Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming Can't 'find' MD600

My MD600 is showing on the network in my router. I am reluctant at this stage to embark upon reconfiguring things to have static IPs because - a) I'm a little bit out of my depth on the sort of thing and - b) everything was working OK before so it seems unlikely that a Static / Dynamic setting is the cause of the problem. Not sure how to ping. Do I download something?

The ethernet cable connecting my router to the MD600 runs underneath the floor to another room but I have no reason to believe it's the problem. If all else fails I'll bring the MD600 close to the router and connect it with a short ethernet cable just to check things out.

Is the Meridian Device manager the same thing as Meridian Sooloos Configure? If so, it shows Control:PC and my MS600, but not the MD600. Does the CMOS battery issue relate to a backup battery in the MD600? If it does, it may be worth investigating, but as mentioned with regard to other things it would seem very coincidental if this had failed just because I temporarily unplugged the ethernet cable from my MS600. I have repeatedly restarted my router, rebooted my PC, and turned on/off the MS600 and the MD600 in varying sequences. J.

The Meridian Device Manager software is available from the Meridian web site - Product Support/Digital Pre-Amp/Product/Setup-Control-Update software. I think it is the more up-to-date replacement for Sooloos configure and can update the firmware in all devices.

I would, to rule out any possible cabling issues, move all equipment next to the router and connect directly to it. If it is still not seen, then the could be an issue with the MD600, and I would suggest replacing the CMOS battery as a starter (I think it is a CR2032 'button' battery)
If it is anything like the MS200, the software won't complete the initialization if there is a network issue and the unit will need to re-start.

Please keep us posted.

Steve

Lessons of the day

• Don't assign a static IP address that is already in use - including network addresses, such as .255
• Assign static IP addresses in same subnetwork as others - normally you just keep the same first 3 numbers and change the 4th address to between 1 and 254
• Make a note of static IP addresses that you have assigned to what - sticker on device always helpful
• Change static IP back to DHCP before you sell
• Try and assign static IP addresses outside the DHCP pool of reserved addresses
• Keep gateway and subnet mask exactly the same as had been assigned as a DHCP address.

Simple. You now know everything about assigning a static IP address except how to actually do it.

Finally, MC200 had a bug in DHCP lease refresh in that it would occasionally lose its DHCP assigned address every 24 hours - result, it looked like it had dropped off the network. Solution, assign it a static IP address (as apposed to reserving a static DHCP address in the DHCP server/router - this is still a DHCP assigned address)

One of the problems are getting older is that one's memory often lets one down in an infuriating manner A little while ago I recalled that in 2016 I had experienced a similar problem when the system wouldn't recognise my MD600. This was accompanied by a noise from one of the hard drives. At that time I was being assisted by the dealer who had originally supplied the equipment. He was very helpful but, for one reason or another (and possibly unnecessarily) he recommended that my MD600 should be returned to Meridian. This was done and Meridian reported that the problem was because one of the hard drives had become corrupted and this had affected the control software.

Following that, and based on helpful recommendations from people at this forum, I purchased an Icy Box Docking and Clone Station, and two spare disk drives as backups (I had already been backing up to a NAS). I've just taken the two spare drives, inserted them in the MD600 and everything works just fine. It's busy at the moment going through the comparison procedure between the two drives and once that is done I will establish which of the original drives is at fault.

I'm still slightly at a loss as to why something as simple as temporarily disconnecting the ethernet cable from my MS600 should have triggered this situation.

Many thanks to everyone here for your helpful comments and, particularly, to Russ (Ratbert) who PM’d me suggesting that the problem was almost certainly a disk failure even though the MD600 appears on the network. He offered to help me via a telephone call but, thank you very much Russ, I won't need to do that now. It's worth saying that in 2017 when I had another problem, Russ spent a considerable amount of time helping me to sort things out.

Thanks to all. Jeremy

Yes I agree, after 7 disc failures on my 2 x MD600's and very poor diagnostics from Meridian, I finally bit the bullet and purchased a Roon Nucleus + Rev B and with the invaluable assistance of Russ migrated my library to 4TB SSD installed in the N+.

Should have done it years ago, but on the upside I ended up with Nucleus + Rev B.

I sleep better at night not having to check MD600 unreliable indicators every morning for another left or right disc failure and another very long restore process.

Happy Hector

Afterthoughts. By cross-checking I identified the failed drive as being one that was originally supplied with the MD600 in 2013. It was a Seagate 'Desktop HDD' 2TB ST2000DM001. I suppose 7 years isn't too bad particularly as the other drive failed in 2016.

I'm slightly surprised that the system would not work (no MD600 in Configure; no Control:PC) with one drive being faulty and one functional. Or is this perhaps a way to make sure one is aware there is a faulty drive? It does work with just one drive in one of the slots.

Interestingly, having put two good drives into the MD600, the orange LED on the ethernet port at the rear is illuminated (flickering) but there is no green LED. On the MS600 there is a green LED (flickering) as well as an orange one.

I'm still puzzled as to why temporarily unplugging the ethernet cable from the MS600 should clobber a hard drive in the MD600. J.

Might I respectfully suggest (from experience) it was already "clobbered". Meridian diagnostics on the MD600 just failed to advise you in a reasonable, unequivocal and understandable way.

My drives were all Seagate 3TB Barracudas and the 7 failed drives all failed the Seagate Tools Tests, using Icy Box as interface.

Just my bad experiences

Hector

I thought the pre-emptive diagnostics on Sooloos kit like MD600 was one of the USP's but clearly not

I went to this movie back when I had an MD600. I didn't like the ending. Pre-emptive failure detection never existed for the MD600.

Relevant thread.

"Clearly not" Ian

Unfortunately if a drive failed according to MD 600 diagnostics either LED 4 or 5 should be illuminated, 4 for left or 5 for right hand drive. My experience on rebooting the suspect MD 600 was that the opposite drive of the pair LED could be illuminated on the completed reboot. Hence the need to check both drives with Seagate Tools before making any assumption. Most disconcerting.

It is always good to keep a record of the number of albums stored on MD 600's to be sure that you know what your are looking for, this is especially relevant if you run more than one.

Hector

Thanks for posting that. Easy to see why I thought that, especially when told* that face to face by a Meridian employee at one of the factory tours.

* As far as I can remember from the conversation, this was my take home impression. Sounds like the 'don't over emphasise' message hadn't been communicated at that point in time.

It's interesting and a little disappointing to hear comments about Meridian's lack of diagnostic information. I seem to recall being told when I purchased my system in 2013 that if there were any errors on the MD600 hard drives I would be contacted by Meridian to advise me. I have to wonder how long my failed hard drive had been inoperative. It makes me very glad that I have two backup hard drives and also backup to my NAS.

My MD600 and MS600 are normally powered up 24/7. The last time they would have been switched off deliberately would probably have been in November 2019 when I was away on holiday, but we did have a reasonably lengthy power outage about 3 weeks ago. My PC is shut down at the end of each day. The router is occasionally rebooted if there are communication difficulties with other devices. All of this makes me think that the hard drive had probably not been inoperative for long. Still don't know why temporarily unplugging the ethernet cable from the MS600 would have suddenly caused Configure and Control:PC not to work. None of the LEDs on the front of the MD600 were indicating a failure.

I've never tried Seagate Tools for checking hard drives. Would I be able to use it if I put a hard drive in my Icy Box and connect that to my PC with a USB cable? Is it reasonably straightforward to use? I note that there are various types of testing that can be done. What do most people use? J.