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Kazoo alternative because it is useless

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golke53

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golke, can you explain this in laymen's terms please as I don't understand it. All this stuff about 'IP Tables' and IP addresses being stored, no idea what this stuff means. No idea what an IP address even is. I'm a plug and play sort of guy, which is why I preferred a good old analogue integrated amp and a Nakamichi cassette deck plugged into it with phono cables. 

I have a Plusnet router, DSM and I also have a 5-way Ethernet box in my living room. Plusnet router is in my office, that has a long ethernet cable going through the loft and coming down into my living room where it plugs into a 5-way Netgear GS208 box from which I have ethernet cables go from that to all my devices: Apple TV, Amazon TV, Bluray player, Linn Majik DSM.

I have Linn Konfig on my iMac and Linn Kazoo on my iPhone.

I have a Qnap TS251 NAS drive and Qfinder Pro software on my Mac for it, but no idea how it really works as somebody else, John at Ripcaster, UK, remote controls my computer and sorts it for me as I'm crap at this stuff.

With this in mind, what's all this about IP addresses and putting NAS on a DS fixed IP? No idea what that means.
ok I try stage 1, maybe we need more stages to get things clear. But the information you provided above is already pretty helpful. (Briain, I have not heard from you since ages and I would be happy if you could jump in when I am not safe). Your Netgear box is a switch (as per Google) and this implies it does not assign IP addresses. That is good because it narrows the issue down to the router and/or the cables between router and switch. An IP address is just a number pattern that is assigned to each device in an IP-based network (your home e.g.) as an identifier. If you look at all devices at your home that are connected to one router they typically have an IP address  like this: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx or even often  192.168.0.xxx. A router has a side I would call upstream and another side I would call downstream. The downstream side is called a local area network or LAN. The 192.168.0.xxx is a typical LAN IP address or WLAN (Wireless LAN) address. Please note that the numbers don't get bigger than 255 ever. This is because a Byte is 8 bits and in one Byte you can only present 2 **8 = 256 different combinations of 0 and 1 in a binary. string. (00000000 = 0,   11111111 = 255).  Since many routers have a local range like 192.168.0.xxx for a unique global(=worldwide) address this LAN IP needs to be concatenated with another IP address string which identifies your router to the WWW internet (=upstream side). This upstream IP address is provided by your IP provider company (or telephone company if you like) . The concatenated string of IP addresses identifies your device globally unique in the Internet. For our discussion the only thing you need to care about is the downstream=local side. All devices in your LAN talk to each other using the local  (LAN)  IP address only. Usually when 2 devices share the 3 first number groups of an IP-address then they are called being in the same subnet. Example: 192.168.0.4 and 192.168.0.15 are in the same subnet (normally=99% of all cases). Whereas 192.168.0.4 and 192.168.128.4 are not. It is sometimes complicated for applications to communicate over subnet boundaries and that is why is it safer to have all 3,  your NAS, the DS and your Controlpoint Software device in the same subnet. End of chapter 1.

Chapter 2: nowadays a router has a service function called DHCP. It assigns LAN IP addresses to locally connected devices. Your DS e.g when powered up will say hello to your router and request an IP-address. DHCP will in turn look into a table and find a free LAN IP address within the assigned subnet. Your DS will get this in "competition " with all your other devices. Note that the  maximum number of devices within the subnets as defined in our example is again usually 255. When you shut down your MAC PC e.g. the IP address will be freed up and it can be assigned to another device when it requests an  IP from DHCP. This is how it happens that your PC sometimes gets 192.168.0.4 and next time 192.168.0.16. Reserving (fixing)  the IP address is an option in DHCP where you can always get the same LAN IP assigned to that device. If normally the IP address is the unique identifier and a device when powered has no IP address yet, how you do know that this special device wants 192.168.0.22? Because it also has a second identifier which is globally unique for every single device that is designed to be in an IP network. This is the MAC address and it has the form xx:xx:xx:xx and normally can be found on a sticker at the bottom of the device. The device sends its MAC over the network  when powered up and if the DHCP function finds that MAC in a special table it looks to the right column in the table and assigns that IP address for the MAC that YOU (Y O U !!) have reserved for it. The differences now come with the router you own: the way you do the pairing between MAC and IP address varies from router to router. Some are very comfortable (like mine) and I only tick a box: "always use the same". Others are less user friendly and you have to find a place in your router UI where you can do it and it is usually called MAC binding service (TP Link had that IIRC).

