At some point in the past two years, my three Squeezebox Radios suddenly lost their ability to stay connected to Wi-Fi. To get them reconnected I would have to reboot them, but they would always lose their connection again in as little as five minutes. They would almost never stay connected for more than 40 minutes at a time. I was using a common Linksys router, and nothing in my setup had changed. The Radios basically became glorified clocks displayed in my home. My two Squeezebox Touch units were unaffected, but the loss of the Radios caused me to use the Touches less as well.
A few days ago I finally installed POMdev's wlanpoke on each Radio. This fix has breathed new life into them--they now stay connected without the need for frequent reboots. POMdev, I'm grateful—thank you very much.
In preparation to install the fix, I noticed that about six months ago, in his (?) first (and so far only) post on this forum, mankan requested that someone write "instructions for dummies" for wlanpoke. Having recently struggled through the user manual as a non-technical user, I agree that such instructions are necessary, so I am taking a stab at writing them by describing, step by step, how I installed wlanpoke on my three Squeezebox Radios. If anyone notices any problems with my instructions, please let us know. I'm afraid that most non-technical users may have given up on their Radios by now, but I hope these instructions help someone.
Please note that these instructions are for installing the fix without enabling the logging (extensively documented in the user manual) that it provides for troubleshooting purposes. I chose to disable the logging in the hope that the fix would simply work. Since it does, I don't anticipate having to enable logging.
Now for the instructions. I used a Windows computer on the same Wi-Fi network as my Squeezebox Radios to do the following:
1. Download wlanpoke: Go to https://github.com/PomDev2/wlanpoke , click on the green button labeled Code and then click on Download ZIP. Save the file wlanpoke-main.zip to your computer.
2. Open Windows Explorer and locate the downloaded file wlanpoke-main.zip. Right-click on the file, and select "Extract All". This will extract the contents of the compressed file to a folder named wlanpoke-main.
3. Enable the Radio's SSH server by navigating as follows:
Home | Settings | Advanced | Remote Login
and selecting Enable SSH. When you do this, make a note of the Radio's IP address, which is displayed on the screen in the following message: "The root password for this device is 1234 and you can connect to it on address [IP address]"
4. Back on your computer, download WinSCP from the page https://winscp.net/eng/download.php and install it.
5. Launch WinSCP. A login window should open (if you need to open a login window manually, click on the "New Session" tab toward the top left). Under Session, for the file protocol, choose SCP. For the host name, enter the IP address you saved in step 2. Leave the port number unchanged. For user name, enter "root". For password, enter "1234". Click on "Login". You will see one or two warnings asking if you want to proceed. Answer Yes. If you get an error message that says "Error getting name of current remote directory," dismiss it by clicking OK.
6. The WinSCP window now displays your computer's files and folders on the left and your Squeezebox Radio's files on the right. On the Squeezebox Radio side, navigate to the root directory (the folder at the very top of the hierarchy). You can do this by clicking on the root directory button that is shown above the list of files, to the left of the home button. Now, navigate to the folder named "etc" by double-clicking on it. Now click on the New button, which is just below and to the right of the root directory button. Choose "Directory", and for "New folder name", type "wlanpoke". Once the wlanpoke folder has been created, double-click on it to display the contents of the folder, i.e. nothing as of yet.
7. In your computer files (displayed on the left-hand side of WinSCP), navigate to the contents of the folder wlanpoke-main, created in step 2. Select all 11 files and drag them to the opposite side of the WinSCP window to copy them into the wlanpoke folder. (Answer yes and/or OK to any scary-sounding confirmations.)
8. The purpose of this step is to change permissions for the shell scripts to "executable". In the menu bar at the top of the WinSCP window, click on Commands, and then click on Open Terminal. Then, for each of the following two lines of text, copy the entire string of text, paste it into the field labeled "Enter Command" in the console, and click on the Execute button:
chmod 755 /etc/wlanpoke/*.sh
chmod 755 /etc/wlanpoke/rcS.local.example
9. Click on Close to close the terminal window. The Squeezebox Radio side of the WinRCS window should still show the contents of the wlanpoke folder. Right-click on the file rcS.local.example and click on Copy. Next, navigate to the folder /etc/init.d by clicking on the root directory button (to the left of the home button) and then double clicking first on the etc folder and then on the init.d folder. Right-click in the white space below the list of files and then select Paste. A confirmation dialog box titled Duplicate will appear. Remove the characters ".example" from the end of the target remote path so that it now reads "/etc/init.d/rcS.local" and click OK. You should see that the file rcS.local has appeared in the list of files on the Radio. Right-click on the file rcS.local, select Edit, then select Edit again.
10. Now that you have the rcS.local file open, edit the last line (/etc/wlanpoke/wlanpoke.sh &) by placing the characters -x followed by a space character before the final ampersand. In other words, edit this line so that it reads as follows (this edit is to specify that you don't want any messages to be sent to a logging server):
/etc/wlanpoke/wlanpoke.sh -x &
11. Close the file editor. When asked if you want to save the file, click on Yes. Answer Yes again if asked if you want to continue with the connection, and click OK to dismiss any error message.
12. Close WinSCP, answering Yes when asked if you want to terminate the session without saving a workspace.
13. Disable the Radio's SSH server by navigating as follows (the manual doesn't say to do this, but I disabled it because I don't know if leaving it enabled constitutes a security risk):
Home | Settings | Advanced | Remote Login
and deselecting Enable SSH.
