Duet Wouldn't Connect Until I Unplugged Touch -- Why Why Why?

[Please Me Squeeze Me]

It only seemed appropriate to quote Nancy Kerrigan's wail (after some alleged scoundrel allegedly whacked her on the knee) since the Olympics are on. Memories, memories.

OK, here's deal. I have a Touch inside the house connected to an audio system that is on all the time and gets used all the time. I have a Duet that I take into the backyard on weekends and use with a pair of powered speakers. Running LMS (latest version) on an old XP laptop that is connected to my router with a cable. Usually when I plug the Duet in, it boots right up and ready to go. Sometimes it's a little finicky, but usually rebooting the computer and/or the Duet solves that.

Last weekend, multiple reboots of both got me nowhere. The Duet would get the last colored light dark blue or purple or whatever color it is no further. After tearing my hair out for a while, just for the heck of it I unplugged the Touch from AC. The Duet light almost immediately went white and it I was up and running.

I would like to avoid a repeat of this scenario, and wonder if anybody has an idea what the problem is/was?

Thanks.

[Mnyb]

Ip adress conflict ?

[Please Me Squeeze Me]

That's an interesting idea. It never happened before, but I don't know enough about it to know if that means it is impossible, unlikely, or I've just been lucky. Is there a way to assign static IP addresses to both the Duet and the SBT, so that if I power off and back on, they stay at the IP address they had?

And thanks for taking the time to read and reply in the first place.

edit 2: oops, I think I mean fixed IP address. Sorry, it's late and I'm sleepy.

[Mnyb]

if you turn of the routers dhcp you can do static ip during normal setup (there are other ways use forum search and you see that ) and then turn on the dhcp again .

But what's important is the to have the range of dchp adresses outside of the ones you use for static ip , otherwise you risk making things even worse .

Most routers havea setting for dchp range/pool .

[Swiftie]

Is there a way to assign static IP addresses to both the Duet and the SBT, so that if I power off and back on, they stay at the IP address they had?

See if your router allows you to reserve the IP address of device which uses DHCP. I do this (ZyXEL P660HW).

Its gets you the best of both worlds; the IP address is reserved for the MAC address of the device, so it acts as a Fixed IP address, but if you were ever to plug your duet into someone else's network, it would still work (as long as they enabled DHCP, of course).

[garym]

See if your router allows you to reserve the IP address of device which uses DHCP. I do this (ZyXEL P660HW).

Its gets you the best of both worlds; the IP address is reserved for the MAC address of the device, so it acts as a Fixed IP address, but if you were ever to plug your duet into someone else's network, it would still work (as long as they enabled DHCP, of course).

True (although there are still a few advantages to a true static ip address vs reserved). One can also assign static ip addresses to touch, duet, controller, etc. this is what I do. Search this forum for "setting static ip" and you'll find lots of step by step instructions.

[Please Me Squeeze Me]

Hey Mnyb, Gary & Swiftie--

Thank you, this is all good and helpful info. There's a lot on my "honeydo" list this weekend. As son as I can work on configuring IP addresses on the router, I will, and report back.

Gary, I see you mention Vortexbox as part of your set-up. I've done some reading about Vortexbox, and still don't really "get it." Is wiping this old XP laptop I'm using and turning it into a Vortexbox something I should think about doing?



Thanks again.

[garym]

Hey Mnyb, Gary & Swiftie--

Thank you, this is all good and helpful info. There's a lot on my "honeydo" list this weekend. As son as I can work on configuring IP addresses on the router, I will, and report back.

Gary, I see you mention Vortexbox as part of your set-up. I've done some reading about Vortexbox, and still don't really "get it." Is wiping this old XP laptop I'm using and turning it into a Vortexbox something I should think about doing?



Thanks again.

I love my vba setups. Worth thinking about but certainly not necessary. None of this impacts audio quality or robustness of your local network. You can run LMS just fine on the laptop with xp. And have rhe screen turn itself off, stick next to router and connect with Ethernet. I'm not sure you gain much in your case. And with windows you just plug in USB drive for extra Storage. This is more complicated with vortexbox. So I'd probably just leave the xp on the laptop.

[Mnyb]

True (although there are still a few advantages to a true static ip address vs reserved). One can also assign static ip addresses to touch, duet, controller, etc. this is what I do. Search this forum for "setting static ip" and you'll find lots of step by step instructions.

+1 you may avoid some buggines in both the squeezebox dhcp client (known to be buggy ) and also bugs in the routers dhcp server (this is not unusual either ).

[Please Me Squeeze Me]

Hey Gary & Mnyb, I found your comments over in this thread http://forums.slimdevices.com/showth...ting+static+ip

and they've been helpful. Thanks, I appreciate you taking the time to comment on thus same issue again in the thread I started. I do have a question. Mnyb you said "what's important is the to have the range of dchp adresses outside of the ones you use for static ip , otherwise you risk making things even worse. Most routers have a setting for dchp range/pool."

A guy I know who is more tech-savvy than me helped me get a Brother wireless printer going that was causing all kinds of trouble, and I see he gave it a fixed address of 192.168.xx.xx [edit]. Does this give me a clue about the kind of IP address I should choose?


I hope to be able to get time to work on the IP address setup tonight, because if I don't, it may be a couple of weeks with my schedule ahead. I will report back when I get something tried and (hopefully) accomplished.

[edit: I had the IP address of the printer showing. Maybe that's not a good idea for security reasons?]