Troubleshooting Receiver dropouts - where is Network Test on LMS menu?

[BrynClarke]

Trying to set up Duet in new house, seems to play then stop then sometimes restart, light sometimes blue, sometimes changes from bright white to dim white and music stops for no apparent reason, sometimes bright white but no sound. So, first thing is I want to test network (wifi at Receiver is 60%) - on Controller I find it really hard to read, so am looking for Network Test on the LMS page - where is it these days? I have the Triode Network Test plugin, but can't see how to do the test apart from on the Controller...? not much in main log file except a few "22-02-07 16:10:20.1458] Slim::Networking:iscovery::Players::_players_error (144) Unable to get players: Connect timed out: Transport endpoint is not connected"
TIA
LMS 8.2.0 on piCorePlayer (Raspberry Pi)

[bpa]

Not available in LMS WebGUI. IIRC The plugin only provides a UI from players (and probably controller).

As it is a new house, check for other Wifi network in area. (e.g. use Wifi analyser app on Android phone/table) - strong signal doesn't mean no interference from nearby networks.

[FredFredrickson]

My duet receivers (I have 3 active ones) don't stay online for long / stop playing randomly.

At this point I think it might just be EOL for these guys. I have to reboot them constantly to get them back online.

[bpa]

My duet receivers (I have 3 active ones) don't stay online for long / stop playing randomly.

At this point I think it might just be EOL for these guys. I have to reboot them constantly to get them back online.

If the receivers are connected using wifi - then you should consider trying to isolate the problem

The problem can either be
(i) The receiver
or
(ii) the wifi network.

All SB player are now over 10 years old and h/w issues become more prevalent. Receivers are fairly solid - 2 circuit boards Main & WLAN and a PSU. PSU are often the point of failure - PSU fail badly - they degrade rather than stop. Failing WLAN cards in SB3 can cause SB3 to reboots - WLAN cards can be easily replaced and replacement are still fairly easy to obtain and not expensive. However it is odd that ALL receivers suffer same h/w problem at the same time.

Since ALL receivers have the same problem - the issues is more likely to be the Wifi setup. Modern router with WIFI 6, Roaming, power saving and channel bonding have bad effects on Radios - perhaps they are affected your receivers as well. If you can, disable those features in your router. If this is the issues, then unfortunately a neighbour's network could also be the source of the problem. You can test if wifi is the issue, by connecting a receiver using an ethernet cable to see if receiver stays connected.

[FredFredrickson]

If the receivers are connected using wifi - then you should consider trying to isolate the problem

The problem can either be
(i) The receiver
or
(ii) the wifi network.

All SB player are now over 10 years old and h/w issues become more prevalent. Receivers are fairly solid - 2 circuit boards Main & WLAN and a PSU. PSU are often the point of failure - PSU fail badly - they degrade rather than stop. Failing WLAN cards in SB3 can cause SB3 to reboots - WLAN cards can be easily replaced and replacement are still fairly easy to obtain and not expensive. However it is odd that ALL receivers suffer same h/w problem at the same time.

Since ALL receivers have the same problem - the issues is more likely to be the Wifi setup. Modern router with WIFI 6, Roaming, power saving and channel bonding have bad effects on Radios - perhaps they are affected your receivers as well. If you can, disable those features in your router. If this is the issues, then unfortunately a neighbour's network could also be the source of the problem. You can test if wifi is the issue, by connecting a receiver using an ethernet cable to see if receiver stays connected.

Okay so as a troubleshooting step, I took one of my receivers that had a white light but wasn't responding or showing up in LMS, and a few odd things:

#1 (Edit, wrong, was pinging controller not receiver)
#2 I tried plugging in an ethernet cable, but no link lights on the back (router showed link but no traffic).
#3 Link lights on squeezebox came on after reboot.


I'm going to leave it plugged in for a few days and see if the problem stays fixed. If so, I'm going to buy wireless to ethernet bridges

Edit: Weird happenings- i discovered that i had to factory reset the receiver to switch to ethernet from wifi (Of course!) and so i did a factory reset on the receiver but also the controller.. after it finished it asked to connect to wifi and... it wouldn't connect! I tried multiple times until finally I rebooted the netgear router and suddenly it connected. Finished the wired update and we're good to go for now...

All the meanwhile I'm watching youtube in the other room no problem, so i know the router isn't.. "broken"

It's a nighthawk r6900v2 and it's less than a year old but i'm genuinely considering a unifi UDM + unifi access points

[bpa]

Edit: Weird happenings- i discovered that i had to factory reset the receiver to switch to ethernet from wifi (Of course!)

I think you can use Net::UDAP to change settings without a factory reset. I have a wired receiver which ever so often drops off (sometimes after DHCP changes IP) and I use Net::UDAP.

Re Possible Wifi issue - Router settings.

The issues is not a "broken" router but one which is borderline incompatible with devices that were design over 10 years ago and are only compatible with 802.11b/g - they do not implement "n" and "n" (aka MIMO / Beamforming) should not affect them but it seems sometime it does

Have you cleared the "Enable 20/40 MHz Coexistence" setting (aka Channel bonding) ?
Try different SSIDs for 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz networks.

edit:

Newer routers (w.g. WIFI6) generally have even more problems with older devices. It may be more reliable to used an older router as an AP with a separate SSID for older devices.