Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming Control:Mac problem with Sky router

Didn't this recently come up when someone had previously installed another mono based music application - can't remember if it was Linn or Naim. It was resolved by deleting the other app.

I think it was Linn.

Hi Folks,

I'm still having trouble running the Control:Mac on my 27in Mac. It worked fine on my previous Sky Router but when the mains of that unit went bust Sky sent me their new white Router but it wouldn't run the app.

My rep did come & hard wire to the Router found the app & then got it onto my Mac. A few days later the Sooloos icon stopped finding it & just goes round searching for ever. He came back but was unable to get it to work with Sky router.

He brought another router and got it to work via that but had to leave me with out the app working whilst he sought help.

Meridian told him they know of no software problems with the app. Are there any other Sky users had the problem and more importantly any solutions?

Grateful for any help you guys may have. We did completely ditch previous versions of the app so that wasn't the cause.

When I go to the Control:Web I know how to click on settings & then the blue box "Control App" to install but when it tries to find it it says it can't locate Sooloos system on the network.

Many thanks for any kind advice.

Hi

I had persistent problems with Control:Mac with both BT and Sky router.

I was advised by Rick Audio Images to get an Apple Airport Base station.

Since installing it I have had no problems. Suggest you contact Rick for advice.

Changing the router is uneconomic advice.

The role of a router in a Sooloos system is often misunderstood and made overly important. It is not. A Sooloos system can be made WITHOUT ANY need of a router.

A router is a device that routes packets from one network to another, i.e. LAN to Internet WAN. These are done at IP Address level, what is known as level 3.

Sooloos communicates on a single LAN using hardware MAC addresses, known as level 2 and thus routing does not become involved.

What many people call 'routers' are really multifunctional devices and home networks can benefit from this functionality which is why it has been bundled into one box, but this is for convenience rather than need and there are often better alternatives. Case of jack of all trades, master of none.

The requirement to use this extra functionality is not necessary in troubleshooting a Sooloos system if a few basic steps are taken. In a fully functional non troubleshooting scenario, the use of this other 'router' functionality can be integrated back into the network as needed.

Generally the other functionality that Sooloos can use in a 'router' is:

Network switch - i.e. the LAN network ports on the back. It is IMHO, best practice to isolate Sooloos from the 'router' by use of an inexpensive basic switch i.e. a reliable switch that is unmanaged and there are a whole host to choose from and you may have one spare in your man drawer. Simply plug all your Sooloos components into the switch and then a single connection into your router.

DHCP server - DHCP allocates IP addresses to devices on a dynamic basis. They can change between DHCP server reboots and this is often a cause of issue. IMHO, any 'server' functionality on a LAN should have a static fixed IP address, set on the server device itself. In Sooloos, this means that Sooloos Core and Discs should have a static IP. Just be careful if you then sell these components on and reset to DHCP mode as your static IP may not suit someone else's network. Setting the IP address is done either via Sooloos config application or web interface. Make sure that you so not duplicate static IP addresses and that you do not assign an IP address within the DHCP address pool range.

NAT/Router - this controls LAN-WAN traffic, i.e. translates level 2 MAC addresses to level 3 IP addresses and sends them off to a different WAN. There is nothing special in the Sooloos internet requests that would prevent them being handled any differently to say what your browser would be doing when loading this web site that you are looking at.

Firewall - this had no effect on a Sooloos network as LAN-LAN traffic does not normally reach the (it's processed by the switch long before) firewall although some WAP (see below) interfaces to pass through the firewall.

Multicast routing - this sends out control packets that switches can use to optimise multicast traffic. If you use a basic switch, or turn off IGMP snooping in a managed switch, then your switch doesn't use this information and multicast packets are sent to all devices which in a small network is a non issue.

WAP - wireless access point. This is the major issue that can affect Sooloos networks. It is quite safe, often beneficial to use multiple wireless access points on a network so the WAP built into the 'router' can often be bypassed. The problem with WAP implementations is how much control the user has over multicast and broadcast filtering. Basically, a WAP may filter multicast (that Sooloos uses for device discovery) and broadcast messages to prevent battery powered devices from having a constant bombardment of wireless network traffic. This is either determined by the WAP (i.e. router) provider and cannot be adjusted by the user (most ISP supplied routers are like this and Apple AirPorts are like this too) or can be adjusted by the user using different methods or terminology ('filter multicast' or 'beacon interval' are common phrases). If the filtering is excessive and there are no user controls, you are stuck with what you have, but it's not critical as there are work arounds - see below. Another problem with some firewalls built into 'routers' is that they *may* (but typically not) pass through the internal firewall.


