EtherREGEN: Installation, Usage, Difficulty, Questions thread

[BigAlMc]

Hi @Superdad,

 

Hope you're well Alex. It's been a while.

 

I'm also suffering dropouts since the insertion of the ER into a previously rock solid network.

 

Received my ER on Tuesday from the ever excellent Martin at Audiostore. Inserted it, listened to a couple tracks but then left it to burn in.

 

Couple times I've checked Roon on my phone it shows Searching For Core.....

 

Rebooting Router or power-cycling the ER brings it back up.

 

It's just done it again. First time I'm actually listening to music as I'm working from home today. Interestingly the music is still playing, just my phone cannot see the Roon core. Rebooting phone didn't fix. Rebooting ER did.

 

My system is similar to @dctom diagram above. Ethernet from Router into A side of ER, A side connected to NUC (Audiolinux) Roon Server, B side connected to NUC (Audiolinux) Roon Endpoint which then connects via USB to my DAC.

 

I'd configured the NUCs to use 100MB and they were bridged in Audiolinux. Not sure if that's a factor or not.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Many Thanks,

Alan

 

[BigAlMc]

Dropped out again within 10 minutes of restarting the ER 😞

[BigAlMc]

8 minutes ago, LowMidHigh said:

 

Maybe for starters have only one device connected to the A side? It will certainly help to pinpoint the issue. 

 

That's not possible. I need internet from my router in, and access to my server. Unless you are saying ditch the endpoint and just do server connected to B side?

[BigAlMc]

8 minutes ago, Dutch said:

@BigAlMc, I’d also contact Piero to ask how to remove the bridge configuration to see if that helps.

 

Yeah, I haven't upgraded my AL for quite a while now and see that 2.1 is out.

 

Might be worth ruining my Saturday morning 😓 and reinstalling AL on both devices to get the latest greatest version.

[BigAlMc]

32 minutes ago, lmitche said:

Hey BigAlMac,

 

Have you tried to set the NUC side ethernet port to 100mbps in the AL menu? The NUC should autonegotiate the connection speed, but the autonegotiate feature may be disabled in software. Your problem may have something to do with this. From the command line running ethtool against the nic will show all the current settings.

 

Larry

 

Hi Larry,

 

Just tried that and set to 100 for the Server NUC.

 

Interesting (tho I may be stretching the definition of 'interesting' here) data point. When I try to connect to the NUC on Putty it's unavailable and I get a network error. Despite music playing. Power cycle the ER and then Putty connects fine.

 

Will report back on whether this helped or not.

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

Hi Alex,

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

Yup, I'll play around with the settings. I feel it's probably software rather than hardware. These things usually are. Worst case I'll install AL from scratch on both NUCs as I'm several versions / months behind anyway. That way I can hopefully get it stable before I start tinkering with things like bridging or limiting the speed.

 

Meantime the workaround is select lots of music, listen, enjoy 😄 and restart the ER next you need to talk to Roon! Not the greatest long term plan but will suffice for now. First world problems and all that....

 

Cheers,

Alan

 

 

[BigAlMc]

1 hour ago, k27R said:

For whatever reason, the linear ps I was originally using lead to dropouts and going A to B gave dropouts (no matter what speed settings were used on both ends) as well.

 

Interesting. One more thing to try I guess.

 

But as my Server NUC only has one LAN port I guess I'd need to change from:

 

Router to A side of ER, Server to A side of ER, B side of ER to EndPoint

 

To:

 

Router to previous AQVOX switch, AQVOX to Server, AQVOX to A side of ER, B side of ER to EndPoint?

 

Addition of an extra switch in the chain seems counter intuitive to resolving network issues. But might be worth a go.

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

22 minutes ago, ronfint said:

Thanks very much for solving this issue. I was one of those with connection problems. I've now disabled EEE on my AudioLinux Roon server, and all connections appear to be robust.

 

Hi @ronfint,

 

Would you mind sharing instructions for how to do this in Audiolinux?

 

Many thanks,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

3 minutes ago, BigAlMc said:

 

Hi @ronfint,

 

Would you mind sharing instructions for how to do this in Audiolinux?

 

Many thanks,

Alan

 

Don't worry. Just saw Larry's post on the AL thread.

