Naim app losing connection to ND5

When my app loses a room, which since 5.7 seems to happen if I use the iPhone for something else that is memory intensive, I find force closing the app by clicking home button twice, swiping the app upwards, click home button once and then touch app to reopen it always works and is the only way to get the app to see all my rooms again. In my experience it looks for rooms and finds them more or less immediately. Then it's fine until the next time.

best

David

When we used an Asus router the app used to lose sight of the streamers quite often, to the point it became irritating. Someone recommended getting an AirPort Extreme, and since getting it about a year ago the App has only lost the streamers two or three times. In those cases killing the app, as David explains above, has always worked, and takes only seconds. 

Claus posted:

Hi,

First, sorry if this has been covered before. Did a search and didn't find my exact problem mentioned, I think. 

ND5 wired to wifi router - Technicolor tg788vn , Naim app on iPad and iPhone , newest firmware on Naim, iOS 10.3.2. Music played from 128 Gb USB stick (will be replaced by nas)  

No problem with playing music. But the apps frequently lose the connection to ND5. Can even happen while using the app. Sometimes hours in between, sometimes minutes. When lost, there is no reaction to clicks in the app, the screen jumps back to homepage in a few seconds. 

Experiments have shown that I can make it connect again by closing app, turning wifi off on iPad / iPhone, start app, wait 45 sec until app says No rooms found, close app, turn on wifi again, start app - and the connection is back . Seems to work 99 - 100% - which is nice, however inconvenient. Not least when I show friends what a nice thing I've just got  

It seems I can also use the remote, pressing pause and play will do and is a very quick remedy . But then, I will have to go and find the remote first .... 

No big issue but still annoying. Anyone else experienced this and/or have an explanation or a fix to this ?

Claus 

 

Hi Claus,

Had this reported a few times with Technicolors ... give the router a reboot and see if it stays stable for longer.

Best

Phil

Hi, 

Thanks for replies. 

David, for me simply restarting the app doesn't work, I will have to use the procedure as described, I even have to wait until naim app says No rooms when started without wifi on, otherwise turning on wifi and restarting the app doesn't do it. 

HH, could be a solution, would prefer though not add one more box and spend another 100£

Phil, I will reboot and see what happens. A VERY easy fix it it works 

I can add that I have the same problem in our other house, perhaps even more frequently. The router there is a Huawei. I haven't experienced similar dropouts with other equipment either place. 

Thinking it could be an issue related to the app, perhaps Naim could look into this the next time they are updating the app ??

Claus 

Well, sone new info which to my understanding seems to isolate the problem more or less to the app. 

With connection lost most times it doesn't help to close and restart app. As described I have to turn off wifi on the iPad, wait till app says no rooms found, and then turn on wifi an restart app. Or simply press pause and play on the remote. 

Two days ago I lost connection several times within 20 minutes, some times a few seconds after selecting a song and still with the app open. I then experimented with other buttons on the remote to see if that would make the app reconnect, like the pause/play trick.  Pressing USB  (I stream from mem stick) didn't help. 

But Very interesting was that pressing Settings /the key, the app - while still having lost the connection - reacted by showing 'setting mode' on the screen . But when exiting setup with the remote there was still no connection from app to player. Or rather, It seemed that way but the app consistently reacted to pressing Settings on the remote. 

So it seems there is still connection between app and player even if I can do nothing at all with the app. This for me seems to rule out that the problem is related to router or wifi connection to the iPad. And as such must be isolated to a problem with the app. Or am I wrong to draw this conclusion ?? 

Claus 

Just a thought, it could also be the ND5 not responding to the app which is the problem, I guess. 

Nevertheless, the app even when 'dead' still reacts to some things done with the remote, but entering and exiting Settings mode doesn't make the app work again. 

Claus this is almost certainly because of an interoperability issue between your router's wifi inbuilt access point and the Naim software .... specifically on how both are handling multicast groups. ( specific IP addresses that are common to groups of devices on your home network). This multicast group functionality is used by the SSDP protocol for discovery in UPnP and other applications.

