Roon/HQP/NAA/ Ethernet mystery!

[Dread]

New to the Forum but I've learned MUCH from you folks over the past year or so. Now i'm stumped...please help!

 

System config… Roon and HQP on MBP i7, 2.3 GHz ,8G ram. Airport extreme wifi router streaming to Airport express as Ethernet bridge to 2010 core duo Mac Mini (headless) wifi on Mini off. NAA on mini, Schiit Multibit Bifrost . This works but I get occasional dropouts. So I decided to run an Ethernet cable from MBP to Mini. My intended scheme was (is) MBP Ethernet to A Extreme… new Ethernet from router to Mini NAA, usb to Schitt. In my situation running the new cable is not a trivial task so after receiving a new Blue Jeans 25’ cable I decided to run a quick test. I connected new cable directly from MBP to Mini, opened screen sharing… all good. Opened HQP prefs and no NAA detected. Closed and reopened NAA on Mini…no joy. Closed and reopened HQP on MBP, nuttin. Hot swapped A express/ Ethernet to Mini ( i.e. back to “normal” and HQP saw my Dac as before. Re-inserted Ethernet MBP to Mini…Dac gone. Restarted mini re initiated NAA all with same result.

So the only thing I can come up with is that the only difference is that the main router (A-Extreme) was out of the cable loop. IOW dose the router need to be in the loop? I can’t easily test this theory cuz Modem/router are on a different floor from Mini. Doesn’t quite make sense to me but I’m certainly no networking guru… Hope someone out there is, cuz I am baffled.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Phil

[Dread]

Got it all figured out and working...Thanks for all the help