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[mdx1]

I did an experiment by setting up a simple network with just one Windows PC (my old HTPC) and the SOSE device.  Both are connected to a spare Linksys router on the LAN side.  The WAN side is not connected.  The UPnP is turned off on the router.  It is an isolated and simple network.  My goal is to run the DLNA rendering test directly from MC to SOSE.

The JRiver MC 20 is installed on that PC.  The PC is on static IP and the SOSE (192.168.1.11) is on a reserved IP (192.168.1.32).  With that setup, SOSE shows up briefly and then disappears from the list.  It just comes and go.  I can ping SOSE just fine but MC 20 cannot see it all the time.  The Windows Media Player Network Sharing (UPnP) Service is running.

What is the problem in this scenario?

[JimH]

The Windows Media Player Network Sharing (UPnP) Service is running.

Why are you running that?

[mdx1]

Why are you running that?

I thought it might help two devices on the network finding each other.  Should that service be off?

After a reboot, the MC is stable.  If this setup works out, I will try to find out which devices on my full network is causing the issue.  Is there a way to find that out?

[bob]

I thought it might help two devices on the network finding each other.  Should that service be off?

After a reboot, the MC is stable.  If this setup works out, I will try to find out which devices on my full network is causing the issue.  Is there a way to find that out?

Sometimes running the Windows Media Player Network Sharing (UPnP) Service will conflict with the SSDP server MC is running.
Turning the Windows Media Player Network Sharing (UPnP) Service off will reduce the complexity of your test.

[mdx1]

Sometimes the running Windows Media Player Network Sharing (UPnP) Service will conflict with the SSDP server MC is running.
Turning the Windows Media Player Network Sharing (UPnP) Service off will reduce the complexity of your test.

Thank you.  It is turned off on all Windows computers on the network.

Phase 1 test was successful.  MC was able to push all hi-def music in AIFF format that is already on that Windows 7 computer through this simple network to the SOSE renderer without any issues.  Phase 2 is to copy the same hi-def FLAC music files that were causing the trouble to this computer and play off it.

If phase 2 is also successful, the next phase would be installing the new Linksys router and turning off network devices until the network is simple enough so it works.  Then put a piece back at a time.  The full network spans multiple rooms with multiple gigabit switches and CAT6 cables and wall outlets.

[mdx1]

Phase 2 was also successful.  The test computer and the SOSE on the simple network played hi-def FLAC files for 24 hours and never stopped.  The DAC was a tiny Cambridge Audio XS.

Since the new router will not be here for another day, I decided to try a Phase 2.5 by moving the test computer, SOSE and CA XS to the living room and connect them to the same gigabit switch.  So far MC has not stopped.  I will let the computer play overnight and see.

The normal living room DAC is the Arcam irDAC which I will be try tomorrow if Phase 2.5 is successful.

Well what is different than my normal DLNA playback scenario that was having trouble?  In my normal scenario, there is no computer in the living room.  The computer is 3 to 5 Ethernet switches away. 

Can the number of switches between the computer and the DLNA renderer be causing UDP packet losses?

Does JRiver MC use UDP packets to communicate with and send audio data to the renderer during playback?

[AndrewFG]

Yes, I think the number of switches may indeed make a difference. For two reasons. And it may make a difference what type of switch you have..

1. UDP multicasts should by definition be visible to all devices. But a 4 to 1 switch implies that at any instant of time, only 1 of 4 devices is actually connected to the network, so only its multicasts are guaranteed to get through. I suppose that a switch must have buffering for the currently not connected channels, but if the buffer overruns, then the respective packet is lost. The TCP layer has mechanisms for resending lost packets, but the UDP layer does not. Note I am not a great expert on switches, so others may care to add to or correct this statement.