Chapter 3: your Netgear is a switch and this implies it has no DHCP. This implies the DHCP runs on the router to which the switch is connected.

Chapter 4: if your network is not very stable or has a lot of activity regarding IP address administration then it can happen that the router has to refresh the IP address tables more often than you would guess. In such a case a device can get a new IP address on flight and then it is up to the router o ensure that everyone in the LAN is aware that what used to be 192.168.0.3 is now 192.168.0.24 and that is often not the case with crappy routers  and it impacts especially devices that use UPnP. The already mentioned word "discovery" is a function in UPnP where a requester is asking/searching for the IP-addresses of other UPnP devices in the same subnet. E.G. Kazoo would send out a discovery request to find the IP address of the NAS running your media server and the DS (your renderer)  and once discovery returns the IP then it can communicate . If discovery returns no or the wrong IP address the UPNP device will not work. ….  "waiting for Mainroom"...…….

End of this book. 

 

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On the iPhone, but not any other iThing, there can be an issue on Kazoo with the subnet, in Settings.  It needs to be the option with the (en0) at the end. If your Wi-fi selects an alternative it won’t be found.   
I’d guess iPads with cellular capability are affected as well. The culprit is "Wi-FI Assist". Poor Wi-Fi connection -> iThing switches to cellular -> no access to the local network.

 

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Try the new Linn App CP - it’s available at the AppStore, I believe it was developed with iOS in mind - works best (visually) with KazooServer.
The Linn app uses the same network stack as Kazoo. In laymen’s terms, it just provides a different GUI and suffers the same from network problems as Kazoo.

 

CJ1045

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The Linn app uses the same network stack as Kazoo. In laymen’s terms, it just provides a different GUI and suffers the same from network problems as Kazoo.
Had to laugh at this. How many layman know what GUI means !!??

One significant point here is that the dealer who sold you the Majik DSM is supposed to set it up in your home as part of the sale. This is a requirement from Linn. The dealer can deal with all the network stuff and yoy can simply listen to the music afterwards.

CJ

 

MickC

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For iOS users there’s at least one other app available that can control a Linn DS, as I posted here quite some time back - it’s called ‘fidata Music App’ on the app store.

It might be worth trying.

Mick

 

Briain

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Chapter 2: nowadays a router has a service function called DHCP. It assigns LAN IP addresses to locally connected devices. Your DS e.g when powered up will say hello to your router and request an IP-address. DHCP will in turn look into a table and find a free LAN IP address within the assigned subnet. Your DS will get this in "competition " with all your other devices. Note that the  maximum number of devices within the subnets as defined in our example is again usually 255. When you shut down your MAC PC e.g. the IP address will be freed up and it can be assigned to another device when it requests an  IP from DHCP. This is how it happens that your PC sometimes gets 192.168.0.4 and next time 192.168.0.16. Reserving (fixing)  the IP address is an option in DHCP where you can always get the same LAN IP assigned to that device. If normally the IP address is the unique identifier and a device when powered has no IP address yet, how you do know that this special device wants 192.168.0.22? Because it also has a second identifier which is globally unique for every single device that is designed to be in an IP network. This is the MAC address and it has the form xx:xx:xx:xx and normally can be found on a sticker at the bottom of the device. The device sends its MAC over the network  when powered up and if the DHCP function finds that MAC in a special table it looks to the right column in the table and assigns that IP address for the MAC that YOU (Y O U !!) have reserved for it. The differences now come with the router you own: the way you do the pairing between MAC and IP address varies from router to router. Some are very comfortable (like mine) and I only tick a box: "always use the same". Others are less user friendly and you have to find a place in your router UI where you can do it and it is usually called MAC binding service (TP Link had that IIRC).
Hi

I think that a rather cool way to ponder what's going on with the address reservation is to consider each reservation as being like creating a tiny DHCP pool containing only one address. In other words, as far as the device requesting its network settings (including an IP address) from the router is concerned, it is much the same procedure as requesting its network settings from a bog standard DHCP pool of many addresses, except that in this case, it (or more accurately, it's MAC address) is only ever going to assigned that one, reserved address.

