#295068 - 12/03/2007 11:21
connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
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new poster
Registered: 07/03/2007
Posts: 20
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I'm running a laptop as the music server that is getting a local static IP from my D-Link DI-624 wireless router. The router is also serving a non-static IP address through DHCP to a D-Link DGL-3420 wireless bridge connected to the receiver. The receiver is getting the address, which shows up on the info screen after initialization. However, the recever never sees the server for some reason.
The music server (my laptop) is communicating with the router, and the router seems to be communicating with the receiver through the wireless bridge. Why then are the server and receiver not communicating? Can anyone suggest a better way to configure the system? Should I assign a static IP to the bridge? Or should I change the gateway for the bridge to the IP of my laptop? What does the "Enable Autoconfiguration" check box in IP Configuration in the ARM software do? When it's checked, there is a range of IP addresses to specify. Is this used when serving the receiver IP addresses using DHCP, so should it match the DHCP range of my router? What happens when the box is unchecked?
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#295069 - 12/03/2007 12:57
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: Dart Vader]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5683
Loc: London, UK
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Quote:
What does the "Enable Autoconfiguration" check box in IP Configuration in the ARM software do?
Can't answer the rest of your question right now, but I'll deal with this one.
The Rio Receiver software includes a DHCP server. Whether this is enabled or not is controlled by the "Enable Autoconfiguration" checkbox.
If we know that the server computer got its IP address from DHCP, this defaults to off. This is because we assume that there's already a valid DHCP server on your network somewhere.
If this is not the case, you can turn it back on.
If we think that your computer has a static IP, then ARM's DHCP defaults to enabled. This caters for people who don't have a DHCP server on their network.
If you have a DHCP server, you should turn it back off.
In order to help prevent us from interfering with an existing DHCP server, even if you turn on "Enable Autoconfiguration", we don't reply until 5 seconds (I think) have elapsed from the initial DHCP discovery. This allows your DHCP server to handle it first.
So, if the Receiver's getting good addresses from your router, you should leave this box unchecked.
Oh, and if you really want to use both (and I don't recommend it), you should make sure that the address ranges don't overlap.
_________________________
-- roger
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#295070 - 12/03/2007 14:18
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: Roger]
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new poster
Registered: 07/03/2007
Posts: 20
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Ok, that's a great explanation of the autoconfiguration setting in the ARM software. Thanks for that.
However, my receiver still cannot see my server computer. Like I said, my wireless router is assigning a static IP to the server computer. Any other devices in the network are getting dynamic IPs from the router using DHCP, so I have the wireless bridge set up to be served a dynamic IP from the router. After the receiver initializes, it is unable to find the server but displays exactly the IP information it should be getting according to what the router is serving it. All the while, the server is connected to the network via the static IP it has been assigned. Oh, and "Enable Autoconfiguration" is unchecked.
So the correct information seems to be traveling between the router and server and between the router and receiver, but there is a disconnect which seems like it must be in the router.
More questions in addition to the rest of my original ones:
Could the disconnect be caused by the router-to-server connection being a static IP and the router-to-receiver connection being a dynamic IP? In other words, should they both be static or both be dynamic? What is the best combination?
Could the problem be helped at all by configuring port(s) in a particular way? If so, what port configuration should be implemented?
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#295071 - 12/03/2007 15:50
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: Dart Vader]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5683
Loc: London, UK
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Quote:
Like I said, my wireless router is assigning a static IP to the server computer.
Can you clarify this point? It's probably not relevant, but normally, static addresses are entered on the computer. If you want the router to always assign the same address, that's usually called a reservation. Which do you have?
Quote:
Could the disconnect be caused by the router-to-server connection being a static IP and the router-to-receiver connection being a dynamic IP?
Unlikely. Once the IP address is assigned, then the network can't actually tell the difference.
Could you tell us what those IP addresses are? What's the IP address of the router, of the server PC, of the wireless bridge and what's the address that the Receiver is reporting when it fails to boot up?