2. The UDP transport layer includes an attribute called Time To Live, or hop count. The purpose of TTL is to prevent UDP storms from overwhelming the whole internet. If a packet starts with a TTL of (say) 4 then each routing interface is obliged to reduce the TTL by one. And if a packet arrives with a TTL of 0 then the routing interface is supposed not to forward that packet any further. I think it may depend on the type resp. the intelligence of your switches, whether they implement TTL management or not. By default the UPNP specification calls for a TTL of 4. (Although not all Implementers respect that).

EDIT: after writing the above I found this rather interesting article..

https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/ethernet-switches/9781449367299/ch01.html

[JimH]

With a long Ethernet cable, you might be able to test with 1 switch, then 2, then 3, etc.

You might also have a bad switch.  With the long cable, you could test that too.

Or a bad cable.

[mdx1]

Connecting to the regular Arcam irDAC worked great as well.  The interest aspect of this exercise is that the test computer used the default Generic DLNA setting all the time.

Phase 3 is next but without changing the router.  The goal of this phase is to move the test computer further away from the living room.  I will post some simple diagrams/descriptions to illustrate the network topology in question.

[mdx1]

Here is the topology of the network in question.  All switches are gigabit store and forward switches.  The cables between the switches are CAT6.  The cables from a switch to a device can be CAT6 for gigabit capable devices and CAT6, CAT5e or CAT5 for 100Mb capable devices.

Living Room
Switch 1
  Dish Hopper
  Point A. Windows 7 Test PC (Phase 2.5) !!!JRiver worked perfectly!!!
  |
 Wireless Access Point (2.4 & 5GHz) --> iPad runnning JRemote, LUMIN and MPaD
  |
Switch 2
  Roku etc.
  Sonore SOSE DLNA Renderer
     - running MPD with SMB mount from DS213J
     - running LMS with SMB mount from DS213J
  Yamaha WXC-50 DLNA Renderer
     - accessing MinimServer on DS213J
     - accessing LMS on SOSE
     - accessing JRiver library on "bullet", "venza" and "bookworm"
  |
  |
CAT6 Cable
  |
  |
Room 2
Switch 3
  Point B. Windows 7 Test PC (Phase 3) ###JRiver problem recreated###
  Windows 8.1 PC ("venza")     ^^^JRiver problem^^^
  Windows 7 PC ("bookworm") ^^^JRiver problem^^^
  Roku etc.
  |
Switch 4 --> Router --> Cable Modem ---> Internet
  |
CAT 6 Cable
  |
========
Room 3
Switch 5
  Roku etc.
  |
Switch 6
  Windows 8.1 PC ("bullet") ^^^JRiver problem^^^
  DS213J
    - MinimServer
    - SMB share for music files
  Other NAS devices

The problem was recreated at Point B so the CAT 6 cable between Living Room and Room 2 may have issues that affect JRiver communication with DLNA renderers.  MPad, LUMIN and Yamaha MusicCast all worked fine in this environment.  Whatever they did worked.

I now know that my network is not perfect for JRiver.  Replacing that CAT6 cable is no small task.  Since other DLNA controller software can cope with this "imperfect" network, can something be done in software, i.e., JRiver to achieve the same?

[AndrewFG]

Personally I would advise to flatten your network. i.e. Get a single big switch with 24 of 32 ports, and run more wires.

[mdx1]

Personally I would advise to flatten your network. i.e. Get a single big switch with 24 of 32 ports, and run more wires.

Thank you for the advice.  Those rooms are at different levels, using a single switch would require running a dozen or more cables among them.  This is a house, not an office space with hanging ceilings.  How many homes are built with dozens of CAT5/CAT5e/CAT6 cables set for a large 48 port gigabit switch in a wiring closet? 

The current network has been working fine for everyday use including backups and video streaming from local drives and from online.  When the HTPC test computer was in the living room, the speed of copying files to it from a Windows 8.1 PC was no different than the speed between other PCs, all at 90+% of network utilization.

Again the question is that can JRiver be enhanced to work with imperfect world such as this?  It would require some design change to deal with network packet losses without dropping the ball.  With that said, I am going to examine the wall outlets in those rooms to see if they can be improved.

