ND5 XS Problems

Thanks Simon, that's reassuring. 

I wasn't aware of any such issues with mine either, but when the person in question told me of his bad experience with one, it made me wonder. Being a leading light in Naim support, I'm sure the man in question will chip in with his findings if he feels the need.....

@ Huge: I'm not using Hi-Res material and am on the latest firmware.

Made some progress last night....

With the ND5 XS and UPNP server plugged into the Airport Extreme I had uninterrupted streaming all night. I controlled music from the front panel of the ND5 XS.  I didn't have any other devices hardwired into the airport (though some devices were going wifi).

After that success I plugged in another leg of my hardwired network. Within a few minutes I got a drop out again.

From this, it appears something on that leg of my wired network (which has a couple of switches daisy chained and quite a few devices) appears to be impacting the network and the ND5 XS is a device which is susceptible to that (causing a dropout). It also appears that it is not my router which is the problem (as both the Airport Extreme and Asus experienced similar problems). Something in the network appears to be interfering with the traffic.

Anyone have any ideas on how to potentially determine what on the other leg of the network might be causing the issues? I guess I could systematically unplug/plug in device by device and test (after doing so at the switch level) to figure it out. That just takes quite a while by the time I wait and watch that music plays back for hours. Any network anlysis software or something else that might work?

Glad to see we are making progress. Bummer the ND5 XS is the only device on my network that is impacted by this issue.

Nice! big progress.

I would be interested you just only stream 5ghz wifi over Airport Extreme and Express, and see if there are issues regarding the SQ and dropouts. Your findings would be beneficial to some of us who are or are not convinced that wifi would not degrade the SQ and stability.

Darren

Glad to read you have a stable streaming connection.

The problem you've just desribed seems to ring a bell form my network's early days. It seems to me one of your other network devices tries to assign its own IP range of addresses and gets into a conflict with the Airport Extreme. I've seen this happen and the symptoms were identical to the one you've described.

Do you have an IP phone system or a regular phone, but with an 'inteligent' network functionality? In my case this was the culprit and had to be returned. Music takes priority here

Adam

Try plugging the streamer and server into a switch and connecting that to the AE. That should isolate it from the other stuff. If not, it's still best practice. 

Like HH wrote.

And don't plug switches to switches as you did before. If you really need an extensive network, just get a large unmanaged switch - say from Cisco - and plug everything into that switch.

@ Adam Zielinski

I don't have a home phone or networked phone (we just use our cell phones). On my network I have mostly traditional items (other than unifi access point). I have:

- IP Cameras

- Streaming TVs, Xboxes, network streamers

- A uqiquiti Unifi Wireless access point (used for a long range bridge to an unconnected garage) (I did have dropout before I had these installed)

- PCs

/PC/UPNP File Server

- Sonos

- Home Automation Controllers (Vera, Smartthings)

I won't be in a position with my home where I can wire each individual devices into a single switch. I could get to a place where I have a main switch with most items into it, and a couple of legs off to a secondary switch.

I was able to get 1+ Days of reliable streaming with most of my network intact. I ended up doing a lot of re-wiring to reduce complexity and bringing things back to a central location

I wasn't able to get the entire network on the same switch (but almost). I do have still have a couple of rooms where I couldn't get extra wiring too so rely on a switch in that room connected back to the root switch. There isn't anything else I can do there.

I plugged the last leg in tonight and once again got a drop out after about 45 min. So it appears there is something on that leg that is causing an issue. The Nd5 XS or UPNP server do not go through that switch.  I'm going to try and change out that switch....maybe that is the issue. The other interesting possibility is the Comcast cable box which uses some type of network connect for not only streaming services, but is used to stream the cable signal to an alternate tv in the house.....I'm wondering if that is the issue??

The items on that leg of the network are:

- Sonos

- Xbox One

- Smart TV (Samsung)

- Vera Plus (Home Automation controller) --> I'm going to move this to the central switch off this leg.

- Comcast Cable Box (which streams out to another network connection in the basement using some proprietary system).

Since there is a switch isolating the Naim / NAS / WiFi from the devices on that leg it seems that something there is making excessive use of broadcast or multicast messages.

I unplugged the suspected leg and still had the dropout happen again. So it appears that leg isn't the issue.