Do you have any kind of firewall in between the Receiver and the server computer? What happens if you plug the Receiver directly into the same switch/hub/whatever as the server?
_________________________
-- roger
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#295072 - 13/03/2007 00:53
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: Roger]
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new poster
Registered: 07/03/2007
Posts: 20
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Quote:
Can you clarify this point? It's probably not relevant, but normally, static addresses are entered on the computer. If you want the router to always assign the same address, that's usually called a reservation. Which do you have?
My router has what it calls Static DHCP, which can be used in addition to DHCP serving, where you can specify static IPs for certain computers (i.e. reservation). I do this for my home computers so that I will always know what their IPs are, which is useful if I need to reference them in certain applications. When friends come over with their computers, however, I have the router assigning them IPs with the DHCP server.
Quote:
Could you tell us what those IP addresses are? What's the IP address of the router, of the server PC, of the wireless bridge and what's the address that the Receiver is reporting when it fails to boot up?
The IP address of the router is 192.168.0.1, the router is reserving 192.168.0.100 for my server computer, and it is serving 192.168.0.110 (the first address in the specified range of the DHCP server) to the bridge/receiver, which is the address the receiver displays when it fails to boot.
Quote:
Do you have any kind of firewall in between the Receiver and the server computer? What happens if you plug the Receiver directly into the same switch/hub/whatever as the server?
I do have the firewall in Windows XP turned on. When I plug the receiver directly into my router (which is wireless but also has 4 ethernet ports), it still fails to boot up but displays an internally generated IP (169.254...) and the router does not see it (i.e. does not serve it an IP).
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#295073 - 13/03/2007 02:00
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: Dart Vader]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31600
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Quote:
I do have the firewall in Windows XP turned on.
Just as an experiment, briefly turn off the XP firewall and pull/reinsert the power plug on the receiver. If the receiver begins working, then it's just a question of finding which holes you gotta poke open on the firewall. I'll go check and see if those numbers are already in the FAQ. If not, perhaps someone can supply them so that I can add them to it.
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#295074 - 13/03/2007 02:08
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31600
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Hm. The numbers aren't in the FAQ.
I do know that the receiver gets its song data via HTTP on port 12078. But in your case, it's not getting even that far, because it can't even get its main initial software download.
See, when you power on the receiver, it downloads its player software via the NFS protocol. I'm not sure which ports you have to open for that. But if you could find that information, that might be enough: Open the ports for NFS, and open 12078, and see if that works.
Edit: Looks like 2049 is NFS. If the receiver works without the firewall, try opening 2049 and 12078. I don't recall if there is a way in Windows Firewall to only open the ports to specific local addresses or not.
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#295075 - 13/03/2007 03:13
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: tfabris]
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new poster
Registered: 07/03/2007
Posts: 20
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After I sent in my last reply, I tried it with the XP firewall off and got the same result.
The more I work on this, the more it seems to be something going on in the router. How else would the receiver and server be getting the correct IP addresses but still not be able to see each other? Maybe the problem is that I need to open up some ports in my router, but which ones?
I'll try opening up the NFS port in my router and see what happens.
Edited by Dart Vader (13/03/2007 03:22)
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#295076 - 13/03/2007 04:12
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: Dart Vader]
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new poster
Registered: 07/03/2007
Posts: 20
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It worked!
I opened up 2049 for data transfers from the sever to receiver for all protocols. Besides the other one you mentioned, what other ports should be opened and for what direction of data transfer on what protocols to facilitate communication between the server and receiver? I can't find the FAQ you referenced.
Thanks a lot for the help, guys. I love seeing that little blue note in my system tray!
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#295077 - 13/03/2007 04:17
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: Dart Vader]
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new poster
Registered: 07/03/2007
Posts: 20
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By the way, when I say protocols I am talking about the ones for which my router gives me a choice when opening a port. These are TCP, UDP, and ICMP. I'm not sure how NFS and HTTP relate to these, so illumination would be appreciated.