Another router feature it's worth being aware of is DHCP lease time. This feature exists in all routers, but is sometimes not configurable in ISP issued routers (in other words, it isn't accessible in the router's web settings pages, but it still exists). The idea of this is that if you switched a device off for a few hours, the router 'remembers' that device existed and doesn't issue the address to anything else that you switch on (unless it really has to; i.e. unless all the other addresses in the DHCP pool have been taken by other things) and thus when you switch the device back on, it does typically get the same address as it had before you'd switched it off (it's sort of like a short term DHCP address reservation feature).

The default setting for DHCP lease time - chosen by the router manufacturer - is typically a day or so (I have seen some set as low as 12 hours and others set at more than 3 days) and the reason I mention it is that [very rarely] I have read of instances where a newly connected product appears to be working just fine, then next day it seems to have an 'issue' of some description and after lots of investigation it's been found to be down to the re-negotiation of network settings at the DHCP lease time expiry (in other words, if the DHCP lease time is set to 3 days, after that 3 days the DHCP process is triggered off - this is how it is meant to work - but for some strange reason, that renegotiation process upsets something and that's what puts the ball up onto the slates. It is highly unusual for that to cause a problem, but it is worth being aware that it exists when trying to work out why something was working, then stops working after a day or so; the issue just might be associated with the DHCP re-negotiation after the DHCP lease time had expired.

I haven't come across the above issue on any of my own fault chasing escapades, but I do seem to recall an incident (on the old Linn forum) whereby a Linn product was getting unhappy after a router (perhaps a Netgear model, I think, but it was ages ago so I could be wrong about that) 12 hour DHCP lease time negotiation had occurred. I cannot recall whether using MAC / IP address reservation helped or not (as they'll still be subject to the re-negotiation process after the lease period expires, but of course, they will always get the same reserved address) but it is just another oddball thing to be vaguely aware exists, just in case anyone comes across something that happens x hours after a reboot appeared to have sorted things.

One last point about DHCP reservation is that when you do consider it as described in my first paragraph, it perhaps explains why some [typically cheap and nasty, but not always] routers only permit you to bind an address from within the scope of the DHCP pool (that really irritates me, but there's no 'law' against it) whereas with decent kit, you can typically bind addresses from outside the DHCP pool (and with some, only from outside the pool). I prefer the latter (at least the option to bind outside the pool) as to me, it seems a lot more logical to have them separated from the pool.

Off to go play with some radio stuff now. :)

Briain

PS Incidentally, absolutely everything on my internal networks (other than the guest network, obviously) uses DHCP assigned MAC/IP bindings. It needn't be, but by creating a list of network hosts in my 'router' it means that I can access them by name, rather than having to remember their IP address (so by naming my printer 'printer', I can simply type http://printer. into my browser and access the printer settings page, for example) but I doubt that's possible in any ISP issued router.

 
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Paul_N

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Had to laugh at this. How many layman know what GUI means !!??

One significant point here is that the dealer who sold you the Majik DSM is supposed to set it up in your home as part of the sale. This is a requirement from Linn. The dealer can deal with all the network stuff and yoy can simply listen to the music afterwards.

CJ
I've bought 2 DS/DSM's new and 2 ex-demo since 2009 (and had a Renew out my KDSM) and had 2 of them upgraded to Kat - none of the 3 dealers involved have come or offered to come to my house despite each only being c. 30 mins away!  Same with other Linn products in the past other than my first Linn system c. 30 years ago!  Don't think they want to be out of the shop for 2-3 hours for no extra money even if it is supposed to be included.

