Wifi adds a big variable. It would perhaps be interesting either to move the errant units much closer to the router, or temporarily wire them by running cheap cables across the floor, and see whether that helps.

best

David

I can wire one of the units to the switch directly, and have tested that; however that unit (the Muso) was the least likely to give problems! 

The ones most likely to give problems are the UnitilLite, which is not showing Bonjour service and is prone to losing its uPnP (and thus become invisible to the control points), and the QB, which is the one most likely to have ghosts. Neither can realistically be reached by Ethernet cables; you're talking many metres of cables trailing around the place.  I access them via specialist Ubiquiti access points which are a few metres away, have direct line of sight to the units, and are shown as having a rock-solid signal strength.  

I have also dropped a line to Naim TS to see if they can offer any advice but have had nothing back. Difficult to call them as I'm in a completely different time zone in Asia!

Not sure the UnitiLite should be advertising the Bonjour protocol unless it can do Airplay or provides other Apple related services, though it could advertise itself to iOS/macOS using Bonjour if that is implemented.

Is it possible the units dropping off have gone to standby?  If so I suspect they'd stay dropped off with a router restart.

Not what you want to hear but wi-fi may be the root of much of the issue.

RichW posted:

I can wire one of the units to the switch directly, and have tested that; however that unit (the Muso) was the least likely to give problems! 

The ones most likely to give problems are the UnitilLite, which is not showing Bonjour service and is prone to losing its uPnP (and thus become invisible to the control points), and the QB, which is the one most likely to have ghosts. Neither can realistically be reached by Ethernet cables; you're talking many metres of cables trailing around the place.  I access them via specialist Ubiquiti access points which are a few metres away, have direct line of sight to the units, and are shown as having a rock-solid signal strength.  

I have also dropped a line to Naim TS to see if they can offer any advice but have had nothing back. Difficult to call them as I'm in a completely different time zone in Asia!

Interesting, I've been wondering about some Ubiquiti access points myself having been very satisfied with one of their lower end routers.

Alley Cat posted:

Not sure the UnitiLite should be advertising the Bonjour protocol unless it can do Airplay or provides other Apple related services, though it could advertise itself to iOS/macOS using Bonjour if that is implemented.

 

Bonjour may have been developed by Apple, but its use is not restricted to Apple or Airplay hardware. Naim streamers use it, as does my Synology NAS, for example. As the OP has discovered, you can see which devices are using it via the Net Analyzer app.

It may well use it, I don't have one to check.

I appreciate Bonjour is used by many 3rd parties to advertise network services to Apple devices (I too have NAS boxes, printers etc which do so), just saying not all necessarily support it - if the UnitiLite does so fair enough, and maybe it is required for the iOS App to work (even if the Android App doesn't need it for example).

I just used Net Analyzer to check my network and neither my SuperUniti nor my 272 are currently showing the B symbol, although my other three streamers are. But everything is working fine in terms of discovery etc with the Naim app on both my iPhone and iPad.  This is consistent with what I have found in the past as well. So I don't think the test of checking for Bonjour with Net Analyzer is all that definitive.

best

David

David Hendon posted:

..............   I don't think the test of checking for Bonjour with Net Analyzer is all that definitive.

I agree,  I don't see a B bonjour on anything,  maybe I need a different analyser - any suggestions \\///

Mike-B posted:

David Hendon posted:

..............   I don't think the test of checking for Bonjour with Net Analyzer is all that definitive.

I agree,  I don't see a B bonjour on anything,  maybe I need a different analyser - any suggestions \\///

Main suggestion is just ignore it and enjoy the music!

Best

David

Mike-B posted:

David Hendon posted:

..............   I don't think the test of checking for Bonjour with Net Analyzer is all that definitive.

I agree,  I don't see a B bonjour on anything,  maybe I need a different analyser - any suggestions \\///

Yes, there does seem to be some inconsistency here. The B next to my NDX in Net Analyzer disappeared for months, then reappeared, but it all worked fine. The Bs do seem to disappear when connections between devices are inactive, which may be the cause of some confusion.

David Hendon posted:

Main suggestion is just ignore it and enjoy the music!

Now that sounds like a good plan  ...........  

Thanks for all the various advices.  

The reason I was asking about Bonjour was simple.  Phil Harris has a 'sticky' article about Discovery issues and said that you are likely to have problems if you don't see the B symbol (in Net Analyser) beside both your control point and your streamer.  

I've now managed to resolve the issue of B not being present on my iPhone, and the discovery issues are suddenly rather better - just occasionally, when the system is reawakened (e.g. From overnight), the UnitiLite is hard to find.  I'm assuming this is its lack of Bonjour support.  Once the network has figured out it's there then the uPnP service seems to work just fine for streaming the music to it.  I have, though, yet to see a B symbol beside the UnitiLite, ever!

