Ever had a day when you felt like tech is out to get you? I have.

Last year, we had Paxton Net2 installed at the church. Not mentioning any names, but we used a big security company in the area, and they did a decent job.

The software side of Net2, though, feels less than perfect. The initial install was done from a USB stick which turned out to be borked out of the box, necessitating a tech support call so they could provide us with a download link for the right stuff.

(Side note, if you need to buy the hardware to make meaningful use of the software, is it really necessary to hide the downloads away for installers only?)

The software has the distinct appearance of something written quite a while ago which has been milked for profits ever since. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, but last week, something - we think it was a Windows or .NET update - borked the whole thing.

More specifically, if your Paxton Net2 software says “can’t connect to server” even when running on the same box as the server, the cure in this case seems to be … go to add/remove programs, find Net2, and select the “repair” option after pressing the uninstall button.

It’s disappointing that this stuff can be upset so easily. Admittedly, it’s running on an ordinary Windows 11 box, not specifically Windows Server, but it doesn’t insist on such in the requirements and it had previously been fine for six months.

If your Net2 fob readers beep but the lights don’t go red or green when fobs are presented, make sure you’ve selected the options as seen in this picture:

Net2 configuration

The other fault of the day, seemingly unrelated, was the serial to ethernet module on our Innotech Maxim III heating controller, which had the wrong baud rate and port number set (seemingly of its own volition after working for 12 years without fault!). But if you’re interested in that one, you’ll have to e-mail me for the details.

I’m off for a beer.