14. Restart the Squeezebox Radio (I believe this is necessary to activate the fix). Your Radio's Wi-Fi connectivity should now be back to normal, for the most part. Repeat for each additional Squeezebox Radio you are once again lucky enough to own.
A few days ago I finally installed POMdev's wlanpoke on each Radio. This fix has breathed new life into them--they now stay connected without the need for frequent reboots. POMdev, I'm grateful—thank you very much.
In preparation to install the fix, I noticed that about six months ago, in his (?) first (and so far only) post on this forum, mankan requested that someone write "instructions for dummies" for wlanpoke. Having recently struggled through the user manual as a non-technical user, I agree that such instructions are necessary, so I am taking a stab at writing them by describing, step by step, how I installed wlanpoke on my three Squeezebox Radios. If anyone notices any problems with my instructions, please let us know. I'm afraid that most non-technical users may have given up on their Radios by now, but I hope these instructions help someone.
Please note that these instructions are for installing the fix without enabling the logging (extensively documented in the user manual) that it provides for troubleshooting purposes. I chose to disable the logging in the hope that the fix would simply work. Since it does, I don't anticipate having to enable logging.
Now for the instructions. I used a Windows computer on the same Wi-Fi network as my Squeezebox Radios to do the following:
1. Download wlanpoke: Go to https://github.com/PomDev2/wlanpoke , click on the green button labeled Code and then click on Download ZIP. Save the file wlanpoke-main.zip to your computer.
2. Open Windows Explorer and locate the downloaded file wlanpoke-main.zip. Right-click on the file, and select "Extract All". This will extract the contents of the compressed file to a folder named wlanpoke-main.
3. Enable the Radio's SSH server by navigating as follows:
Home | Settings | Advanced | Remote Login
and selecting Enable SSH. When you do this, make a note of the Radio's IP address, which is displayed on the screen in the following message: "The root password for this device is 1234 and you can connect to it on address [IP address]"
4. Back on your computer, download WinSCP from the page https://winscp.net/eng/download.php and install it.
5. Launch WinSCP. A login window should open (if you need to open a login window manually, click on the "New Session" tab toward the top left). Under Session, for the file protocol, choose SCP. For the host name, enter the IP address you saved in step 2. Leave the port number unchanged. For user name, enter "root". For password, enter "1234". Click on "Login". You will see one or two warnings asking if you want to proceed. Answer Yes. If you get an error message that says "Error getting name of current remote directory," dismiss it by clicking OK.
6. The WinSCP window now displays your computer's files and folders on the left and your Squeezebox Radio's files on the right. On the Squeezebox Radio side, navigate to the root directory (the folder at the very top of the hierarchy). You can do this by clicking on the root directory button that is shown above the list of files, to the left of the home button. Now, navigate to the folder named "etc" by double-clicking on it. Now click on the New button, which is just below and to the right of the root directory button. Choose "Directory", and for "New folder name", type "wlanpoke". Once the wlanpoke folder has been created, double-click on it to display the contents of the folder, i.e. nothing as of yet.
7. In your computer files (displayed on the left-hand side of WinSCP), navigate to the contents of the folder wlanpoke-main, created in step 2. Select all 11 files and drag them to the opposite side of the WinSCP window to copy them into the wlanpoke folder. (Answer yes and/or OK to any scary-sounding confirmations.)
8. The purpose of this step is to change permissions for the shell scripts to "executable". In the menu bar at the top of the WinSCP window, click on Commands, and then click on Open Terminal. Then, for each of the following two lines of text, copy the entire string of text, paste it into the field labeled "Enter Command" in the console, and click on the Execute button:
chmod 755 /etc/wlanpoke/*.sh
chmod 755 /etc/wlanpoke/rcS.local.example
9. Click on Close to close the terminal window. The Squeezebox Radio side of the WinRCS window should still show the contents of the wlanpoke folder. Right-click on the file rcS.local.example and click on Copy. Next, navigate to the folder /etc/init.d by clicking on the root directory button (to the left of the home button) and then double clicking first on the etc folder and then on the init.d folder. Right-click in the white space below the list of files and then select Paste. A confirmation dialog box titled Duplicate will appear. Remove the characters ".example" from the end of the target remote path so that it now reads "/etc/init.d/rcS.local" and click OK. You should see that the file rcS.local has appeared in the list of files on the Radio. Right-click on the file rcS.local, select Edit, then select Edit again.
10. Now that you have the rcS.local file open, edit the last line (/etc/wlanpoke/wlanpoke.sh &) by placing the characters -x followed by a space character before the final ampersand. In other words, edit this line so that it reads as follows (this edit is to specify that you don't want any messages to be sent to a logging server):
/etc/wlanpoke/wlanpoke.sh -x &
11. Close the file editor. When asked if you want to save the file, click on Yes. Answer Yes again if asked if you want to continue with the connection, and click OK to dismiss any error message.
12. Close WinSCP, answering Yes when asked if you want to terminate the session without saving a workspace.
13. Disable the Radio's SSH server by navigating as follows (the manual doesn't say to do this, but I disabled it because I don't know if leaving it enabled constitutes a security risk):
Home | Settings | Advanced | Remote Login
and deselecting Enable SSH.
14. Restart the Squeezebox Radio (I believe this is necessary to activate the fix). Your Radio's Wi-Fi connectivity should now be back to normal, for the most part. Repeat for each additional Squeezebox Radio you are once again lucky enough to own.
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