[BigAlMc]

5 minutes ago, Theobetley said:

What is EEE?

 

 

[BigAlMc]

The 7 circles of hell - a salutary warning about the quest for "more".

 

For the last 6 months or so I've been paying less and less attention to these forums and instead focused on just enjoying my music. And darn nice it was too. Highly recommended for whatever that's worth.

 

Anyway. I ordered an ER from Martin at AudioStore but was genuinely unfazed whether I was in batch 1, 2 or 3.

 

Last Tuesday my ER turns up and I'm excited to put it into my system. But then the bad times start and I'm one of the users impacted by dropouts 😒 My previously rock solid system keeps refusing to talk to my phone's Roon App and worse still the music itself starts either cutting out, skipping or just stopping.

 

I post here and follow the advice given. Replace ethernet cables with metallic connectors for only plastic ones. Check. Monitor the IP addresses of server and endpoint - check. I don't want to argue with the genius that is John S but I don't see the IP addresses changing at all so pretty sure it's not the lease thingy. Install FING on my phone and check the network status during dropouts. Check. Try just the server and no endpoint. Rock solid, no dropouts. But no magic either. Defo a step backwards in terms of the all important Sound Quality.

 

At this stage I'm sure it's to do with the fact I'd implemented bridging and capped the network speed to 100MB in AudioLinux. So I set upon a fresh install as I'm on version 0.7 and Pierro has been busy and has issued 2.1. Long story short and mostly due to my own technical incompetence I waste an entire weekend trying and failing to get a steady build of 2.1 for my Roon server. Not fun!

 

Anyway, then we have the EEE breakthrough. So I park 2.1 for now and I revert to the 0.7 USB sticks and disable EEE on the server.

 

I'm finding it equally amusing and infuriating that one line of Linux code seems to all that was needed after the last week of stress, fighting with my system and generally being hacked off at my inability to play music consistently.

 

Working from home today so follow the helpful advice of users like Ron, Pierro and Larry and get EEE disabled.

 

Music craps out within 3 minutes. But I reboot the router and it plays without issue for 3 hours. My expectations are high at this stage

 

15 minutes ago I go to add music to the music playing and my phone is searching for my Roon server.... Dammit! 🤬

 

Then minutes later the music stops. Mutha***************

 

Here's the ethtool status showing EEE disabled:

 

 

Reboot the ER and bingo. We're back. Just for how long is the question 🤔

 

My network is 100GB fibre optic coming into the building. Standard ZTE router. Ethernet to ER A side from router. Ethernet from ER A side to server. Ethernet to ER B side for Endpoint.

 

Checked network using FING when the latest dropout happened and both NUCs were not present on the network. Greyed out in FING as remembered devices. But Ping doesn't work. Consistent with the dropouts prior to EEE being disabled.

 

@Superdad I await the firmware with interest. But any thoughts on anything additional to check or test given that disabling EEE on the server hasn't completely stopped the dropouts? There is of course the chance that the last dropout had nothing to do with the ER. But given the last week you'll understand my suspicion.

 

I'll report back if it continues.

 

Cheers,

Alan

 

[BigAlMc]

Thanks @dminches & @rickca,

 

Not sure about the router part. But will disable EEE on the Endpoint as well if it drops again. Has played fine since my last post. So one dropout in 7 hours. WAY better than before.

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

16 hours ago, BigAlMc said:

Thanks @dminches & @rickca,

 

Not sure about the router part. But will disable EEE on the Endpoint as well if it drops again. Has played fine since my last post. So one dropout in 7 hours. WAY better than before.

 

Cheers,

Alan

 

Apologies for the OT update. Wake up to find that overnight my Roon server has tried to update to 1.7 and the update failed!! One day of stability and back firefighting!

[BigAlMc]

1 minute ago, jcn3 said:

 

Most of this is Roon 1.7 related - I've have similar problems and don't have an ER.

 

Yeah Roon forum is littered with 1.7 related issues.

 

I got mine working tho. AL2.1 and Roon1.7 conquered 😁

[BigAlMc]

7 minutes ago, Tintinabulum said:

I've nothing but good things to say about (Martin) Audiostore.

 

+1 on that. Martin's great.