Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[redwall]

Hi everyone - new to JRiver, new to forums but a long time lover of good music. Please forgive my lack of knowledge.

I have my music (FLAC, dsf mainly) in an external drive connected to my windows PC. My PC is connected to various outputs. I simply want to set up jremote on my iPhone 8 so I can control my music playing via my pc. With both devices connected to same network the access key in jremote just leads to a time out message in jremote.  I’ve played around with porting on my router (though don’t know much about this) to no avail. Any resources to start building up basic knowledge? It seems so simple but not sure why I can’t get this simple task achieved. Thx

[JimH]

You don't need to do port forwarding for use on the same network.

The wiki has a topic called Network Access.

Your firewall could be blocking.

[redwall]

Thanks for the response. I tried disabling my firewall but wasnt able to connect. Still says timed out when I try to use the access key. I'll keep digging around. I have no problem controlling spotify on my computer through my phone, so not sure what I'm missing here.

[RoderickGI]

Are you sure your iPhone is connected to your home network (LAN), and not just to your mobile service provider? It would need to be connected via WiFi to your router. You could test this by turning off Data in your phone, and then checking if you still have access to the internet, which would then be via WiFi to your LAN, and then out through your router.

If the WiFi test above work, go to this URL and see what it reports: http://webplay.jriver.com/libraryserver/lookup?id={Your Access Key here without brackets}

The web page should show your external IP Address in the form <ip>xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx</ip> or a longer form like <ip>hostxxx-xxx-xxx-xxx.range109-145.btcentralplus.com</ip> (depending on your ISP of course), and your MC Server's internal IP Address, in the form <localiplist>192.168.0.xx</localiplist>

Is the Internal IP Address shown on the page correct for your MC Server?

If you try to connect JRemote to the Server using the MC Server Internal IP Address rather than using the Access Key method, does it work?

Do you only have the router connecting devices in your network? i.e. You aren't using a separate WiFi Access Point are you, or running multiple network segments, or more than one DHCP server on your LAN?

Have you tried rebooting the iPhone and testing again? Maybe reboot the MC Server as well.


Any luck with the above?

[redwall]

Your post gave me some good leads, but sadly no luck.

Phone is connected to LAN only.

Cant connect using the IP address.

Unless im missing something, only one DHCP server on my LAN. Not sure how to check that though.

I cant even ping my router so I imagine there's something going on with the firewall. There are exceptions in windows defender firewall for MC 26, but even when I turn it off (and have the webroot firewall disabled) not able to connect.

[RoderickGI]

I cant even ping my router so I imagine there's something going on with the firewall.

If you can't ping your router from the iPhone, something is definitely screwy with your network.

What is the IP Address of;
Your Router?
Your iPhone?
The PC running MC Server?

The iPhone must be able to see the router if it has access to the internet via it. Maybe the router is set to not respond to pings, but usually that setting only applies to pings from the internet, not pings from the LAN.

Can you ping the PC running the MC Server?

If you can sort out the LAN, then the firewall on the PC needs to allow SSDP packets to be received, so that JRemote can see the server. Look through the PC firewall to see if they are allowed. The router firewall will automatically allow packets on the LAN, so you don't need to check that.

[redwall]

To clarify, I cant ping my router/phone from my PC though I have internet connection. I can ping my router from phone but can not ping the PC. Definitely my PC. Though again, I'm confused that I can control spotify on my PC from my phone just fine. I would imagine similar needs for spotify and jremote

In windows control panel, network discovery (SSDP-in) is enabled for my private network, as it should be.

IP address iphone: 192.168.1.4
IP address computer: 192.168.1.10
IP address LAN: 192.168.1.1

Thanks again!!

[RoderickGI]

I would imagine similar needs for spotify and jremote

I don't think so. Spotify would use some proprietary communication method, rather than SSDP/DLNA used by JRemote. Your firewall would have had to be told to allow that, but as Spotify is well known, it probably has an automatic rule to allow it. SSDP/DLNA only works on a LAN/local subnet. (EDIT: If your PC connection is set as a Public network, Spotify must be using your internet connection to connect to your PC on your LAN. Tricky, but not that hard.)

All your devices are on the same subnet, so should see each other. Which mean that your iPhone should be able to ping your PC. That it can't is very strange.


Ah. Does your PC think it is on a Public network? That could cause this issue, and with some Windows Updates in the past I've seen Windows change a Private network to a Public network for no reason. I've also seen it changed when I used a VPN.

In Windows 10, check under Settings > Network & Internet > {Select the connected network} > check under "Network profile" if the connection is set to Public or Private. It should be Private for a PC on your LAN.

[redwall]

It’s seeing it as a private network. I’m going to go through the firewall settings tomorrow to see if I can find the problem. From what I’ve read, though, it should be working.

[redwall]

SOLVED. Took a bit - checked firewall exceptions, turned firewall off, turned off antivirus, made sure router supported upnp, cycled my gear numerous times, confirmed internal IPs - but it's the journey not the destination, right?

Turns out NORD VPN was interfering somehow, even when it wasnt running. Realized I could only communicate with my LAN when connected through VPN (pinging worked only with VPN connected). Uninstalled it and JRemote was stupid easy to install and works like a charm.

Any recs for good VPN?

Thanks for the help

[JimH]

Thanks for reporting the solution.

[RoderickGI]

NORD VPN is supposed to be one of the good ones. I would take it up with them, particularly if you have paid for it.

Otherwise, I have used IPVanish, which is a pretty good VPN but has some quirks, and isn't cheap. Now my security software, Norton 360, includes a VPN which I am trialling. It works, but doesn't have a lot of features.

My observation of VPN providers is that they offer the world, start out cheap, and over time as they see the real cost of running the service, jack up the price and reduce the speed available to you. So basically, you need to change VPN every now and then, to the latest and best. So find recent reviews if you want to change provider.