Once again, I'm back to not knowing which device might be a culprit.

Is there any way to do some network tracing or such to identify the potential culprit? My current method of plugging/unplugging isn't too efficient.

Darron Stepanich posted:

I have asset running on a pc. No Ram or cpu issues. I don't think it is asset as I have the same problem for tidal streaming.

i use an Asus Rt 66 router and some netgear hubs in my system. It happens over both wifi or hard wired. I am not using powerline. I do not have FM module.

I have other gear like songs connected and no network issues. Real bummer a higher end streamer like this has these issues. Hopefully we can figure it out.....real bummer to get the disconnects while listening.

Hi Darron,  I started reading from the beginning and got to this post of yours and thought "Oh no!",  then skipped all the following posts, so excuse me if someone already picked up on this... you say "i use an Asus Rt 66 router and some netgear hubs in my system."

Hubs would have to be the problem I'd have thought.  Hubs run at 100mb max speed when I last used one (many years ago).  Surely what you need, if your network is fragmented (as my own is), is switches and gigabit switches to boot!

As I said, sorry if someone else already mentioned this... I'll read the rest of the thread when daybreak dawns (I was just having a quick look in at the forum in the early hours, as you do).   But you do need to connect your NAS and ND5XS to the same gigabit (unmanaged) switch.    ...and avoid Netgear switches - I've had reproducable dropout problems with some of theirs.  I use TP Link switches throughout & no longer have drop out problems !!   (it's a brave man who writes words like this 'no longer have dropout problems',  but I'm confident with my TP Link stuff).

Roger

@ RJSTAINES: I shouldn't have said Hubs. I use all only Gigabit switches. There is a combo of manufacturers including a Linksys, netgear, and TP Link. Based on the other feedback on the thread I don't think it is the switches (I've even swapped out with different ones and still reproduce the issue).

I'd really love to figure out a way to determine if one device is causing an issue. Network tracing???

It's a real bummer that the ND5 XS is the only device amongst dozens that experiences these symptoms.

rjstaines posted:

But you do need to connect your NAS and ND5XS to the same gigabit (unmanaged) switch.    ...and avoid Netgear switches - I've had reproducable dropout problems with some of theirs.  I use TP Link switches throughout

 

+1    I've already advised this numbers of days ago  ........   and just to make things more complicated,  another forum I play on has Netgear GS series switch's as #1 recommendation & TP Link is bottom of their list.   (also very popular around these parts as well)    

Darron - there is a simple add for the iOS called NetAnalyzer - it will give you status of all your network components, whether they Bonjour to each other etc etc.

But.... from your network description you seem to have a lot of stuff going on, for someone that has a rather limited network administration capability. Do you really need all this junk? At the moment you have so much stuff on it, that it would put many companies' networks to shame.

It may actually be simpler if you literally had one large Cisco Gigabit unmanaged switch, with say 20 or 30 ports and every deviced plugged into that via varied lenght of cables. LAN can sustain up to 100 meters lengths.

Adam

Hi Darron, I see you are. Still struggling. Dropouts, if you are using a wired Ethernet network, are unlikely to be caused by your home network itself or switches .. unless there is a fault.

Switches absolutely can be plugged into switches and is a regular configuration on commercial setup and design patterns... so unless a fault with a device or cable not a problem.

My focus would be the UPnP media server... It has to be responsiveness enough to keep the Naim streamer's buffers full. If not you will get a dropout.. You can see this on the streamer buffer display emptying to zero.

So check your media server NAS.. Does its web display say it has at least 100 Mbps full duplex setting? If not, and this unlikely, there may be a fault/incompatibility between it and its nearest switch or cable.

But I suggest trying a different media server, like a PC temporararily. Move this closer to the switch closest to the streamer until it works ok. If doing this and you are at the last switch, and you still have issues after you have swapped it and the patch leads over then your Naim Streamer is suspect and you will need to talk to your dealer.

you ask about checking or inspecting the network to see where the problem may lie... well this is why you would use managed switches as they can provide full diagnostics, cheap consumer unmanaged devices run blind.. so it's often a game of trial and error.

A proper network analyzer such as WireShark wouldn't necessarily show you a problem with the NAS or network components, other than it will show the buffers being starved or flow control being ignored by the NAS or streamer.