One thing you can do to try and find out what is going on is down load an Apple Store iOS app called Net Analyzer... if when you loose connectivity from your Naim app, run the app, and check to see if you can see a little value 'U' against your streamer and media server which may be on your NAS. If you can see no U's at all anywhere, your iOS device (unlikely) or wifi access point is to blame. If you can see devices with a U but not your streamer then it's a Naim interoperability issue. If you can see U's on streamer and media server, but the app is still not working.. it's a Naim app interoperability issue.

So one alternative if you have issues seeing the U's is to get another wifi access point such as an Apple AirPort Express which is somewhat  more tolerant of the protocols in question. Plug this wifi access point into a separate switch or a switch port on your router... disable the Apple's DHCP,  and choose a different SSID... use that instead for your streaming.

BTW it is always worth checking if you have these issues, to see if a feature called 'IGMP snooping'  is available on your router/wifi access point. It really should be on... but if you have these sort of interoperability issues then you can try disabling so as to disable the processing of this protocol. The impact of disabling for UPnP discovery for audio is marginal, but could affect wifi and Ethernet performance depending on what other applications and devices you have connected on your home LAN using multicast groups.

Thanks Simon, a lot of nice info. I have no problem with streaming, as I'm using USB input on ND5, a nas server is on the way, but not in house yet. 

What confuses me is that the app must be able to see the ND5 since it reacts promptly when I hit either Play/pause or Setup/Settings  on the remote. In first case I can use the iPad rigth after, in second case it only shows setup mode on the iPad, without 'activating' the remote function.  

So there is a connection, somehow. 

Claus 

Claus - indeed there may be a connection - but its whether the connection is interpreted as part of a specific group multicast address as determined by the connecting network equipment - and if this isn't working then discovery won't work despite a basic unicast connection already being established.  On a network there can be many different types of 'connection' between hosts used for different purposes. Your Naim streamer and app will be using two connections and have two different IP addresses. The unicast IP address will be the address given most likely by the DHCP server on your router, and the multicast group IP address for UPnP SSDP discovery will be 239.255.255.250 used by your Naim app, streamer and media server on your home network. You can try pinging it from a device that is a member of the group and you should see all the group members responding to your ping.... another good way to check for properly functioning networks.

Simon

Thanks again
I honestly don't understand everything in your posts, but the conclusion is that it still can be a router problem, even if there is no problem at all, at any time, for the app to react on some specific things happening on the player via the remote control, while at the same time the app can't control the player, and it doesn't display what's being played.

Also, when "dead" if I go to settings in the app, I can get into the menu, but after a second or two it will return to the main page and as such it's not possible to do anything in the menu. I take it that for the settings menu in the app to work, it must have communication with the ND5, and when this is lost, the Settings menu in the app will close as soon as it detects that there is no connection to the player.

Perhaps I should mail a resume of my findings directly to Naim, hoping that these issues can be addressed in one of the future versions of the app. Knowing very well that it might not be of any use, if it's strictly down to the setup at my place.

Next (potential) challenge will be to setup a NAS as a server, replacing the 128GB USB stick I'm using for now. 

Claus

Claus posted:

Thanks again
I honestly don't understand everything in your posts, but the conclusion is that it still can be a router problem, even if there is no problem at all, at any time, for the app to react on some specific things happening on the player via the remote control, while at the same time the app can't control the player, and it doesn't display what's being played.

Also, when "dead" if I go to settings in the app, I can get into the menu, but after a second or two it will return to the main page and as such it's not possible to do anything in the menu. I take it that for the settings menu in the app to work, it must have communication with the ND5, and when this is lost, the Settings menu in the app will close as soon as it detects that there is no connection to the player.

Perhaps I should mail a resume of my findings directly to Naim, hoping that these issues can be addressed in one of the future versions of the app. Knowing very well that it might not be of any use, if it's strictly down to the setup at my place.

Next (potential) challenge will be to setup a NAS as a server, replacing the 128GB USB stick I'm using for now. 