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#295078 - 13/03/2007 05:51
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: Dart Vader]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31600
Loc: Seattle, WA
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I think you just need to open TCP ports 2049 and 12078 in both directions. See if that solves all your problems and report back. If it does, I'll add it to the FAQ here. For reference: TCP= Most internet communications. Protocol requires guaranteed delivery of packets including re-tries. Error correction and re-tries are built into the driver, so the application doesn't have to worry about it. UDP= Low latency, low level communications without guaranteed delivery or re-tries. Used by applications where data loss can be tolerated, such as internet games, where the software at either end implements its own error correction. ICMP= Broadcast and network discovery messages such as pings.
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#295079 - 13/03/2007 13:10
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: tfabris]
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new poster
Registered: 07/03/2007
Posts: 20
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Ok, well initially I just opened 2049 from the server to receiver for TCP, which didn't work. Then I changed it to all three protocols, and it worked. I tried rebooting my server computer just to test the robustness, though, and now it won't work again. Any idea why rebooting the server caused it to revert back to the previous behavior?
I'll try opening those two ports in the opposite directtion as well and report back with what happens.
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#295080 - 13/03/2007 13:27
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5683
Loc: London, UK
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_________________________
-- roger
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#295081 - 13/03/2007 14:58
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: Roger]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31600
Loc: Seattle, WA
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#295082 - 13/03/2007 22:17
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: Roger]
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new poster
Registered: 07/03/2007
Posts: 20
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I think the problem all along was with the Windows XP firewall. Upon closer examination, my router's firewall is set up between the WAN and my LAN and doesn't prevent any internal LAN traffic. I'm not sure why the receiver still wouldn't boot when I turned the XP firewall completely off, though, unless I needed to reboot my laptop for the change to really take effect.
Anyway, these are the ports I opened up in the XP firewall, and everything is working fine now:
2049 TCP, 12075 UDP, 12076 TCP, 12078 TCP, 18678 UDP
The thread wasn't clear about 12077, so I left it out. No problems yet.
Thanks again for the help, y'all.
\m/
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#295083 - 13/03/2007 23:28
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: Dart Vader]
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new poster
Registered: 07/03/2007
Posts: 20
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Seems to have problems reconnecting after I reboot my server computer. Is there some sort of procedure that should be followed, like turning off the receiver (or pulling the plug) before rebooting the server?
Anyway, got it working again after I opened up these additional ports in the XP firewall:
2049 UDP, 12077 TCP
I'll test the robustness of the connection later and report back if it stops working again. Right now I'm enjoying having the blue note.
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#295084 - 14/03/2007 15:12
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: Dart Vader]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31600
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Thanks for the details reports. Updating that FAQ post now.
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#295085 - 15/03/2007 23:39
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: tfabris]
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new poster
Registered: 07/03/2007
Posts: 20
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Ok, this is really frustrating. Everything works fine until I reboot the server computer. Then the receiver reverts back to the previous behavior, i.e. getting the correct IP from the router but not seeing the server.
So now I don't know what effect opening those ports is having. Every time I opened ports, it worked, only to stop working again upon rebooting the server.
Why isn't networking easier than this in 2007?
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#295086 - 16/03/2007 04:59
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: Dart Vader]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Quote:
Why isn't networking easier than this in 2007?
Partly because the Receiver was designed in 2000...
_________________________
Remind me to change my signature to something more interesting someday
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#295087 - 16/03/2007 15:15
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: Dart Vader]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31600
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Dart, your description makes it sound like, after the server reboots, things stop working. But then, you say, you get it working again until the server reboots again.
This implies that there is something, in between the time the server is rebooted, and the time it starts working again, that you are doing something to make it work.
What is that thing you are doing?
You say "every time I open the ports"... but opening ports is a permanent setting, so that can't be it.
Is it this?:
When you go into the configuration panel of some routers, saving the configuration requires that the router be rebooted. Is that what you're doing to make things work? If the server reboots so must the router be?
