SU occasionally losing network - just me?

My SU occasionally goes on strike but all it needs is a short shutdown (seconds) and then it returns to normal.  I don’t need to do anything more after switching on.

I'm hard wired and since I have had my SU I haven't had any drop outs or 'strike' issues.

Maybe I'm just lucky....

How often does it happen Pev?

I've had my SU since September and don't remember having to reboot for a network glitch.  I'm also hard-wired; not using fixed IP; have a reserved IP address on the router.

Looks like mine is faulty then - thing is it only happens every few weeks and takes about 15 minutes of faffing to sort out so I'm reluctant to go to the bother (and sonic deprivation) of sending it back to Naim under guarantee (I've had it just under 2 years). If I really just want to hear some instant music the LP12 is always available

My NDS does the same.  Cured by switching off the 555PS for 30 seconds then switching on again.  Bloody annoying.

My Qute doesn't lose the network, but nStream sometimes gets stuck at the "Connecting" screen even though music is playing.  The display on the Qute also says "Connecting" at that time.

This happens maybe once every few weeks, and I just reboot the Qute and all returns to normal.

Same here. Every few weeks I need to turn the SuperUniti off and on again in order to get it to find the music. Maybe it gets tired and needs a rest.

I have had the same symptoms described by Pev and Bart--with the loss of network only occurring prior to my hard-wiring the connection.  What happens now is that when I am listening to internet radio with high resolution (250-320 kb/sec), I get dropouts--which never occurred wirelessly at my old location!  That really has me scratching my head.

Best regards,

Russ

I also see this  very occasionally (about once every two months) on the NDX. My automation still works, and the layer 3 IP address (which I use DHCP to assign) is working fine, and the layer 2 MAC address is correctly assigned in the ARP tables, so I am fairly confident it's not network related, but it appears the streamer board has crashed (the display says connecting). A quick power cycle all is ok. My network player gets used most days for a few hours.

Simon

Russ, the receive buffers on the Naim are quite small. Because current web radio still uses TCP which is often not ideal for near real time transfer, the latency of your network specifically of your internet access / provider through to your web radio provider has an impact on effective throughput. In the network world you usually mitigate this by increasing TCP buffer sizes and delaying decoding, but the Naim buffers appear fixed at the user level and so effectively throughput is reduced. A symptom of this is sometimes you see a pulsing, that is the web radio plays then stops then plays then stops. This might only happen occasionally, as latency can be quite dynamic in the internet.

End to end network throughput with TCP is not only reliant on the layer 2 network speeds(internet access, wifi, 100/1000Mbps Ethernet etc), but network latency, usually referred to as round trip delay or RTD.

UPnP servers can locally stream web radio through to your Naim, and this can be effective workaround where the server uses large TCP / application buffers and you have latency issues on a particular web station.

Simon

Interesting as ever Simon -  it didn't "seem" like a fixable fault.

When it can't connect, I can check System Status and it says it's connected to the network and it shows the correct ip address but after I power down and up it takes about 5 goes and several minutes to connect and in that time the ip address is blank so I agree that the streamer board is likely to be less than robust in operation. Hopefully something fixable by a firmware update - the reason I started this thread was to hopefully raise the profile of the issue. 

As Simon says (wasn't that a kid's game and a 60s hit record? ), it happens occasionally - about once a month in my experience.  A quick on/off doesn't fix it, but leaving it powered down for 30 seconds almost always does.

I use to have this kind of things happening from time to time, including the NS01. I have changed my router end of November and have not experienced a single drop or disconnection since then... Maybe a coincidence .... maybe not...

The internet radio on my SU every month or so freezes up, but switching it off and on again gets things going again pretty quickly. Thanks!

I have had the same thing with my SU for over 2 years and with the Uniti 1 before that. It is only occasional (once a month maximum). In the early days it really annoyed and concerned me, now it is just a case of turning the SU off and back on after a minute or so. 

I'm also experiencing the same issues as everyone here. I find it frustrating to reboot my SU every month or 2. It's not that it's a big deal to do, it's just a product at this level should be rock solid.

Instead of setting the IP address to a fixed address, why not reserve the address via DHCP?  Simply having a valid address on the network does not insure that your device can be properly added to a valid multicast group (used for UPnP streaming and the like).

I typically recommend setting up a /24 range (i.e., the first three address numbers are pre-defined, e.g., 10.X.X, 192.168.X, 172.16.X) as follows:

Static IPs: X.X.X.1-99

• fixed network infrastructure (managed switches, routers, etc.) X.X.X.1-9
• NAS, printers and CIFS storage servers X.X.X.10-29
• media servers (using external NAS storage) and automation controllers / extenders X.X.X.30-59
• other devices (not typically assigned) X.X.X.60-99

Dynamic IPs: X.X.X.100-199

• unassigned X.X.X.100 - 129 (guest and wireless devices)
• self-contained media servers X.X.X.130-159
• media streamers X.X.X.160-189
• my wireless devices (phones, iPad, notebook) X.X.X.190-199

Extension infrastructure: X.X.X.200-249 (wireless extenders, test routers and the like)

The upside of this primitive arrangement is that I can easily map a device from a dynamic (DHCP-reserved) IP address into a static (fixed on-device) IP address later, if necessary.

If your streaming (client) device (e.g., SuperUniti) is assigned an addresss via DHCP, it will (should?) properly join the multicast groups it needs to properly support UPnP transport.

Label all of your devices with an IP address (static or reserved), MAC address, admin username and password.  This is all common sense and should keep things easier to manage.

If you do not have admin access to your router, or cannot assign reserved DHCP IP addresses by MAC address, get a new router.  Life is too short.

Pedant disclaimer:  I am overly simplifying things a bit.

I've been using the 'assign a static IP address from my router' approach and have not dug into any of my devices (clients) to cause them to exhibit only to a specific ip address.  I guess this later approach is what the Naim 'set IP address' tool does(?)

I've not had to actually enter Mac addresses to assign static IP addresses in my router.  Maybe the router does this automatically, as it obviously already knows the Mac address of the device(s)?

I tried fixing the ip address because of this issue - I used to let the router assign all addresses.

It seems from this thread that the SU is poor at maintaining network connections reliably over periods of a month or so (it's not just me). Given that no other device I have, including a (relatively) cheap streamer/internet radio doing much the same job as the SU, behaves like this, I think Naim should take a look at their network connection hardware/firmware.

Even though it only happens once a month or so (and this seems typical) and it can be self fixed in a few minutes; it's still not ok in a product of this price. You select a networked input and there is this moment of apprehension; it's almost (but not quite) as bad as a cd player with a dodgy puck!

Typically, yes (this his how one of my old AT&T ADSL routers did this).  If the network connection is lost in this case, and, assuming a direct connection to the router, then you should replace your router (or create a nested network using a dedicated wireless router and NAT).

Just to my show frustration with this otherwise fine piece of kit I'll let you know each time i have to reset my SU. Today was one of those days. And yes all the key devices are mapped with a static address.  

As I said above, if this linked to what I see occasionally on the NDX, it is not network related, so fiddling around with IP addresses probably will make no difference.

The issue looks to be a crash of some sort in the Naim application software.

Simon

I agree that this does seem like a software issue relating to networking.  my uniti 1 does the same.

At first i was also rebooting the unit, but then i realised i just need to go into the network config settings and then back out again- i don't actually change any settings but this forces the uniti to reinitialise it's network software.  After that all is well again..until the next time.

Given that this problem seems fairly intermittent i'm guessing its quite hard to debug, unless naim would like to show me how to get some decent logs out of my system, which i'd be happy to send them, i'm sure others would too.