 

Briain

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I felt sorry for dealers when DS's first came to market as likely very few of them would have had any network experience*. I can see why Linn Products wrote instructions based on adding a second router and thus being able to write concise instructions on how to set it up (even proposing the address range, etc) but that isn't a fix suitable for everybody, so they will likely have to dive into many existing networks and figure out how to bind a NAS, for example. One problem I've encountered (several times) is that whenever visiting someone's network to do something, you end up taking ownership and thus being responsible for clearing any other problems (new or existing) and that can be rather tedious. That's typically simple on a small home network, but for example, a couple of years back I had to deal with a very significant home (more like mansion) network with lots of co for mplex devices including a VoIP telephone exchange and other such 'toys' (nobody prior to me had left records and for some things, I had no access to even view their configuration). On that network, some things had been given fixed IP addresses and there was even a collision with the DHCP pool (causing utter chaos). Incidentally, I wasn't there to work on Linn kit but he did have a full sized rack housing his Knekt equipment (and a home cinema that actually resembled a cinema; very cool, it was). :)

Of course, there will also be dealers who don't want to dive into any network - even a simple one - not only due to it taking time on the day, but also due to the potential for subsequent customer calls stating 'well it was all okay until you touched it, get back out and fix it (for free)'.

On a similar note, another interesting thing that I have oft' pondered is whether a dealer would prefer to sell a Linn DS based system or a similarly priced system from a competitor? Either sale might involve a similar quantity of time performing a home visit and to set the systems up, but in addition, the Linn one could (should) also entail spending quite some additional time faffing about with Space Optimisation.

Briain

* I was just a happy go lucky radio bloke back then and thus I also had virtually zero experience with LANs, then buying a KDS in 2007 forced me to get acquainted with networks, fix problems relating to same and now I'm not only working on small business networks, but at home I'm running a bunch of VLANs, several NAS's, several Raspberry Pi 'servers' (including one that uses internet radio streaming software for vaguely nefarious radio type purposes and another to monitor WAPs at several remote sites) and I'm now using an enterprise grade firewall instead of a router (including a reverse proxy for an internet facing web page; yes, yet another R Pi, of course). So, 13 years of network related utter misery all began from me just wishing to play an entire <beeping noise> album without having to change the side half way through; Linn <beeping noise> Products have an awful lot to answer for! :D :D :D :D

 
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Ian Forber

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+1 on assigning a static Internet Protocol address for your DSM and your NAS (or getting John at Ripcaster to do it for you). 

I’m far from an expert at this stuff either, but when I first got my Majik DSM (which my dealer did set up for me), I found after a few days that the playlists I was creating in Kazoo weren’t working - I’m pretty sure this was because the playlist in Kazoo was using the NAS IP address to point the DSM to the song sat on the NAS hard drive. The NAS address had changed so it couldn’t find it. Since I changed to static addresses, my playlists in Kazoo have worked fine for the past 5 years.

I use Virgin and have my QNAP NAS and DSM hardwired directly to the router by Ethernet cable.

Good luck and hope your system stays stable!

Ian

 

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One significant point here is that the dealer who sold you the Majik DSM is supposed to set it up in your home as part of the sale. This is a requirement from Linn. The dealer can deal with all the network stuff and yoy can simply listen to the music afterwards.
That’s just wishful thinking which doesn’t match the real world. Solving customer’s network issues requires a network expert, which most dealers aren’t. And if someone is a network expert, it’s much more likely that he works in this field instead of becoming a Linn dealer.

What I’m missing is any useful advise from you regarding solving the problem. Being a dealer and engineer you should be able to provide a solution, aren’t you?

 

Gussy

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That’s just wishful thinking which doesn’t match the real world. Solving customer’s network issues requires a network expert, which most dealers aren’t. And if someone is a network expert, it’s much more likely that he works in this field instead of becoming a Linn dealer.

What I’m missing is any useful advise from you regarding solving the problem. Being a dealer and engineer you should be able to provide a solution, aren’t you?
FFS

 
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Hold on a moment, I just need to google ASAP....
That’s your problem, not mine… Do you really think that I don’t know what "FFS" means? That’s just your personal opinion I don’t give a sh.. for. Any useful reply from you would contain instructions how to solve the actual problem or why do you think that what I’ve wrote isn’t true.

 

Gussy

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That’s your problem, not mine… Do you really think that I don’t know what "FFS" means? That’s just your personal opinion I don’t give a sh.. for. Any useful reply from you would contain instructions how to solve the actual problem or why do you think that what I’ve wrote isn’t true.
Calm down, son.

 

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