Claus

Hi Claus,

Ultimately the only way to determine what is going on with any specific network is to properly 'sniff' the traffic both on the wired and wireless networks to determine what data is getting through correctly, what data is being dropped and what data is being misdirected.

This isn't straightforward on wired networks though as network switches (as opposed to the old network hubs) semi-inteligently route traffic rather than flooding all network traffic to all points on the network and and so sniffing the traffic on a wired network requires more than just throwing in a computer and plugging it in, it generally needs a managed network switch capable of port mirroring to be popped into the network and sometimes even just doing that can affect the operation of the network either positively or negatively. Wireless networks are easier to sniff in that respect but again you can't just move everything over to a wireless network and then that again changes the topology of the network and can change the way the network operates.

The App itself is only able to use documented iOS functionality and we also use a number of third party libraries which in themselves should be tested and certified and the use of anything undocumented is trapped (and would result in the app being rejected) by Apples own Appstore vetting that they do before they allow an app up onto the store so for example with the UPnP and discovery libraries we don't reinvent the wheel each time and roll everything ourselves so it is very unlikely to be a baseline "app issue" where the app itself is fundamentally broken...

Unfortunately diagnosing such issues that may affect say 1-in-2000 networks or users is extremely difficult and often it is easier and quicker for the customer to look at simply setting up a network configuration that is known to work but we do try to diagnose the issues that are raised to us...

Best

Phil

Phil, thanks for your comments as well. 

It still feels strange to me that the connection flawlessly reacts to some commands on the remote, and ignores others - and at the same time ignores everything I do with the iPad. 

But when two persons, both way more into the technical stuff that I am, both say that this is related to my router and neither to the app nor to the streamer, then I probably should accept this however illogical it sounds to me. 

I still do wish, however, that Naim in a near firmware / app update could make their products less demanding or sensible to the network hardware in their users/customers' home setup. Apparently I'm not the only one struggling with some kind of app problem. 

At least the ND5 sounds good and works perfectly, except for the app problem. I still think my CDX (orig model, unserviced) sounds superior, also with wav files, but the ND5 is fine and does a very decent job even with 320kpbs MP3 files. And some of the I radio stations, e.g. Audiophile xx and Berlin Jazz, are a really nice supplement to the cd's I have copied to the USB stick. Next comes nas and probably a tidal subscription.

Claus   

Claus posted:

<<SNIP>>

I still do wish, however, that Naim in a near firmware / app update could make their products less demanding or sensible to the network hardware in their users/customers' home setup. Apparently I'm not the only one struggling with some kind of app problem. 

<<SNIP>>

Hi Claus,

The thing is we don't use anything in the app that is "special" functionality and it's somewhat difficult to program an application to work around something that is 'broken' on a different piece of kit - it's a bit like a race circuit developing potholes and instead of fixing them expecting the F1 teams to fit chunky tyres and high lift suspension ... what should happen is the router manufacturers design units with properly working hardware and keep their firmware up to date and working correctly as issues with their products stability come up.

I've got a perfectly standard LinkSys EA7500 managing the test network that Steve and I use here for trying to recreate and identify issues and that's been working perfectly for a year or so - before that I was using an EA6300 and that too was absolutely stable.

I wish we had the resources to individually identify network hardware that doesn't properly behave but we've seen products that behave correctly for a while and then start dropping packets at an increasing rate after a while of being used and those sort of things are just outside of the scope that we can hope to manage.

Best

Phil

Phil Harris posted:

I wish we had the resources to individually identify network hardware that doesn't properly behave but we've seen products that behave correctly for a while and then start dropping packets at an increasing rate after a while of being used and those sort of things are just outside of the scope that we can hope to manage.

Best

Phil

Phil - that's why you have us to help out

Phil, I'm sorry but I still don't understand how pressing one button on the remote re-establishes functionality, while pressing another don't, even if the ipad reacts and shows setup mode. 

Anyway, I will put some money to a new router. Will go for one of the Linksys models you mentioned to avoid the risk of wasting my money   

Claus