Music players not seeing streamer

[BJP]

Hi Guys

I have been using a Neet Airstream Pro , wired to my router and toshlink to my DAC. The Airsteam Pro is compatible with AirPlay , WMP and Airfoil , I have all three on my Laptop. There is no set up required you just select the Airstream from the music player and away you go. Two weeks ago my music players stopped seeing the streamer , a reboot of my laptop sometimes brought it back. Then it went all together , it was showing in my router home page and its dashboard is accessible from my laptop.

Today I received a replacement unit and it worked straight off , tonight when I connected it had disappeared .

The checks from its dashboard are all ok except the music check which I can't do obviously because itunes etc doesn't see it.

help !

[Cebolla]

Hi BJP,

 

First a couple of points:

- I'm guessing your laptop is a Windows one, assuming the WMP you mentioned is Windows Media Player, so also (as Windows doesn't natively support AirPlay), 'having' AirPlay on your (Windows) laptop means using AirPlay via the iTunes application.

- AirFoil, like iTunes, uses AirPlay as its streaming mechanism, but Windows Media player uses UPnP/DLNA instead. So this would make the Neet Airstream Pro device an AirPlay and a UPnP/DLNA supporting streamer.

 

 

Even though they are different streaming technologies, both AirPlay & UPnP use IP multicast network data via the IGMP protocol, to discover their respective streaming devices. It's the job of your router to look after IGMP multicast and therefore make sure the AirPlay & UPnP discovery data is getting through to the correct network connected devices. Unfortunately, it's quite a common for routers not to do this properly, which may (if your lucky) be fixed by changing some of its configuration settings.

 

Bear in mind, the router itself uses a totally different network mechanism, that has nothing to do with IGMP multicast, to connect the network devices to the home network by WiFi or ethernet cable. So just because the Neet appears as one of the network devices connected to the router on its home webpage (and your laptop's web browser can access the Neet's dashboard web app), doesn't mean that IGMP multicast is working properly.

 

From the sounds of it, it's likely that your original router had its firmware updated two weeks ago, which broke IGMP multicast. Your new router appears to have the same problem.

First thing to check is if your router has an IGMP/Multicast setting & if so make sure it's switched on.

Next, if it has an IGMP snooping setting, switch it off.

If you have 5GHz WiFi and it's linked to the 2.4GHz WiFi with the same SSID, if you can, unlink them using different SSIDs.

 

Incidentally, what router are you using?

 

 

John

[BJP]

Hi John

It is the Neet that has been replaced not the router , the router is a BT hub 4 .

This morning when I reconnected the Neet it was visible again in itunes , Airfoil and WMP . Never actually tried WMP and I can confirm what you say about Neet being an AirPlay device , WMP sees it but wont send music it to it.

I have been told to reserve the IP address of the Neet , I can only lease this for a max of 21 days which is what I have done.

I shall also now check the IGMP/Multicast setting.

[BJP]

Just found this :

 

We have previously had a thread which listed some routers that would not work with multicast/igmp on BT Infinity, so have decided to create a thread of devices we now know work with the service.

 

• BT HomeHub 3 and 4 - Automatically enabled (no option to enable/disable feature)
  

[Cebolla]

Sorry about that - got fixated on the router & misread your post for that bit

 

Oh dear, not the BT Homehub 4. I had a similar problem with my old one and a Pioneer streamer suddenly not being able to find any UPnP/DLNA media servers. It was always quite slow (up to ~2mins) getting all the UPnP/DLNA devices on the network to show up on some of the UPnP/DLNA controller apps I use. I suspect BT update their routers in the background without you knowing about it.

 

I've recently changed my ISP to PlusNet (ironically owned by BT) and their provided router works perfectly with all my UPnP/DLNA & AirPlay devices, with none of the slowness during discovery.

[BJP]

Ok its not the router there has been a development.

I left the Airfoil program running on my desktop , after an hour or so the Neet Airstream in the device list blipped off.

I rebooted the laptop but no good.

I then tried another laptop (Windows 7) opened itunes selected a track clicked AirPlay , played.

I then tried Windows Media Player and this also streamed , this has never worked on my Win 10 laptop.

I went back to my laptop uninstalled Airfoil and itunes and reinstalled Airfoil bingo it was back.

I can't uninstall WMP , it sees the streamer but thats it.

 

So Windows 10 problem ?

[BJP]

So Windows 10 problem ?

 

An update , I've been using Airplay successfully until yesterday , itunes , Airfoil and Tuneblade no longer see my streamer , uninstalled and reinstalled them all but no good . Musicbee is fine but that is using UPnP/DLNA .

So must have been a tweek in Win 10 and bang goes Airplay !