Surepetcare Cat Flap Connect Hub with Plusnet Hub Two

[#1]

Morning all. 

I am have trouble setting up a new Cat Flap Connect Hub by Sure Pet Care.  The cat flap hub has to be connected directly to the broadband route via ethernet cable.

I tried doing this with no changes to the Plusnet Hub Two set up - but no success. When reconnecting the Cat Flap Connect Hub after a power cycle the 'ears' on the hub go solid red, alternate red flashing, alternate green flashing, both then briefly go orange, then green, then off completely.  I have then tried connecting to the product in the Sure PetCare App numerous times - but it cannot find the Cat Flap Connect Hub.

I have tried contacting Sure PetCare Customer services and they advised the following:  "Please check with your internet provider that there is no firewall restriction that are blocking the ports of your router and request to open the following outbound traffic ports: HTTPS – 443 and/or MQTTS – 8883."

I contacted Plusnet Customer Services and they said they could not see any firewall settings that would block the ports but were not able to advise further as they do not formally support port forwarding (they suggested this is the same as opening a port) but suggested I try the Plusnet Community Forum - so here I am!

I tried creating some port forwarding rules on the Plusnet Hub Two for port 443 and 8883 - see attached photo of the rules I set up on the Plusnet Hub Two Manager.  To be honest I understand hardly any of this - and there don;t seem to be any options for HTTPS or MQTTS when creating a port forwarding rule - only TCP, UDP, or TCP/UDP).  Unfortunately these rules do not seem to make any difference and I have the same experience as above when trying to set up the Cat Flap Connect Hub and link to it in the Sure PetCare App. 

Ultimately (assuming I can get the Cat Flap Connect Hub working using a direct ethernet connection to the Plusnet Hub Two) then I want to move it to another room and have it plugged into a spare port on an ethernet switch that I have connected to the Plusnet Hub Two.  Hopefully that won't cause any issues - but the first step is to get the Cat Flap Connect Hub working with it plugged in directly to the router.

Can anyone advise on how they might have overcome this or similar issues?  Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[#2]

@WallH 

I have tried contacting Sure PetCare Customer services and they advised the following:  "Please check with your internet provider that there is no firewall restriction that are blocking the ports of your router and request to open the following outbound traffic ports: HTTPS – 443 and/or MQTTS – 8883."

Firstly , you dont need any port forwarding rules, they are for incoming connections, the Petcare only requires outgoing connections which are not blocked.

Now the question, are you perhaps connecting the Petcare to the red WAN port by any chance ? You must connect it to one of the 3 LAN ports

[#3 · Accepted solution]

Many thanks for the response!

Yes - it is definitely connected to one of the 3 LAN ports.

Since posting this - the eBay Seller of this product has also been in touch with Sure PetCare Customer Services and they have informed him:

"Thank you for your email.It is not possible for you to reset the Hub. We would have to do this on our system.If you would like the Hub reset, please can you reply with a picture of the underside of the Hub so we can see the serial number and also please confirm the email address connected to the app.Please note, by removing your device from the App, all Data in Timeline and Activity/ Feeding will be cleared."

This made me wonder whether hed had actually deleted the Cat Flap Connect product from his Sure PetCare app.  I checked with him and he could see that the cat flap was working and at what times out cat had exited / entered the cat flap!  He has since deleted the product from his app, the 'ears' on the Cat Flap Connect Hub then turned green and I have now managed to connect!

I'll leave this message on the Forum in case anyone else has a similar issue - but suffice tosay it wasn't to do with open ports / prot forwarding / firewall or other router settings - it just needed the product deleting from the vendor's app!