ncb_lana_num error ? Aloha POS help 2

[NickDodson]

Hi all,

I am a restaurant owner in Springfield, Illinois and have used Aloha for many years with the service of Cardinal. However we no longer have hardware support with Cardinal and *surprise* one of the terminals will not turn on or boot up.... SO I have a spare terminal in the back and decided to try hooking it up after dinner rush to no avail...

I plugged it all in and received the error code "Failed to register station name, error ncb_lana_num field invalid". So i searched your forums and found that I needed to change the computer name under properties/computer name. This didn't result in any success either... Another side note is that this terminal USE to be terminal 1 in my restaurant and got switched out by a loaner from Cardinal long long ago so I didn't know if there were more steps I needed to take to get this puppy back online or what. If you can help please do for I will be forever owe you good karma and a warm dinner at my restaurant.

I have a decent understanding of computers but reading some of the threads has got me a little confused... Any help that can be given would be sincerely appreciated.

Nick Dodson
The Dublin Pub
Springfield, Illinois

 

[BIGGBYNinja]

Multiple steps probably need to be taken. I'll try to help best I can, assuming the terminal is running Windows XP.

First, download lanacfg and copy it to the terminal. You will need to make sure the network adapter is set to LANA 0. To do this, run the following from a command prompt in the directory where you copy lanacfg.exe

lanacfg showlanapaths

Use this to check if the LANA # is 0. If it is not, note the current number of the network adapter, then run:

lanacfg setlananumber # 0

^ where # is the number from the first command above

After the network adapter is set to LANA number 0, set the IP address of the network adapter by going to Start > Control Panel > Network Connections. Right-click your Local Area Connection > Properties. Highlight (single left-click) Internet Protocol TCP/IP and click the Properties button underneath that. Set the IP address of the terminal so that it works on your local network and doesn't conflict with other networking devices.

Change the computer name to TERM#, where # is the number of the terminal. You can do this by right-clicking My Computer > Properties > Computer Name.

Change the environment variables. Right-click My Computer > Properties > Advanced. Click the Environment Variables button. Set the NUMTERMS entry to the number of terminals your system has. Set the TERM entry to the number of the terminal.

After all this, you may want to do what we at work call a "Refresh Terminal" which copies the entire BIN and DATA folders from the fileserver / BOH.

 

[dauphin2]

Make sure you are also using a static IP address and not DHCP. DHCP will also throw out this error in Aloha.

 

[eburks]

Static IP A little more info

Go to the BOH and run CMD

"DOS" window opens

type ipconfig /all

expect something like what follows. my BOH has 2 network adapters yours should too. 1 is for the Aloha Network the other is for your internet connection. If you process via dialup or verifone terminal your setup might be different)



Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : ALOHABOH
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : SMC EZ Card
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-04-E2-25-01-97
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.55
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.254
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 75.75.75.75

Local Area Connection 2:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom 440x
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-01-80-56-9B-19
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.100.110.100
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :


The aloha network above is Connection 2 yours could be either but we would hope it would be the one with no DHCP and no Default gateway


The IP address you set on the terminal must have the same subnet mask and a different unused number in the last position

so for example a new IP on my aloha network would be

IP Address 10.100.110.201 first three sets between periods the same; last different
Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0


test that the ip you will set for the term is unique by doing this while in the command window type

ping 10.100.110.201

The response should be "request timed out" (4 times) if not, select a different last number and retry


most Aloha ip address scenarios are something like this

BOH XXX.XXX.XXX.100
Term1 XXX.XXX.XXX.101
Term2 XXX.XXX.XXX.102
Term3 XXX.XXX.XXX.103
Term4 XXX.XXX.XXX.104


Subnet Mask must be the same on all and it would be extremely unusual
if it was anything but 255.255.255.0

 

[eburks]

And 1 last thing about environment variables for the terminal number

You had better make any change to the term variable in the ibercfg.bat

It is in the Aloha directory on each terminal and looks similar to what follows

SET IBERROOT=Aloha
SET LOCALDIR=C:\QWERTY\Aloha
SET CALIBRATE="C:\Program Files\Elo TouchSystems\EloVa.exe"
SET EDCPATH=\\ALOHABOH\BOOTDRV\Aloha\EDC
SET TERMSTR=TERM
SET TERM=4
SET NUMTERMS=4
SET SERVER=ALOHABOH
SET MASTERCAPABLE=TRUE
SET SERVERCAPABLE=TRUE
SET AUTOEXIT=TRUE
SET REBOOTNT=TRUE
COPY %LOCALDIR%\newbin\*.* %LOCALDIR%\bin
ECHO y | DEL %LOCALDIR%\newbin\*.*
START C:\QWERTY\Aloha\BIN\IBER.EXE


You should definitely set the terminal variable in ibercfg.bat

like, for terminal 3, windows computer name term3 you would put this in ibercfg.bat

SET TERM=3

I would go ahead and make sure NUMTERMS is correct here too and it should be set for the number of terminals you usually run even if 1 is down or out of the system. If it is not set to the same number as the BOH Aloha will complain

You can check this number by going to a cmd prompt on BOH and typing SET

that will give you a list of ALL the windows variables

I just tested this with Aloha 6.5 and if you use the windows advanced tab; environment variable section and put term=4 but the ibercfg.bat file has term=1 then Aloha 6.5 will reboot windows XP and set the environment variable to term=1 I'm not sure if 5.3 would do this but 6.5 does (I learn something new every day)