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[Trun]

Looking for any advice to help solve a PC/audio streamer disconnection problem.

I have searched the Forum and made suggested changes to port-forwarding and static IP addresses etc. all to no avail.

With JR MC 30.0.93 and now 31.0.10 running on a desktop PC playing only music, frequent disconnects occur from miniDSP SHD and Id Pi audio streamers. The miniDSP connects to my DAC via AES/EBU cable and the Id Pi by SPDIF cable. I have checked all cables and all seem to be well seated.

The disconnection issues started with the miniDSP around 6 months ago and have gradually become worse. The issue began with sporadic disconnects after playback of around 20 minutes or up to about an hour. I tried switching to an Id Pi and the problem remained.
I returned to the miniDSP with the pc now running MC 31.0.10, the disconnection frequency has now increased and occurs after two, three or four tracks have been played. Typically, I try to play 12 albums from one artist in shuffle mode, using JRemote to occasionally skip tracks.
To test if shuffle mode was the problem, I tried to play one complete album from one artist, after four tracks JR MC disconnected from the miniDSP

The disconnect appears in various modes.

1.   Sometimes play stops, but the miniDSP zone remains displayed on the JRemote zone menu and play can easily be resumed by pressing play.
2.   Sometimes play stops and miniDSP disappears from the JRemote zone menu but is present on the PC zone list, but not on the JR MC header bar. Play can be re-commenced by reselecting miniDSP as the active zone on the PC.
3.   Sometimes when play stops the miniDSP disappears from the PC zone list and then reconnects after a couple of minutes or so. Play can then be re-commenced by reselecting the miniDSP zone on the PC.
4.   Sometimes when play stops and the miniDSP disconnects the player zone starts playing on the PC.
I am no expert on PC networks but here is the set-up and what I have tried so far and would appreciate any other suggestions.
The network set-up is antenna internet signal fed to a router, ethernet cable from the router to the PC, ethernet cable from the router to the miniDSP (and Id Pi), my music library in FLAC is stored on an HDD NAS connected to the router by ethernet cable. The internet signal is not strong at about 10 Mb/s but gives decent reception, for example movies and sports games can be streamed and viewed on the TV.
Port-forwarding is enabled on the router with external port 52199 selected with the PC internal IP address.
Checking port-forwarding with MC running and Windows Command netstat -ano shows 52199 listed 12 times to various foreign addresses with status = TIME-WAIT.

Windows Defender firewall has access allowed for Media Center, miniDSP Dirac and shd.
My ISP has confirmed that they are not blocking any port activity.

The desktop PC is set to static IP address.
The NAS HDD is set to static IP address.
The Id Pi is set to static IP address.
The miniDSP IP remains as DHCP, attempts to change on the router are not accepted, apparently some adjustments via the miniDSP interface are needed to accomplish static status.
Running the Whitebear analyzer shows correct audio mode and format settings on both miniDSP and Id Pi.
To try to observe what networking events are associated with the disconnections I ran the MC Network Activity and Asus Router activity logs while MC 31.0.10 was playing to the miniDSP.

The router network map confirmed wired connections of the PC, NAS & miniDSP.

I started to play in shuffled mode of the selected artist, after three tracks, about 10 minutes of play the miniDSP disconnected. The miniDSP zone was not present in JR MC header-bar nor the Now Playing Menu.
At around the time of the disconnect (I cannot be sure of the exact timing to the second) the MC Network Activity Log for the source PC IP showed Resource entries of GET:http://PC IP:52101 /DeviceDescription.xml, GET:http://PC IP:52100/DeviceDescription.xml and GET:http://PC IP:52199/DeviceDescription.xml. Nothing was indicated relative to the miniDSP IP address.

The router network map still showed wired connection of the PC, NAS & miniDSP and the router activity log did not list any activity associated with the MAC addresses of the PC, miniDSP or NAS drive.

When the miniDSP reconnected the MC Network activity log showed for the source miniDSP IP the entry of NOTIFY: http://PC IP:52102/eventSub.

To play MC now I use AnyDesk open on the PC and my laptop so that when the disconnects occur I can reselect the miniDSP zone when it reappears on the PC via the laptop.

I wondered if there was some other network analyzing tool available that could help identify what is causing the disconnect events? Or if there were any other MC or router settings that need to be adjusted? Appreciate any help.

[bob]

I'd guess your PC is having network issues.

I have multiple MC servers here on a wired/wireless network (Windows, Mac and linux Id servers) as well as multiple DLNA renderers (mostly IdPi's along with a Sonos and a Volumio).

They all work and stay on the network all of the time.
On one IdPi for testing I even have it converting everything to DSF just to stress out the Pi and network. That's on a Pi3. No issues.

So I would suggest trying a different MC server and see if the behavior continues.

Other possibilities are:
1) You have a bad network switch, power cycling that can help diagnose an issue.
2) You have rendering devices using the same UUID. DLNA identifies devices by UUID not IP address. (this can happen if you clone a device)
3) You are sending material to a DLNA renderer which it cannot handle. Some renderers deal with this by barfing and restarting or locking up.

[Trun]

Bob many thanks, you solved the problem!!

The quick reply and suggestions were really appreciated. Today I was able to look at the suggested network track. First I tried isolating the PC network card by using a USB/ethernet adaptor, the disconnect problem remained. So then I replaced the ethernet switch with a new unit. Hey Presto! No disconnects after almost two hours of play through the Id Pi. I'll try the miniDSP tomorrow. It would have taken me weeks to figure that out, Thanks Again!

[bob]

Good to hear you got it!