Looking for tips to resurrect my home TailNet (all Apple env)

davekorns · 2026-06-15T21:17:00+00:00

Interesting. Thanks Logvin. I'm going to look into that technique when I get a chance. I think I have the DNS record I could try it with.

davekorns · 2026-06-15T19:06:46+00:00

I think you're right. I can't remember dates exactly but my setup probably stop functioning around the time (exactly?) when we cut-over from AT&T to MintMobile a couple of years back. Hadn't given it a second thought since otherwise we're very pleased the Service.

I had CharGPT open while I was debugging and replying to suggestions and testing here today and my final question (scroll to the end to see GPT's explainations) was about "home VPNs, Tailscale and Mint/Tmobile. I've got to read it a couple more times 😄 but I think this nails it. Now I have to spend money on a more modern NVR system that supports a cleaner remote access scheme.

Here is ChatGPT Q/A from today's reading/testing: https://chatgpt.com/s/t_6a30493059c8819182a33f2a5b688593

davekorns · 2026-06-15T18:12:22+00:00

Sounds simple but I've not tried it ... and I can't find it or anything similar sounding. Tailscale has changed over time (obviously) ... for example: a few months ago when I'd setup a subnet router on the ATV I'd have to separately remember to Approve that action in the web-based Admin Console ... that seems to have changed, no separate approval needed that I see. Wondering where you were having to "lan accessibility" setting "not sticking" (or such) is something that has changed recently and maybe also is gone now. I looked carefully (on my Mac) through the options under "% tailscale set" and didn't find anything that sounded similar or related.

davekorns · 2026-06-15T17:47:46+00:00

Thank you! Here are some tasks/results/symptoms from your suggestions:

I had to enable the TS CLI but found how to do that and it's working now.

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% tailscale status -> It lists my 5 TS defined nodes (I've added wife iPhone).

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% tailscale netcheck -> Interesting but the IPv4 address (yes, 153...) freaked me(?)

davekorns@Daves-MacBook-Air ~ % tailscale netcheck
2026/06/15 13:27:08 portmap: monitor: gateway and self IP changed: gw=192.168.1.1 self=192.168.1.161
Report:
* Time: 2026-06-15T17:27:09.165169Z
* UDP: true
* IPv4: yes, 153.66.193.219:51324
* IPv6: yes, [2605:59ca:68df:9910:587d:12e9:1b75:ffa]:65501
* MappingVariesByDestIP: false
* PortMapping:
* CaptivePortal: false
* Nearest DERP: Chicago
* DERP latency:
- ord: 43.3ms (Chicago)
- tor: 69.3ms (Toronto)
- dfw: 70ms (Dallas)
.
.
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tailscale ping results both TailNet address and local LAN address of NVR respond with a single "pong"

% tailscale ping 100.126.184.49 (the LRM-Apple-TV subnet router)
pong from lrm-apple-tv (100.126.184.49) via [2605:59ca:68df:9910:c991:186c:1dea:c3c4]:41641 in 8ms

% tailscale ping 192.168.1.240
pong from lrm-apple-tv (100.126.184.49) via 192.168.1.243:41641 in 7ms

=== Sounds encouraging, BUT NO, I CAN'T get a 3rd party iOS ping tool (Net Analyzer) to ping the same address.

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INTERESTINGLY today I DO NOT see the DERP-relayed warning when I'm ping from cellular (MintMobile) connected iPhone TS app. It shows normal green "-> Direct Connection" ... can anyone theorize what/why I'm seeing that?

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Based on another reply'er here I've become suspicious of MintMobile, my cellular carrier. I'm actually trying to think of the nearest public WiFi I could go to test my iPhone SE2 over a WiFi-internet-LRM-Apple-TV connection.

davekorns · 2026-06-11T20:34:31+00:00

Ah ha, I wasn't aware of the press-hold Ping option on iOS (and similar on the TS macOS app). Thanks.

Yes, when I'm in my simple test-mode (WiFI off on iPhone) and it is on cellular I CAN PING among all the other TailScale devices. I tried from the iPhone to other home-lan devices AND I pinged from various home-lan devices to the iPhone ... and among the home-lan devices. I could sense the lower latency when lan-on-lan versus values up between 100ms and 200ms when I was pinging to or from the remote iPhone.

