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biuro10
biuro10
Join Date 06/2013
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Multiplicity WOL problem

Wake On Lan - wrong SlaveMAC address

July 23, 2025 5:28:00 AM from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

After updating to Multiplicity 4.0.5 Pro, the Wake-On-LAN (WOL) feature for Slave computers has stopped working correctly.

The issue is that each Slave machine is now showing an incorrect and identical MAC address that is not related to any real hardware on the system. As a result, WOL packets are being sent to the wrong address, making it impossible to wake the correct machine remotely.

In older versions of Multiplicity, the correct MAC addresses were displayed in the KVM view and WOL worked perfectly.

 

Please investigate and fix this regression, as this completely breaks remote wake functionality for all connected Slave systems.

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biuro10
basj
Join Date 03/2001
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Reply #1 July 23, 2025 5:54:05 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. I have forwarded your problem/question to Stardock Support Team for their assistance. Please keep an eye on this thread for any updates. We appreciate your feedback and patience.

Thank you,
Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant.

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biuro10
sdRohan
Join Date 10/2012
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Reply #2 July 23, 2025 10:22:23 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums


After updating to Multiplicity 4.0.5 Pro, the Wake-On-LAN (WOL) feature for Slave computers has stopped working correctly.

Whats not clear,; did you update on ALL MP PCs, not just the Primary?

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

 

 

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biuro10
biuro10
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Reply #3 July 23, 2025 11:07:39 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

Yes, of course – it happened after updating all Slaves and Primary.

The option
[X] Enable Wake-on-LAN support (MAC: xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx)
suddenly shows random MAC addresses.

 

In my case, I literally saw my correct MAC being replaced by a random one — for example, on my home setup, it changed to the MAC address of my main router.

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biuro10
Abisnabidam
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Reply #4 July 23, 2025 1:00:55 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

Hi biuro,

Thank you for reporting this.  We've now logged the issue for internal review.

Internal Ref: ODNT-10210

Best regards,

Adam McGuinness
Stardock Customer Support Specialist

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biuro10
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Reply #5 July 23, 2025 2:16:53 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums
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Thanks Adam,

I appreciate that the issue has been escalated internally — this problem breaks one of the key features of Multiplicity in many setups.

To confirm:

The issue only occurs after updating both all Slaves and the Primary to version 4.4.0.5 Pro.
In the “Enable Wake-on-LAN support” field, Multiplicity displays an incorrect MAC address — sometimes the MAC of my router, or a random one.

As a result, Wake-on-LAN from within Multiplicity fails — the magic packet is sent to the wrong MAC address.

Important note:

I’ve double-checked my router configuration (MikroTik) — ARP is configured correctly, and I’m not using any proxy-ARP, spoofing, or non-standard mechanisms.

I’ve also written my own software in Delphi that successfully sends WOL packets to devices in my network using their known MAC address and UDP port 9 — and it works flawlessly.

My program detects the Slave’s IP and correct MAC address without issue, and can wake it up reliably.
Additionally, when the Slave is online, its IP and MAC show up correctly in the ARP table on my PC (arp -a in CMD confirms that).

In previous versions of Multiplicity, the MAC address was always correct and Wake-on-LAN worked without any issues — so the current behavior is a major regression.

I'm really hoping this can be resolved, as I have multiple paid Multiplicity licenses across several machines and rely on it heavily every day.

If I can be of any help, I’d be happy to suggest how to retrieve and pass the correct MAC address in your software — since I’ve implemented this successfully in my own application built entirely in Delphi. I know the WOL and ARP mechanics inside out — both in theory and in practice.

Just to illustrate — here is a real scan report from my WOL tool - MkIpScanner.exe.
One line is bolded — it’s my actual Slave machine used with Multiplicity:

[001] 192.168.2.2  Image no host name  [4C:5E:0C:46:59:48]  [Routerboard.com]
[002] 192.168.2.30  Image NASMK [HTTP]  [00:11:32:2A:EE:50]  [NasMK (DS214+) / Synology / DS214+ / Synology Incorporated NAS, kamera IP]
[003] 192.168.2.32  Image nginx [HTTP]  [00:11:32:2A:EE:50]  [Synology Incorporated NAS, kamera IP]
[004] 192.168.2.100  Image no host name  [56:7A:C2:EE:63:B0]  [Randomized MAC – no match in DB (e.g. Android)]
[005] 192.168.2.102  Image no host name  [1C:90:FF:A6:F6:E0]  [Tuya Smart Inc.]
[006] 192.168.2.103  Image MKI9  [E8:9C:25:C4:CD:A3]  [ASUSTek COMPUTER INC. Router, laptop]
[007] 192.168.2.105  Image no host name  [C2:56:EE:49:45:DE]  [Randomized MAC – no match in DB (e.g. Android)]
[008] 192.168.2.106  Image no host name  [A6:49:6C:10:2A:26]  [Randomized MAC – no match in DB (e.g. Android)]
[009] 192.168.2.107  Image no host name  [3C:F7:A4:9D:81:15]  [Samsung Electronics Smartphone, tablet]
[010] 192.168.2.109  Image no host name  [EC:FA:BC:03:6B:58]  [Espressif Inc. ESP8266, ESP32]
[011] 192.168.2.112  Image HPG2miniDOM  [FC:3F:DB:10:63:AA]  [Hewlett Packard Laptop, printer]
[012] 192.168.2.128  Image Samsung QN91AA 75 TV  [54:3A:D6:6F:B3:C0]  [Samsung QN91AA 75 TV / Samsung Electronics / QE75QN91AATXXH]
[013] 192.168.2.212  Image ShellyHTTP [HTTP]  [A0:A3:B3:67:57:80]  [Espressif Inc. ESP8266, ESP32]
[014] 192.168.2.250  Image HADOM  [D8:3A:DD:F5:71:FF]  [Raspberry Pi Trading Home Assistant Box]

Let me know if you need logs, captures, or any testing help.

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biuro10
biuro10
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Reply #6 July 23, 2025 2:24:11 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

MKi9 (192.168.2.103) is my PC - Primary
HPG2miniDOM - my Slave and I have to use this to do WOL

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sdRohan
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Reply #7 July 24, 2025 9:30:14 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

Quoting biuro10,
reply 5

I'm really hoping this can be resolved, as I have multiple paid Multiplicity licenses across several machines and rely on it heavily every day.

It has our full attention, brother, I promise.

Thank you for the complete and valuable data.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

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biuro10
Neil Banfield
Join Date 04/2001
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Reply #8 July 25, 2025 6:43:22 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

We should have this resolved in future updates and this is undergoing testing.

In the short term you can alter the registry key where the MAC address is saved and it should be ok unless you configure the machine and save changes.

All the machines are stored here in the Windows Registry : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Stardock\Multiplicity2\Machines

Each machine has a value called "MACAddress" which can be set to the correct value manually.

 

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biuro10
biuro10
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Reply #9 July 25, 2025 7:51:03 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

Thank you very much for looking into the issue I reported – I’ll be waiting impatiently for the update.
Also thank you for describing the temporary registry workaround with
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Stardock\Multiplicity2\Machines

However, this might actually help you track down the bug faster: as you can see on my screenshot, in my WOW6432Node there is no Stardock entry at all


– so it looks like the latest version of the software no longer creates these machine subkeys with their MAC addresses.

I only found entries directly under Software\Stardock\Multiplicity2\Machines (see my second screenshot),


but there is no sign of any MACAddress values there either – so in my case I can’t use your temporary workaround.

 

No complaints of course – I just hope these observations help you pinpoint the root cause. Unless I am missing something and doing it wrong – in that case, please correct me.

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biuro10
Neil Banfield
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Reply #10 July 25, 2025 9:10:51 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

Quoting biuro10,
reply 9

Thank you very much for looking into the issue I reported – I’ll be waiting impatiently for the update.
Also thank you for describing the temporary registry workaround with
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Stardock\Multiplicity2\Machines

However, this might actually help you track down the bug faster: as you can see on my screenshot, in my WOW6432Node there is no Stardock entry at all


– so it looks like the latest version of the software no longer creates these machine subkeys with their MAC addresses.

I only found entries directly under Software\Stardock\Multiplicity2\Machines (see my second screenshot),


but there is no sign of any MACAddress values there either – so in my case I can’t use your temporary workaround.

 

No complaints of course – I just hope these observations help you pinpoint the root cause. Unless I am missing something and doing it wrong – in that case, please correct me.

You are looking under current user, not local machine which is why you do not see it.  MP settings are machine local not user.

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biuro10
biuro10
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Reply #11 July 25, 2025 9:46:48 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

Of course, you are right Neil – thank you so much! I must have been a bit distracted. I’ve now found the correct entries under Local Machine and can edit the MAC addresses as a temporary workaround.

 

Sorry for the confusion and I’ll be waiting for the update I use many of your programs and they’re great!

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