[JimH]

Personally I would advise to flatten your network. i.e. Get a single big switch with 24 of 32 ports, and run more wires.

That's good advice.

[mdx1]

That's good advice.

That could be a thousand $ solution.  Or one can just put the PC back to the living room for $0.

Or one just stop using JRiver for this setup since it might cost $1000 to fix.

[AndrewFG]

It's not an MC problem. It's a network problem. Your network.

[mdx1]

It's not an MC problem. It's a network problem. Your network.

I agree the network has a problem although I am still surprised that other apps such as LUMIN and MusicCast are not bothered by it.

I estimated it would need 16 cables from each of 3 rooms and a 48 port switch to change the network into a single switch configuration.  That still does not count the top level of the house.  I don't think newer homes built today would have that many Ethernet ports in each room.  Using small switches to supplement is inevitable for rooms with more devices than the number of ports.

Would replacing some of those switches with managed or so called "Easy Smart" switches help?

[JimH]

Did you try this?

With a long Ethernet cable, you might be able to test with 1 switch, then 2, then 3, etc.

You might also have a bad switch.  With the long cable, you could test that too.

Or a bad cable.

[AndrewFG]

I estimated it would need 16 cables from each of 3 rooms and a 48 port switch to change the network into a single switch configuration.  That still does not count the top level of the house.  I don't think newer homes built today would have that many Ethernet ports in each room.  Using small switches to supplement is inevitable for rooms with more devices than the number of ports.

Due to the age of the power wiring I am planning to have my home rewired soon. I will ask the electrician for one double Ethernet socket in each room, and behind the entertainment center I will ask for 4x double sockets. Furthermore I will install two ceiling mounted "smoke detector style" wifi access points on the ceiling of the ground and first floor landings. I already bought a 24 way professional grade 19 inch rack mount switch for that.

Would replacing some of those switches with managed or so called "Easy Smart" switches help?

I don't think managed or "easy smart" is the issue. Personally I would look for known brand professional grade SOHO switches (with emphasis on the SO rather than the HO). e.g. something like a Cisco rather than a no- brand Chinese thingie. However as Jim suggests, before spending money, I would advise you to walk around your house with a 100ft (or whatever) RJ45 jump cable to see if you can identify if one of your routers, or one of your cables, is perhaps the culprit.

[bob]

I've had switches of different brands/models refuse to cooperate with one another and cause weird issues like what you are seeing.
I'd definitely echo the advice above.

[mdx1]

Did you try this?

Not yet but I will once I locate a long cable.  I also ordered a RJ45 cable tester.  Thank you for the advice. 

I have one new discovery in the living room.  The patch cable from the wall socket was plugged in to a Netgear router configured as AP.  The two 8 port switches are connected to the LAN ports on the Netgear.  After moving the patch cable from the wall socket to one of two switches, two Windows 7 computers started to work from the other end of the network.  One works for 6 hours and another was still playing after 12 hours.  Two Windows 8.1 computers still have issues and stop playing after two tracks. 

Is there anything special about Windows 8.1 vs Windows 7 as far as MC is concerned?

[bob]

Not yet but I will once I locate a long cable.  I also ordered a RJ45 cable tester.  Thank you for the advice. 

I have one new discovery in the living room.  The patch cable from the wall socket was plugged in to a Netgear router configured as AP.  The two 8 port switches are connected to the LAN ports on the Netgear.  After moving the patch cable from the wall socket to one of two switches, two Windows 7 computers started to work from the other end of the network.  One works for 6 hours and another was still playing after 12 hours.  Two Windows 8.1 computers still have issues and stop playing after two tracks. 

Is there anything special about Windows 8.1 vs Windows 7 as far as MC is concerned?

Sounds like the netgear is doing multicast filtering.

[JimH]

Is there anything special about Windows 8.1 vs Windows 7 as far as MC is concerned?