Thete are some so called Network Analyzers aimed at consumers, which are more network status and service monitors.. I think one is mentioned above in a post... this wouldn't help you diagnose dropouts.

Simon

@ Adam

I did a bunch of work to reduce complexity and bring most of the wiring back to a single room. Most of my network is now wired into a single switch. I do have some cases where there are a couple of hardwired devices in a room (e.g. Xbox and Smart TV,) and there isn't an easy way (any more) to get multiple individual runs to each device. As such, I connected a switch in those 2 rooms back to central switch with individual runs. It isn't too complicated any more.

@ Simon

I use a PC for my UPNP server. This server also acts as a plex server for home video. It server up 1080 streams just perfectly around the house so I don't think there is a performance issue there. I will monitor resources, but considering this is just an audio stream it shouldn't have any problems. I'll try a different upnp server and see if that works any better.

Darron

I am afraid you won't know whether there is a performance problem or not without looking at lower level logs. Its not neccessarily about bandwidth - its about latency vs host buffer size- and if the UPnP media player is not responsiveness enough or has some other TCP issue then drop outs will occur. It feels unlikely - but given you have still issues you can't rule it out and dropouts on a fully wired ethernet network are most likely to do with the hosts - i.e. media server or Naim streamer. It may be being starved of data in a timely way  from the disk drive system so it could be various issues - even perhaps the PC is doing some other internal function when streaming which throttles back the I/O

Try a free trial of Asset or use MinimServer or even use WMP and send the media to the Naim streamer (i.e. not using Naim app) and see what heppens. If you have a laptop - run a media server on that with some local files and place close to the Naim Streamer

Simon

I don't suppose your relationship with your dealer is such that he/she will lend you a Unitiserv for a few days - that would enable you to see if your choice of a PC in its multiple serving roles is at the heart of the problem?

As you are serving music from a PC it's worth checking that, when the dropouts occur, the PC isn't running out of resources (e.g. using virtual RAM, going to 100% CPU utilisation or going to 100% Disc access utilisation) because of other jobs running at the same time.

Huge posted:

As you are serving music from a PC it's worth checking that, when the dropouts occur, the PC isn't running out of resources (e.g. using virtual RAM, going to 100% CPU utilisation or going to 100% Disc access utilisation) because of other jobs running at the same time.

In my own experience it can be difficult to see what a PC is doing during a momentary dropout, unless it's well overloaded and performance degradation continues long enough for you to see it on the performance monitor screen, which is why I was suggesting that an alternative server, temporarily introduced into the system, might be a way of isolating the problem area.

rjstaines posted:

Huge posted:

As you are serving music from a PC it's worth checking that, when the dropouts occur, the PC isn't running out of resources (e.g. using virtual RAM, going to 100% CPU utilisation or going to 100% Disc access utilisation) because of other jobs running at the same time.

In my own experience it can be difficult to see what a PC is doing during a momentary dropout, unless it's well overloaded and performance degradation continues long enough for you to see it on the performance monitor screen, which is why I was suggesting that an alternative server, temporarily introduced into the system, might be a way of isolating the problem area.

You usually only need the Windows Resource Monitor, and it can be set to record every second.  The buffer of an ND5 XS is about 5s on redbook.

Persuading a dealer to lend a UnitiServ may be a lot harder than that!

Thats assuming the buffer is full - as you can see on the wire the buffer is filled to differing degrees based on the dynamics of the media server - and so certainly not always 5 seconds. (I am talking TCP buffers here)

I think the Unitiserve or another media server on a laptop plugged into the switch nearest the streamer is a good idea

S

Huge posted:

 The buffer of an ND5 XS is about 5s on redbook.

 

That's pretty lame. My lowly squeezebox touch manages 30 seconds.

Simon, I didn't say that the buffer always had 5s of data, just that it's about 5s (i.e. in length).  The length of the buffer doesn't depend on the amount of data in it, just it's size and the data rate.

Fatcat, if a 100base-t network can't refill the buffer in a lot less than 5s then there's a major problem with the network, so 30s is unnecessarily long.  It's no disadvantage, but also no real advantage either (unless the streamer is appallingly slow to react to the buffer dropping below the (full) action level).