I've taken the plunge and ordered a Ubiquiti router to replace the D-Link piece of rubbish that masquerades as the heart of my network.  This will mean the entire network is Ubiquiti - router, separate switch for the server and access points, and the access points themselves.  I hope this may fix the problems on discovery once and for all. (PS Alley Cat - I installed the Ubiquiti access points as a higher grade of kit than the usual consumer grade stuff.  I have been impressed with them.  They have simply worked without any interruption for the nine months since they first went in.  Can't say that for any other APs I've used in the past, such as Netgear and Asus.).  

The only thing I can't be sure of is whether this will solve the 'ghosts' problem we have had.  In theory I had understood this to be a firmware problem in the streamers, but we are at latest firmware on all the machines but still have had repeated ghost appearances.  Does anyone know what was causing the problem in the past, before the firmware fix was released? It might help me figure out if the changes I've made are potential solutions to the problem or whether I need to look further.  The trouble with the ghost problem is it is intermittent - worst kind of fault - and I really don't want it recurring again as it's always middle of night when it happens. 

Thanks again for all the thoughts and help.

If you've allowed friends to use Spotify connect on your devices, then they may be inadvertently firing up your devices remotely. As I understand it, a factory reset of your devices will Purge the connect controllers. 

RichW posted:

I've taken the plunge and ordered a Ubiquiti router to replace the D-Link piece of rubbish that masquerades as the heart of my network.  This will mean the entire network is Ubiquiti - router, separate switch for the server and access points, and the access points themselves.  I hope this may fix the problems on discovery once and for all. (PS Alley Cat - I installed the Ubiquiti access points as a higher grade of kit than the usual consumer grade stuff.  I have been impressed with them.  They have simply worked without any interruption for the nine months since they first went in.  Can't say that for any other APs I've used in the past, such as Netgear and Asus.).  

 

Which Router did you get?

I stumbled across this one looking at various expensive consumer grade modem routers:

UBIQUITI Networks ERLITE ERLite-3 Edge Router

My ISP supplied router and it's predecessor used to hang with numerous device connections throughout the house every so often.

I've kept the ISP device as modem and since adding the Ubiquiti things have been pretty much stable with most distribution done via a cheapish Netgear switch and another cheap switch at TV end to feed multiple internet enabled STBs/players. 

JS - interesting that you mention Spotify as that was one thing we wondered about.  A few days before the first ghost incident we did have someone use Spotify, for the first time, on the Muso QB.  And the symptoms do sound as though someone might have turned on a Spotify track, can't hear anything, then cranked up the volume to see if they can get something out!  

I have removed Spotify as a source option on the UnitiLite, but will try the factory reset on the Musos, then.  Unfortunately you can't eliminate Spotify as a source on Musos.  

How would the user have got through the firewall in the first place, though? Is there a way to block external traffic from getting at the Naims on my network? Any advice on network settings would be helpful; I've always found firewalls a bit of a mystery. 

Alley Cat - I went for the slightly bigger ER-X Edgerouter X Advanced Gigabit Ethernet Router.  Similar to yours but a couple more ports and allegedly easier to use.  I say allegedly as it only arrives tomorrow.  The other switch I'm using is also Ubiquiti, with the useful added feature of PoE - which is really useful as it means all the Access Points can be mounted independent of plug sockets. 

J Saville is I think exactly right. This has come up before on the Forum and I vaguely remember Phil explaining the issue. It's not a case of another user getting through your Firewall but rather Spotify (which you have allowed through your firewall) doing what it does well which is remember the last used configuration. I think you can probably get your friend to delete your Naim device from his account but it probably is going to simpler just to do a factory settings reset on your musos.

best

David

Ok, so we seem to have some joy through replacing the D-Link with a decent Ubiquiti EdgeRouterX router (just a note - while this is a good router it is not for the faint hearted.  It's designed to be used not just in SOHO type applications but in wider corporate networks and its huge flexibility means it takes a bit to set it up.  There are some wizards there that help, but the next line of assistance - the Ubiquiti Community forum - assumes quite a bit of knowledge about networking.) 

uPnP is now rock-solid across all devices and I am not seeing any of the old problems with discovery.  Fire up the Naim app and the three devices are there immediately.  Multi-room works fine and has not crashed anything yet.  In Net Analyser I can see the U symbol consistently against all the devices that should have it.  

There is one oddity.  The UnitiLite is not advertising a Bonjour service at all; never has, actually.  Doesn't seem to cause any problems but I'm intrigued why this one problem remains.  I assume the UnitiLite is intended to support Bonjour?  Why might it not be showing the service?  Should I be bothered?  

I am crossing fingers the ghost problem is resolved; have asked our friend to delete our Muso from his Spotify account and we'll see if that fixes things.  

RichW posted:

Alley Cat - I went for the slightly bigger ER-X Edgerouter X Advanced Gigabit Ethernet Router.  Similar to yours but a couple more ports and allegedly easier to use.  I say allegedly as it only arrives tomorrow.  The other switch I'm using is also Ubiquiti, with the useful added feature of PoE - which is really useful as it means all the Access Points can be mounted independent of plug sockets. 

Good to know about the APs and PoE.