On a LAN-LAN scenario, IP addresses are basically a shorthand telephone number for the MAC address and once learned, all traffic is done at MAC address/level 2. In conjunction with the subnet mask, the IP address is used by a NIC to determined whether the destination is local LAN or wider WAN. If it is determined that the destination is a different WAN, the NIC sends the packet to the gateway (i.e. router), if it's LAN, then it sends the packet to the device with the destination MAC address - no router involved with the latter.

In a roundabout way, the conclusion from the above is it's IMHO, best practice to plug Sooloos into its own network switch and second, if that is done, it is the Wireless Access Point functionality that will cause most issues and this will be limited to Sooloos device and core discovery. As your hardware is hardwired through a dedicated basic network switch (!) then device discovery will not be an issue, but iPad and Control:PC/Control:Mac may have issues.

Thankfully there are a number of techniques in Sooloos to avoid these issues:

In the app settings for CoreControl, you can set a manual IP address. As you have set a static IP address (right?) then you can put this IP address into CoreControl. Core control will then connect directly to this core.

In Control:PC and Control:Mac, whilst there is no manual IP address, the applications appear to cache the last known good connection. So it is possible to connect via a wired connection, obtain a valid cached Core IP address then disconnect from wired and use WiFi connection. Again, as you set Sooloos Core as a static IP address, this will not change say in the event that the Core or router is rebooted.

If you use a dedicated basic switch and a hardwired connection and are still having problems, your 'router' will not be playing a part in the problem and you should be looking at troubleshooting other parts of the Sooloos system and not wasting money and changing your router.

At the very basic level, plug Sooloos core and store devices into the network switch and your PC/Mac into another port. Make these the only devices on the switch. Assuming Core and Store are static IP (IMHO both are server functionality and thus should have static IP) then you will need to temporarily assign a static IP address to your PC or Mac - obviously it should be on the same subnet as core/store and appropriate network mask but there is no need for gateway or DNS settings. This is a minimal Sooloos network and WILL CONNECT unless you have an issue with PC/Mac or the Sooloos hardware/configuration itself.

Changing your router is a bit like changing your engine because it has a misfire when you only needed to change the distributer cap or spray on a bit of WD-40.

That depends on your situation and expertise. "Time is money" is a economic reality and some people would rather spend the money than the time, particularly if they are not confident that spending the time will solve the problem.

Thus calling changing the router "uneconomic" is not always going to be accurate. Although obviously for an expert like you, or someone else reasonably au fait with networking, it may indeed be.

The part of the router causing the problem is the wireless access point. Buying a suitable wireless access point (the TP Link ones look good and TP-Link L WA701ND in basic access point mode can be had starting about �25) will solve the problem without swapping out the supplied ADSL router and benefits the user by having a wifi antenna placed optimally in the household rather than near a broadband phone socket.

�75 router vs �25 access point with same ease of configuration doesn't look economic to me and has the advantage that user is in control of the relevant settings and isn't in the hands of Apple or an ISP changing the beacon settings with a firmware update and breaking Sooloos again.

Although my problem was not the same, try renewing the DHCP Lease on the iMac. (Advanced settings in WiFi). When I upgraded to a new BT router some months back I had to do this to restore connectivity.

Regards,
Dave

I tend to use fixed IP address allocations on my network and only issue a few DHCP addresses for guest/friends on the wi-fi network.

Ian is correct putting on a switch and giving all the items a static IP will allow you to prove its not the router. I have used Sooloos with many different routers even though I prefer Draytek's to anything else.

Regards
Edd

Many thanks for the detailed reply Ian, that took up a lot of your time. I have to admit much was beyond me but will run it past my dealer. However, the first time he hard wired and found the app & then got it running via wifi on the Mac all seemed ok and he went away.

Why did I lose it having had it for a while and having made no changes?

No Changes? Did you not change the Sky 'router'.

Regards,
Carl

Yes but the changes I'm referring to are after he got the app working on THE NEW Sky router. He went away thinking it was solved, it worked for 3 days but then it just stopped finding it & the search wheel just kept circling and finding nothing.

It was during that time i.e. working & suddenly stopping that no changes were made either to hardware or any configurations.