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#295088 - 16/03/2007 21:48
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: tfabris]
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new poster
Registered: 07/03/2007
Posts: 20
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The receiver was not connecting to the server until I opened up the NFS ports in the router. Once I rebooted the server, though, the connection was lost again. Next, I tried opening up more ports in addition to NFS but this time in the XP firewall. Again it worked, but only until I rebooted the server again. Next, I opened up the rest of the ports in the FAQ, and again it worked until rebooting the server.
Each time the connection was lost, I tried rebooting everything - router, bridge, receiver - but nothing worked except manipulating the port openings again.
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#295089 - 17/03/2007 15:40
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: Dart Vader]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31600
Loc: Seattle, WA
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So at this time, it's still not working?
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#295090 - 17/03/2007 22:58
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: tfabris]
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new poster
Registered: 07/03/2007
Posts: 20
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Correct, still not working. I even went ahead and opened all the ports from the FAQ in my router, even though I don't think my router's firewall was preventing any internal LAN traffic. Still no connection between server and receiver, even though both are satisfactorily connected to the router.
So at this point, all the ports from the FAQ are open in my router's firewall and the Windows XP firewall, and I still can't get a connection.
Edited by Dart Vader (17/03/2007 23:01)
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#295091 - 17/03/2007 23:34
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: Dart Vader]
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new poster
Registered: 07/03/2007
Posts: 20
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One thing I just thought of is that I've read that there are problems with the receiver getting data transfer rates greater than 10 Mbps, right? Well, my router is set to auto-select the rate up to 54 Mbps. However, I can also set the transfer rate to 1,2,5.5,6,9,11,12,18,24,36,48, or 54 Mbps. Not sure why 10 is not an option, but what would be the best setting here for the receiver?
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#295092 - 18/03/2007 17:18
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: Dart Vader]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31600
Loc: Seattle, WA
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That list of speed numbers is wireless data transfer rates.
The Rio Receiver's 10mb thing is in relation to how it sometimes doesn't work with certain ***WIRED*** 10/100 swtiches. If you have an old 10mb hub lying around, try daisy-chaining it into that.
This is what I had to do with one of my rio receivers. Bit of a pain, but it works.
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#295093 - 18/03/2007 22:50
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: tfabris]
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new poster
Registered: 07/03/2007
Posts: 20
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So if the problem with the 10/100 switches is not the data transfer rate, then what is it? Seems to me that if it works at 10 Mbps and doesn't at 100, then the receiver must start to have trouble at some rate in between 10 and 100.
By daisy chaining, do you mean connecting the receiver to the 10 Mbps switch and then to the wireless bridge? And wouldn't that just be a way to limiit the data transfer rate to 10 Mbps going into the receiver?
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#295094 - 19/03/2007 06:54
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: Dart Vader]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5683
Loc: London, UK
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Quote:
So if the problem with the 10/100 switches is not the data transfer rate, then what is it? Seems to me that if it works at 10 Mbps and doesn't at 100, then the receiver must start to have trouble at some rate in between 10 and 100.
The Rio Receiver works only at 10Mbps.
The problem is that, when you connect a network cable to an Ethernet switch, the two ends negotiate a speed, whether they should use duplex, and (sometimes) the switch auto-senses whether you've got a normal or crossover cable plugged in.
You can see the effect of this: when you plug the cable in, it sometimes takes a fraction of a second before the link light comes on.
Where the problem lies is that the network hardware in the Rio Receiver is not very forgiving of network hardware that's a little bit out of spec.
If it takes too long to do the negotiation thing, the Rio Receiver decides that you've got no Ethernet plugged in, and switches to using the HPNA socket instead.
You can usually fix this by using a 10Mbps hub (where none of this negotiation happens, so there's no timeout). Alternatively, most Netgear stuff works fine (we had a bunch of Netgear DS108 and FS108 switches at empeg Towers).
_________________________
-- roger
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#295095 - 19/03/2007 07:03
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: Dart Vader]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Wired networking works at 10 Mbps or 100 Mbps, it doesn't have in-between speeds like wireless.