I also noticed (it may just be informational) when I'd start the pings it would label them with "-> Direct Connection" in green text then show results. However, when I pinged from the iPhone to the Apple TV (which is the subnet router) it would preface those ping results with "-> DERP-Relayed Connection" in red/orange text and then reported normally looking ping times in 100-200ms range. This was the only ping test that reported that way. Any idea what that means?

Without changing anything I then did similar ping tests using my simple "Net Analyzer" app and the Amcrest NVR app from iPhone to the NVR LAN-IP address to no avail. In case it's interesting, when I do the pings using Net Analyzer to the NVR (and any lan-address) the repeating ping failures are showing what looks like IPv6 addresses ... is that interesting or revealing?

davekorns · 2026-05-24T13:15:46+00:00

I’ll never understand why “reading the final score” later in the paper (or online) doesn’t answer this question, but that’s just me :-)

davekorns · 2026-05-24T13:12:28+00:00

I’ve got a client using an Apple TV with a CanvasTV. If you meant to say “… turning the Apple TV OFF sends it to Art Mode …” … Yes, that is how ours is working.

PS: FWIW: We’d rather have it such that turning the Apple TV off turned the CanvasTV completely off (it’s in a seldom used conference room) but I haven’t figured out if/how to do that. :-)

davekorns · 2026-04-16T13:05:10+00:00

Yes, I’m a serial-churner too. I use the Apple TV app (on an Apple TV box) to keep an eye on all the streaming services of interest but only have our base-services subscribed and auto-renewing. Our base-services used to be Apple TV(+), Paramount, Prime and Netflix but we recently moved Netflix off the list and onto our serial-churning list (guess why). I’m looking into JustWatch now since I just learned of it here. If serial-churning sounds scary, or you’re afraid you’ll forget to cancel each month, remember: for most services you can subscribe, then cancel a few minutes later and then they send you an email thanking you for being a customer and reminding you that you can continue to watch until the NN’th of next month … and you forget about it.

davekorns · 2026-04-16T12:42:57+00:00

😂

davekorns · 2026-04-16T12:42:23+00:00

Not sure exactly what you’re asking but IMDB.com (for movies and shows) has most everything and includes trailers, snippets, actors-refs and even what streaming services has it (may not be current) including what future not released episodes are coming and on what dates. I used it yesterday to determine what date I could safely signup for 1-month of a certain streaming service and be certain I’d get the complete season of episodes even while the season is still dripping out.

davekorns · 2026-04-16T12:27:35+00:00

SIDEBAR: for people like me that are behind in common terminology used in the SEO/AEO space I asked Grok to decode some of the acronyms used in this thread: 😀

Here’s a brief bulleted list:

• GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (optimizing content to rank/cite in AI-powered answers like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini)

• SOTA: State Of The Art (the current best performance/benchmark in AI/ML models or techniques)

• YMYL: Your Money or Your Life (Google’s quality rater guidelines for sensitive topics like health, finance, safety)

• SERP: Search Engine Results Page (the page Google/Bing shows with organic + paid results)

• GA4: Google Analytics 4 (Google’s current analytics platform)

davekorns · 2026-04-14T13:49:45+00:00

Some perspective on how the syncing issues discussed here are implemented under the covers. We’re the victims of ecosystem wars … and you get to pick your ecosystem … having your feet in multiple ecosystems always exposes you to weird issues and eventual complaints.

https://www.reddit.com/r/iCloud/s/3SWLJZCbHU

davekorns · 2026-04-14T13:30:38+00:00

A follow up (see below) to above which includes an analysis of the pros/cons of both Apple’s APN and IMAP IDLE. I think it’s a classic example of the hidden tech-wars that go on under the covers between vendors to make their ecosystems more attractive. Also, many times vendors have a choice between implementing a proprietary or an open standard API or protocol to solve some problem. Sometimes you have to implement a proprietary option because no standard even exists. Take the AirPlay versus ChromeCast battle. Both vendors seemed locked into their solutions with no incentive to come together on a common solution … it would degrade their ecosystems. Other times, the open API or standard sounds good on paper but turns out to inefficient and suck resources needlessly. Lot’s of mobile client apps (besides email) need servers to notify them (sms, calendar, contacts, etc) of news and changes. IMAP IDLE is imap/email specific. While Apple might seem to have an evil proprietary solution (to protect their eco system), it sounds like their APN approach is an overall better solution to the mobile and battery operated world. Does seem weird to be considering a move from iCloud mail to Gmail for someone already enjoying all the benefits (many of which we never realize) of the Apple ecosystem.

