# MAC Address Tag Not Reading

**URL:** <https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/mac-address-tag-not-reading/39205>\
**Category:** Ignition\
**Tags:** ignition80, perspective\
**Created:** [September 29, 2020, 7:50pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/mac-address-tag-not-reading/39205 "2020-09-29T19:50:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![m.boog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@m.boog](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/m.boog)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2020, 7:50pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/mac-address-tag-not-reading/39205/1 "2020-09-29T19:50:34Z")

</div>

Hello Everyone,

I am working on Gateway 8.0.16 with Perspective, on a laptop VPN’d into our company’s Ignition server.

I noticed that tag [System]Client/Network/MACAddress was blank, both in the tag browser, and when read in a script. My coworker is on the same Gateway but not remote, and gets a valid value for this tag. So a couple questions:

1. Could this value be unavailable to me due to my networking setup, even though it originates at the client device? All other [System]Client/Network tags are all properly set.
2. Ultimately I’d like to read this value on a client that has a NAT router between itself and the Gateway. Should that run into issues?

Thanks in advance for the help.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![pturmel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/pturmel/32/3295_2.png) [@pturmel](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/pturmel)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2020, 8:12pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/mac-address-tag-not-reading/39205/2 "2020-09-29T20:12:54Z")

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I would be shocked if you get that information through any router, not just VPNs.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Kevin.Herron](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/kevin.herron/32/7259_2.png) [@Kevin.Herron](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Kevin.Herron)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2020, 8:13pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/mac-address-tag-not-reading/39205/3 "2020-09-29T20:13:43Z")

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What does running this in the script console of your designer yield?

```auto
from java.net import InetAddress, NetworkInterface

print NetworkInterface.getByInetAddress(InetAddress.getLocalHost()).getHardwareAddress()

```

Not that I’m sure this matters - you mentioned Perspective, which does not have access to Vision Client Tags anyway.

edit:

this yields “None” for me while on VPN, and a valid value when not. Must be something to do with an active VPN connection causing InetAddress.getLocalHost() to return localhost address vs my wifi address when active / inactive.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![m.boog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@m.boog](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/m.boog)\
**Post date:** [September 30, 2020, 11:48am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/mac-address-tag-not-reading/39205/4 "2020-09-30T11:48:55Z")

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That script returns ‘None’ in the script console.

I haven’t heard of Vision-specific tags up to this point - how do I know which tags are Vision-client specific? Are they not expected to work at all if called within the Perspective framework?

I can understand why the VPN connection could cause these issues. Any guess as to whether this would cause similar issues within a controls network with different router setups?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Kevin.Herron](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/kevin.herron/32/7259_2.png) [@Kevin.Herron](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Kevin.Herron)\
**Post date:** [September 30, 2020, 12:17pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/mac-address-tag-not-reading/39205/5 "2020-09-30T12:17:06Z")

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> [@m.boog](#):
>
> I haven’t heard of Vision-specific tags up to this point - how do I know which tags are Vision-client specific? Are they not expected to work at all if called within the Perspective framework?

They are in the “Client” folder and their path starts with “[Client]”.

These only work inside the Vision client application. The analogous concept in Perspective would be session properties.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![m.boog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@m.boog](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/m.boog)\
**Post date:** [September 30, 2020, 7:33pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/mac-address-tag-not-reading/39205/6 "2020-09-30T19:33:46Z")

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OK, that makes sense. Thanks for the help, guys.