The Rio Receiver can only works when connected to a 10 Mbps wired network connection. Fortunately wired networks that support 100 Mbps also tend to support 10 Mbps, meaning that in theory the Rio Receiver should work with most wired networking kit.
Unfortunately there is another problem though. Modern 10/100 wired network switches do some clever stuff when a device is first plugged into them, to work out what speed and other settings the device needs. This can upset the Rio Receiver, leaving it with a non working network connection.
The solution to this problem is to put an old dump 10 Mbps hub between the Rio Receiver and the 10/100 network. This is what Tony was talking about with the daisy chaining.
It works not because it is slowing the network connection down, but because it is replacing the clever 10/100 port on the wireless bridge that confuse the Rio with a dump 10 Mbps hub that doesn't confuse it.
Unfortunately this approach isn't guaranteed to fix the problem (I have a wireless bridge that my Receivers won't work with even with a 10 Mbps hub in place).
_________________________
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#295096 - 19/03/2007 09:10
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: andy]
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new poster
Registered: 07/03/2007
Posts: 20
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Ok, so I checked the specs on my D-Link wireless bridge, and it does have a 10/100 auto-sensing ethernet jack. So I should put a 10 Mbps hub in between the bridge and receiver?
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#295097 - 19/03/2007 09:18
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: Dart Vader]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Quote:
So I should put a 10 Mbps hub in between the bridge and receiver?
Yes.
_________________________
Remind me to change my signature to something more interesting someday
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#295098 - 19/03/2007 13:21
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: Dart Vader]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31600
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Quote:
So I should put a 10 Mbps hub in between the bridge and receiver?
It's worth a try. There's no guarantee that your problem is the one we're describing, but there's a chance that might be it.
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#295099 - 20/03/2007 08:48
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: tfabris]
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new poster
Registered: 07/03/2007
Posts: 20
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Welll, do you know if the symptoms I'm having are the same or similar to others whose problem turned out to be the auto-sensing ethernet port?
Also, if I can't find a 10 Mbps hub, can the current breed of 10/100 switches be set to 10 Mbps?
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#295100 - 20/03/2007 08:58
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: Dart Vader]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Yes your symptoms match. That doesn't however guarantee that it will fix your problem I'm afraid (my Linksys Wireless-Ethernet bridge will not work with my Receivers even with a 10 Mbps hub in place).
No you can't simply tell the switch to use 10Mbps and anyway it isn't the speed that is the issue, it is the auto sensing of other bits and pieces as well. Basically the Receiver doesn't wait long enough to hear back from the switch, so while the switch is still doing its auto sensing of various things the Receiver has already given up.
Possibly if you had a very fancy 10/100 switch you could tell it to turn off all the auto-sensing functionality for the port, but the switch in your
wireless bridge is not going to have that feature.
Edited by andy (20/03/2007 08:59)
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#295101 - 29/03/2007 02:50
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: andy]
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new poster
Registered: 07/03/2007
Posts: 20
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Picked up a refurbished Netgear EN104TP hub on eBay and put it between my wireless bridge and the Rio/Dell receiver. I've been able to consistently acquire and maintain the coveted blue note since then.
Now, if I can just get my other receiver to boot up with anything but a blank screen...
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#295102 - 29/03/2007 02:59
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: Dart Vader]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31600
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Yay! So it was the hub issue, then.
The reason we didn't suggest it sooner is that you said you sometimes got the receiver to work. All the other times I've seen the hub problem, it was 100 percent failure. Yours is the first where the hub issue was an intermittent thing.
Anyhow, glad you're working again.
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#295103 - 29/03/2007 05:31
Re: connecting receiver to server through wireless bridge and router
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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I also get an intermittent issue when I plug my Receivers into power line Ethernet adapters. About one time in three the Receiver will display the same problems as I have with 10/100 switches when first turned on and I'll have to power cycle it to fix it.
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