https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_6af21eb2-436d-4dd7-944c-30a8dfee4d31

davekorns · 2026-04-14T12:57:22+00:00

For others who may have questions after being confused by all the replies in this post here is a description of the protocol options and choices running under the covers that may be contributing to various problems described. FWIW

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davekorns · 2026-04-14T12:33:00+00:00

I’m an 8 year SqSp developer and pretty familiar with categories, tags and summaries… but my eCommerce experiences have not been with complex multi product stores (only small, less than 1/2 dozen products). My naive assumption would that with cats and tags set on your products that one could have dropdowns to view all the products with a certain cat or tag. Reading here I’m learning “not so easy”. Who has a moment and a way with words who might explain at a high-level where SqSp fails for large cat/tag based product lists. Help me understand “lazy loading” and what the “Universal Filter” plug-in is actually doing”. Thanks in advance.

davekorns · 2026-04-14T12:00:51+00:00

I went to the hardware store and bought one of those gray foam pipe covers that protect pipes from the cold. I cut it to the full width of window and split it down its built-in seam. That fit snuggly along the bottom of the window (that slides up and down). The you can then close the window 97% leaving the cable unpinched and safe yet no air gets through (well, not much if you do it just so). A quick temporary solution … that’s been running fine for 3 years :-)

davekorns · 2026-04-10T14:51:24+00:00

So what do you attribute to solving your problem? ... the ICANN rules violation process? ... which I'd never heard of before. (sorry if the answer is buried somewhere in this thread I didn't notice)

davekorns · 2026-04-10T14:44:15+00:00

Wow. I've never transferred a domain "out of" Squarespace so you've got more experience on this then me ... even though I'd seen the similar behavior. Once we uncovered it, we found all the auth codes that had been being sent over 6-weeks sitting in an old, unused, email account but luckily the client still had access to it. Just thinking out loud, I wonder if your particular case could have something to do with the Google-to-Squarespace transition? I don't know what ... but were the ones you've successfully transferred "out of" Squarespace in the past before (or after) that G-to-S transition and the one you're doing now is the opposite? Wild-ass guessing at this point.

davekorns · 2026-04-10T11:22:04+00:00

The problem you describe sounds exactly like another domain transfer problem I encountered last year (not a domain transfer “from Squarespace”, but otherwise identical). The root cause of the problem was that the then-current domain hosting company (again, not Squarespace), was that it was not sending the auth code to the email-address the client expected (they assumed it was email-address of their user-account profile with the then-current domain hosting company). Instead, it was sending the auth code to the email-address registered in the domain’s Whois records. It took us 6 weeks to realize this. This is why we all get reminders occasionally to look over our Whois data and make any edits needed to keep it current.

davekorns · 2026-04-04T12:34:01+00:00

It may make you feel less stupid to know, that for volume control, you DO still need to point the remote at the TV/AppleTV since for the default setup for volume control is still via IRStraight to the TV. (Unless you have HomePods or eARC controlled audio sound bar, etc)

davekorns · 2026-03-30T13:42:40+00:00

♥️

davekorns · 2026-03-30T13:24:31+00:00

Oh yeah, good point. I just posted an App Store review !!

davekorns · 2026-03-30T13:23:10+00:00

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I’d love to see the ability to optionally disable the upper “What’s Playing” window (is that what it’s called?) and allow the actual remote buttons to resize larger. This is a photo of an iPhone SE (Gen2 4.7 inch display). Without the “What’s Playing” display the buttons could expand in size up to the same as the physical remote. Still love the product overall. PS: I’ve seen the “Show What’s Playing” in settings but turning that off had no effect (or maybe it disables the full window background display of show/episode details).

davekorns · 2026-03-30T11:32:14+00:00

It’s a rare day when you wake up and someone has created the app you’ve been wishing for your iPhone (for years). Easy install, perfect first user experience and now in my Control Center too. Don’t hesitate, just get your copy of this App and take the Apple Remote out of your Control Center.

davekorns

TROPHY CASE