Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming Control:Mac and MC200 via BT HomeHub

I have been trying to use my MacBook to operate my MC200 via Control:Mac, wirelessly. It works fine via ethernet cable but I'd prefer the wireless route and then I can move between MC200 and Qobuz or Tidal and, Pure Music HIRes all of which work fine from my laptop.

I have tried Apple Express which did not manage to operate Control:Mac and also conflicted with the BT home hub v2.0 internet functioning. I have therefore returned the Apple Express.

I have heard that Apple Extreme is a workable if more expensive option and would be interested in peoples' experience.

Alternatively if others have found later BT hubs to work wirelessly with Control:Mac, without Apple Extreme I would be interested to know, thanks.

As long as the IP address of Sooloos core does not change, once Control:Mac has discovered the core it should remember this for future use even if used over WiFi. Suggest connecting again via wired then without changing anything, unplug wire and try again over WiFi. It should work. If it doesn't, something else is a miss, like your IP address is changing over time. Don't think OSX firewall works on a per NIC (network interface) basis so Don't think it will be that.

If you have similar with the iPad core control app, you can manually enter the IP in iOS settings for the app.

Nb. BT HomeHub (amongst others) has known issues (a design decision by BT to balance battery life of WiFi devices vs. network performance) with the standard network protocol that Sooloos uses for device discovery when connecting via WiFi. Unfortunately Control:Mac does not have the ability to work around this deficiency like the iPad app does.

A lot of people don't realise (Apple does not exactly make it clear) that Apple's AirPort Express is only guaranteed to play nicely with Apple routers. BT homehub is not ideal, especially one of that age. I actually have BT Homehubs 3, 4 and 5 sitting in a cupboard, as all had minor issues running Sooloos. No such problems with Aiport Extreme.

There are plenty of Airport Extremes around second hand for quite cheap prices. I'm with BT, albeit Infinity fibre, and moving to Airport Extreme and Airport Express to form a 'roaming' wirelss network with a single id solved all wireless hiccups. I don't use Mac though, so it's Control:PC for me.

They do need setting up properly, though it's easy enough to find out how on the web. I'm certainly no genius (as many on here will attest ) but I managed ok.

I can never get my Toshiba (XP), HP (W7 Professional) or Acer (W7 Home Premium) laptops to pick up Sooloos from a BT Homehub1 or BT Homehub3 via wi-fi. The Toshiba wouldn't even pick up Sooloos via ethernet without a reboot.

A recently asquired Asus (W7 Professional) happily (so far) picks up Sooloos on demand via wi-fi from a BT Homehub3.

This suggests that the BT Homehub3 is not necessarily the only culprit and that other factors might be involved.

Thanks everyone so far! I am interested no-one saying they have a Home Hub of any vintage managing this flawlessly! My iPad works without any issue whatsoever. The IP address remains constant, so the MacBook is not having to seek a different one allocated by the Home Hub. It always works with an ethernet connection. Only the wireless method leads to the circle of despair (!).
I shall research Apple Extreme option in the meantime, but welcome any further thoughts, Bruce

BT HH3 with wireless disabled and an AEBS connected to it via the wan port and set in bridge mode worked flawlessly.

Russ

Sorry... various BT home hubs and zero major issues with Sooloos. That is not to say you can't have issues but it isn't as straight forward as saying home hub = issue.

Are you sure that you turned off NAT in the Airport Express?

The key to getting BT HHs to work with Sooloos is to keep all unnecessary traffic off the HH through the use of a separate switch and use Apple Airports as access points, i.e. disable the routing function within the Airports. Also turn off wireless on the HH itself.

John

If you have HH 4 or 5, you could try this workaround that works for Chromecast users. It may be a different issue though so remember the setting if it doesn't work and you need to change it back.

I have a BT HH as in that article and have never had any issues. I use a switch for all my devices. I use Chromecast and Sooloos Control:PC. Also core control on iPad2.

It all just works as is.

FYI Chris

To be clear about this, the issues with wireless access points and Sooloos (and many other similar type devices) discovery are well understood. Meridian themselves acknowledge a problem with relying solely on multicast for Sooloos device discovery and assure me that in future, things will be made more robust. For those interested, an overview of the issue if at the end of the post.

In the mean time, a number of wireless access points, such as those built into 'routers' exhibit issues that are easily reproducible and have been empirically proven for a number of devices including early BT HomeHubs. I have not tested with later HomeHubs's.

On some occurrences, the issue will not manifest itself - either by pure chance, making a good once off connection or because settings/firmware/models have changed.

Of course, there may also be more than one fault causing this. To resolve the issue, more than one fault may need to be resolved.

The technical reason why... understanding this may help resolve the issue in a cost effective way.

The issues resolves around a discovery beacon being transmitted every (approx*) 20 seconds by Sooloos core (many other devices use a similar method so it is not specific to Sooloos) using a network protocol called multicast which differs from the more normal unicast method in that all devices on the network must be configured to listen or pass this multicast packet. The Control:Mac device searches for this beacon packet for approx* 30 seconds. During that search period, it should discover the beacon at least once. Over a wired connection, this is not normally a problem which is why if a wired connection works reliably it is a clue to the issue. However, some manufacturers, by design chose to filter multicast traffic being sent via a wireless access point. This is to reduce data being received by mobile devices preventing them from having a quick sleep between network messages not intended for them - it takes far more effort for a device to work out that a multicast packet is not intended for it than for it to do with same with a multicast packet. If filtering of multicast does take place, then then there is a chance that the Sooloos discovery packet will not be received by devices running over wifi and thus Control:Mac et al will not find core. It has been shown that filtering of 80-100% of multicast packets is not uncommon, which basically means that even after repeated attempts, Control:Mac etc may never discover the core within a reasonable timeframe that the user does not give up. However, it may find it first time or, in case of Sooloos, once core has been found once (typically by wired connection), it will remember it thereafter and there discovery mechanism will never be used again.

To resolve this issue, you can either be patient or throw money at the problem. Use of an additional wireless access point, such as that found on Apple products is known to work well with Sooloos, but at added complexity and possible setup issues (it is likely that important functionality is duplicated between devices which will conflict) - as would appear to be the case with the OP.

Alternatively, plug in via wired and it should work. If it does not, some other issue, in addition to the above will likely be at play. It is important not to assume that one issue is caused by the one fault. There may be many faults to resolve before the issue will be resolved.


*its been a while since I looked at this and my timings may be a bit out...

By using a switch, you are not using the wireless access point. Thus the multicast wifi discovery problem will not manifest itself.

On core control, that dies use wifi, there is a setting in OS X setup for the core control app that allows manual IP to be entered. This will also resolve the issue.

The rest of the time, it's down to getting a hit once, and that is simply by chance or connecting via wired.