No.

[AndrewFG]

The patch cable from the wall socket was plugged in to a Netgear router configured as AP.

Sounds like the netgear is doing multicast filtering.

Bob is right. You definitely don't want to have anything with active routing going on. You should really have just the one router (between your WAN and your LAN); and all other connections via switches (and as few of them as possible)..

[mdx1]

Bob is right. You definitely don't want to have anything with active routing going on. You should really have just the one router (between your WAN and your LAN); and all other connections via switches (and as few of them as possible)..

The Netgear router is set to the wireless AP mode with DHCP server disabled.  I assume the routing would be disabled too as the IP address on the wireless devices are on the same network (192.168.1.x).  You are right there is definitely something going on with the ports on the Netgear, perhaps with my Linksys as well.

By the way, the Linksys EA6500 came and is installed.  Its WiFi radios are turned off for the moment so it just serves as the wired router.  Linksys really forced one to go through their smartwifi site to configure this thing with a wireless device.  Otherwise the old manual configuration method was so slow that it was not usable.

[mdx1]

Thank you for all your help.  It looks like Netgear was the one to blame for all this mystery.

Initially the living room portion of network looks like this.

Wall socket --> Switch 1 --> Netgear AP --> Switch 2
                       /      |                                   |     \
              Point 2   WXC-50                         SOSE  Point 1

Connecting a PC to Point 1 is the only place that worked.  Connecting from Point 2 or any other part of house does work when streaming to SOSE.  Nothing worked with WXC-50.

Next the wiring was changed to:

       Switch 1 <--> Netgear AP <--> Switch 2 <---> Wall socket <----> Room 2 <----> Room 3
           |                                             |   
      WXC-50                                   SOSE 

With this scheme, streaming to SOSE works from other rooms.  Streaming to WXC-50 still does not work.

Finally the wiring was changed to:

                         Netgear AP
                                |
       Switch 1 <--> Switch 2 <---> Wall socket <----> Room 2 <----- Room 3
           |                    |   
      WXC-50           SOSE 

Now both Windows 7 and one Windows 8.1 machine in Room 2 & 3 can stream to either device without issues.  When I get the chance, I will try the other Windows 8.1 machine in Room 2.  But in reality, all I need is one working MC machine and one as the backup.

So the moral of the story is that the ports on the Netgear Router (reconfigured as AP) cannot be used like the ports of a regular switch.

[bob]

Thank you for all your help.  It looks like Netgear was the one to blame for all this mystery.

Initially the living room portion of network looks like this.

Wall socket --> Switch 1 --> Netgear AP --> Switch 2
                       /      |                                   |     \
              Point 2   WXC-50                         SOSE  Point 1

Connecting a PC to Point 1 is the only place that worked.  Connecting from Point 2 or any other part of house does work when streaming to SOSE.  Nothing worked with WXC-50.

Next the wiring was changed to:

       Switch 1 <--> Netgear AP <--> Switch 2 <---> Wall socket <----> Room 2 <----> Room 3
           |                                             |   
      WXC-50                                   SOSE 

With this scheme, streaming to SOSE works from other rooms.  Streaming to WXC-50 still does not work.

Finally the wiring was changed to:

                         Netgear AP
                                |
       Switch 1 <--> Switch 2 <---> Wall socket <----> Room 2 <----- Room 3
           |                    |   
      WXC-50           SOSE 

Now both Windows 7 and one Windows 8.1 machine in Room 2 & 3 can stream to either device without issues.  When I get the chance, I will try the other Windows 8.1 machine in Room 2.  But in reality, all I need is one working MC machine and one as the backup.

So the moral of the story is that the ports on the Netgear Router (reconfigured as AP) cannot be used like the ports of a regular switch.

I assume you were using the local lan ports of the Netgear as the AP and not the wan port.
So what it was doing was filtering out multicast. It should have a setting for that.

