, so I could see if the computer was visible to PC Anywhere, and it wasn't. I saw another PC there, and attempted a log on and it was able to connect but obviously, I didn't have the user name and password.
So the key to solving this must reside on the host computer, right?

are you using public ips or network ones?

I'm using the public IP (that I get from whatsmyipaddress.com). Internally, I am forwarding the host ports to the internal network IP (192.168.1.100).

If your mother is using same network configuration as I suppose it is, it means you can see her in Network Connection. Otherwise is a network connection issue not a problem with Pcanywhere.
Still, if she can connect throght this connection to your host it means everything is fine with the connection and the problem might be:
port fordwarding (open both ports) or a firewall setting.
Review again on your mothers pc if host is started.

And one more thing. She connects directly to a public ip. Its easy like this. But if you want to connect to a network ip you must call public ip after you forward him to a specified network ip with a range of ports.

I will wait news.
Regards

I can't see Mom's computer in Network Connection - she is not at the same location as I am. The port forwarding is set up - she has a Linksys router - in the Applications and Gaming tab, we entered 5631 TCP to forward to 192.168.1.100 and 5632 UDP to the same. Is there anything else we need to set there? We turned off the firewall completely in the router, and also turned of Windows firewall temporarily to see if we connect. Still no luck. The host on Mom's computer was running and waiting for a connection. Netstat -a showed that port 5631 was listening.

My PC Anywhere remote is set to call the public IP address: 72.148.xxx.xxx. I don't quite understand what your last advice is regarding forwarding a specified network ip with a range of ports. Please explain this. Thanks for your efforts.

sure,
If you are using public ip, she connect to you through that public ip 72....x.x.x
But you to connect to her pc, you must connect to the public ip of router. Your mother must have port fordwarding those 2 ports and the setting saved in router. The connection however needs a public ip or domain name. (as yours). Check from your mom's pc the www.whatismyip.com and try connecting through that ip.

Been there, done that. Still doesn't work. Any other ideas?

Most of what you say above is correct except: My pc is also on an internal network and I connect through a router with a public IP (I have set up port forwarding on my end also, for when I am host for her to connect to me, which works fine).
Her laptop is on a wireless network from the same router.
What should I check on my PC for status? I already tried connecting to two other PCAnywhere hosts and I was able to connect to those with no problem. It is only hers that I can't connect to and I can't figure out why! Any other ideas? Thanks again for continuing to try.....I hope this hasn't stumped you!

I didn't see if it was tried above, but can we limit the equations here - can you put your machine and her machine in the same network and see if you can connect?  Even another laptop with PCAnywhere would do - anything to take the router out of the equation.

If you can connect to it on the LAN, it is a router problem - if not, it is a local PC problem (windows firewall, AVG, something else)

I don't know how our machines can be installed on the same network as we are 1000 miles away from each other. She has another machine in her home (besides the laptop) - do you want me to try connecting between those 2 machines?

I am temporarily using gotomypc in order to connect to her PC. We installed that and had it up and running in 5 minutes with no problem. How did that program install and work with the router when this one is giving so much trouble?

What I don't understand is that when I type "netstat -a" in a cmd window on her machine, I get the following lines:
TCP    0.0.0.0:5631  HENRYL:0  LISTENING
UDP   0.0.0.0:5632   *:*

Is that what I'm supposed to see, or should I see a local or a public IP address where the 0.0.0.0 is shown?

>>do you want me to try connecting between those 2 machines?

That would be fine.

>>How did that program install and work with the router when this one is giving so much trouble?

Gotomypc is clever in that it bypasses the firewalls - they do that by initiating the connection (they being both the server and the client).  You aren't actually connecting to your server with gotomypc, you connect to their website and their website connects to the server - this works because of the client software you had to install on the server machine.  Hopefully that made sense :)

You would only see a public IP if she has a public IP installed on her machine - 0.0.0.0 is any ip

Here's something that can be tried from your mom's PC.

Go to http://www.grc.com/default.htm

Scroll down to "Hot spots" and click the "Shields Up" link.

Click the proceed button.

Enter 5631-5632 in the text box and click the "User Specified Custom Port Probe" button.

This will tell you if the port is visible from the outside world.  If not, then you need to revisit the router port forwarding settings.

Hi PaulHews!,

Thanks for your suggestion. Does this help solve my problem?
I tested the port as you said and got the following result:

GRC Port Authority Report created on UTC: 2008-06-01 at 22:27:28

Results from scan of ports: 5631, 5632

    0 Ports Open
    0 Ports Closed
    2 Ports Stealth
---------------------
    2 Ports Tested

ALL PORTS tested were found to be: STEALTH.

TruStealth: FAILED - ALL tested ports were STEALTH,
                   - NO unsolicited packets were received,
                   - A PING REPLY (ICMP Echo) WAS RECEIVED.

That tells you that the firewall is still blocking those ports... Start by revisiting the port forwarding in the router.  Disable the Windows firewall entirely for now.

Until that test tells you that the ports are open or closed, you won't be able to get through on PC Anywhere.

I've tried disabling both the router fire wall and the Windows fire wall to no avail.
Please see the attached jpeg. It is the port forwarding page from my router. Is there anything I should change here? Are there any other router settings I should check?

I finally got over to Mom's house and tested the connection from her internal networked PCs. I was able to connect from another computer on Mom's network when addressing the internal IP address 192.168.1.100. I was not able to connect from the second computer when addressing the public IP address. I tried this with and without router and windows firewalls and it worked the same whether or not the firewalls were disabled. I also called their ISP (AT&T) to verify that the ISP was not blocking the connection (they said that they were not, but could not offer any more tech support than that).

If grc.com still reports the ports as "stealthed" then the ports are being blocked.  If it isn't the Linksys config, it's the ISP.

Make sure that there are no conflicting entries on the port triggering page.  You don't want any port triggering set up for these ports, you want port forwarding.

As a last resort to rule out the router firewall, you could test by putting the PC in the routers DMZ.  This can be dangerous, as this exposes all open ports directly on the Internet, so make sure file and print sharing is off, Windows firewall is on, and that there are no unnecessary Internet services, like FTP or a web server running.  (If you don't know how to tell, probably better not to do this.)  Just do a quick test, and get that PC back under protection.