[mdx1]

I assume you were using the local lan ports of the Netgear as the AP and not the wan port.
So what it was doing was filtering out multicast. It should have a setting for that.

Thank you for the comment. The AP mode on the Netgear R6250 router requires the WAN port to be connected to the existing network.  That is unique on the Netgear.  With other routers such as Linksys, the WAN port is not used when configured as AP.  The LAN ports on the Netgear R6250 were used to connect to two switches.  With the new wiring scheme, only one cable from switch 2 is connected to the Netgear AP's WAN port.  It is at the end of the chain.

I will look at the Netgear R6250 management console page to see if there is a filtering option for UDP multicast.  You are correct that there is some kind of multicast filtering happening between the WAN port and LAN ports on the Netgear.

[bob]

Thank you for the comment. The AP mode on the Netgear R6250 router requires the WAN port to be connected to the existing network.  That is unique on the Netgear.  With other routers such as Linksys, the WAN port is not used when configured as AP.  The LAN ports on the Netgear R6250 were used to connect to two switches.  With the new wiring scheme, only one cable from switch 2 is connected to the Netgear AP's WAN port.  It is at the end of the chain.

I will look at the Netgear R6250 management console page to see if there is a filtering option for UDP multicast.  You are correct that there is some kind of multicast filtering happening between the WAN port and LAN ports on the Netgear.

There lies the problem.
The wan and lan networks are logically different and the ssdp packets will not cross them by default.
It's too bad you can't use the lan and wlan only but even in that case you still might have to look for multicast filtering issues.
Not so with a properly operating switch.

[mdx1]

Made another modification to the Living Room wiring to reduce the influence of the Netgear.  We shall see if it helps.

 Netgear AP WAN Port
                /
        Switch 1 <--> Switch 2 <---> Wall socket <----> Room 2 <----- Room 3
            |                 /       \                                            |
        Roku       WXC-50   SOSE                                   Router
       FireTV                                                                    |
         etc.                                                                 Cable Modem
                                                                                    |
                                                                             Comcast Internet

The Netgear R6250 has a Disable IGMP Proxying option and is normally unchecked.  The description is:

- Disable IGMP Proxying. IGMP proxying allows a computer on the local area network (LAN) to receive the multicast traffic it is interested in from the Internet. If you do not need this feature, you can select this check box to disable it.

With the router set to the AP mode, this option is not visible and it is likely the default (unchecked).  So multicast traffic is filtered between the WAN and LAN ports.  Normally there is a NAT filtering and there is no telling if that is still active between the WAN and LAN ports even though the routing is disabled.

[mdx1]

The ethernet cable tester arrived and showed the cable between LR and Room 2 is functioning normally.  I also ran a long CAT 5 cable from Room 2 to LR and it worked the same way.

During this test, I noticed the second Windows 8.1 PC that was still having problem with DLNA streaming had a sample access key in MC 22 as another computer running Windows 7 and MC 21.  When JRemote connects to it, it connects to the Windows 7 computer.  When playing from the MC GUI on the Windows 8.1 computer directly to a renderer, the streaming was erratic.  After resetting the access key, this computer now functions normally.

Does MC ensure that Access Key values are unique among computers on the same subnet?

[bob]

The ethernet cable tester arrived and showed the cable between LR and Room 2 is functioning normally.  I also ran a long CAT 5 cable from Room 2 to LR and it worked the same way.

During this test, I noticed the second Windows 8.1 PC that was still having problem with DLNA streaming had a sample access key in MC 22 as another computer running Windows 7 and MC 21.  When JRemote connects to it, it connects to the Windows 7 computer.  When playing from the MC GUI on the Windows 8.1 computer directly to a renderer, the streaming was erratic.  After resetting the access key, this computer now functions normally.

Does MC ensure that Access Key values are unique among computers on the same subnet?

They should be but if your devices are using DHCP and haven't been able to update the key server then you might see this type of behavior.
I use fixed leases on my devices at home that are doing DLNA and MC servers.