BBC HD Dropout

It may be an issue with your broadband. It’s usually slower in the evenings when everyone is doing stuff. Try a speed checker to check the download speed and latency. 

Many thanks for your help.................................. I'm sat here thinking that this must be a general problem, because my Naim stuff works OK with all other sources and so the PC works fine on the internet with BBR Radio Player for hours etc. so why isn't there a bigger kerfuffle on the web-site with people frustrated at BBC HD drop-outs?

Anyway, I just checked with Dr. Google and he/she said my connection is running at 34 mega-whatevers, and that my connection was fast.

So I don't thing that's the problem.

Still looking for a solution..............................

PaulTaylor posted:

..............   Is this a problem that affects other people? 

My iRadio does not have this problem,  BBC HLS HD or any other station.

I agree with HH,  probably something to do with broadband,   but the reasons why your 172 has a problem & the PC doesn't is not necessarily indicative that the 172 is 'the problem'       

RE HH's suggestion to test for download speed and latency,  thats a good starting point.  Mine is 10ms  75Mb/s download & 19Mb/s upload.  That said I did not have iRadio issues when I only had 12Mb/s & 2Mb/s

I tested my line using "broadband.co.uk", which said my download connection  speed was    31.12 Mb, my upload speed was 6.34Mb and the ping-time was 28 ms. I don't know whether these are relatively good or poor.  Another website said 32Mb download speed and a network latency of msec round trip time. 

I tested my line using "broadband.co.uk", which said my download connection  speed was    31.12 Mb, my upload speed was 6.34Mb and the ping-time was 28 ms. I don't know whether these are relatively good or poor.  Another website said 32Mb download speed and a network latency of 44 msec round trip time. 

I aspire to those speeds! My NDS is solid on HLS at 11mbps even with others on line. Openreach is installing FTTP on the lane but progress is arthritic to say the least

Paul

The ping is quite high for good quality broadband. 15 msec or less is what I would look for. I don't know whether that is why you have the problem, but it may be. 

Increasing the buffer size in the 172XS probably involves a hardware change, not a firmware update. So as it's a discontinued product, I fear that this isn't likely to happen.

A reasonably good FM tuner is probably the best way forward to be honest.

best

David

Our ping is about 18 seconds, though the download speed is over 170Mb. We never have problems with web radio. It may be worth moaning at your provider. 

Many thanks for everyone's comments......................I haven't found a quick-fix, but that's life 

It still baffles me that my old PC, costing a few hundred pounds, can receive BBC HD radio streams, and yet the NAC172 cannot.

Oh well, 

Have you checked the 'auto time-out' setting on your streamer? Try setting it to 'never'. It's in the iRadio settings menu accessed by the remote/front panel display, not the app. This is a shot in the dark, but it just might work - whereas your broadband speed is not an issue, you have more than enough.

The other possibility is that you have a network problem. These can be more common in the evening that during the day, as electrical appliances (yours and your neighbours) are often turned on and off more regularly in the evening, when people tend to be at home, turning on heating, cookers, TVs etc. Finally - do you have any Ethernet over mains devices?! 

Chris, many thanks for your help...............I took your advice and checked the time-out setting on the streamer: it is set to 'never', so I think that should be OK,  You then mentioned Ethernet over mains.........and yes, I use this method to connect the streamer & NAS, that are n the lounge, to the two-year old "BT home hub" in the hall, as I thought that this arrangement would provide a more secure connection than wi-fi.  It's worth checking whether this may be the source of the problem....................so I'll try to connect the streamer & hub by wifi in the next day or so, and see what happens. Many thanks, once again.

Hi Paul,  you don't say what EoP adaptors you have,  it could be an old design or maybe going defective.  These are far from ideal but despite the negatives such as pollution & sound quality they generally do carry the bandwidth OK.   I doubt wifi will be better, it will be dependant on distance & wall barriers.   The obvious ideal is fully wired ethernet & would advise to very seriously take that option,  but if wifi is your only option,  maybe worth you taking a look at one or other of the MESH wifi systems, they bring wifi performance up to a good standard over a a wider area.   Have a good read & listen to some of the people who've tried it before you buy.   A broad brush explaination is here ....  http://www.trustedreviews.com/...fi-explained-2953740

Hope you manage to track down the issue, it can take time and patience! Another option to try is to buy a long Cat5e cable and temporarily use that to eliminate the PoE. A very cheap one from ebay will do for test purposes. If that solves your problem, time to get out the drill!!

...........  and if ChrisSU's temporary Cat5 test suggestion works,  rather than you getting the drill out,  have a think about a post I made yesterday on another thread:           I had BT move my incoming line from the hall to give the BT hub a location in the room with audio & TV, thereby avoiding ethernet routing via up, through & down two solid walls & a section through a roof void.  They also removed all the old & now unused extensions for phone & fax machines (extensions are not good for best broadband performance)    The new BT cable routing was around the outside of the house.  Best £130 for such a simple solution I've spent.  

I had exactly this problem with my MuSo Qb, as did quite a few other people I understand. It was only BBC stations dropping out, never Radio Paradise, and usually after about 15 minutes. Sometimes not at all though. In the end I ditched the ethernet over mains and installed a proper wired network with switch, Synology NAS, wi-fi extender (in WAP mode), and upgraded router. Since then it has been rock solid with no drop-outs at all. It is, of course, difficult to say exactly what fixed the problem as I changed many things at the same time but I suspect it might have been something to do with the combination of the BBC radio stream and ethernet over mains.

Problem solved....Radio3HD has played non-stop on the NAC172 for over 24 hours now, which is 23.75 hours longer than before. 

So many thanks to Chris for opening my eyes to think about the ethernet-over-mains connectors, and to Mike and MadHatter for pushing the idea further : there's no doubt I wouldn't have thought about this area of the setup without your advice .

After reading your comments  I applied the old IT help-desk first-stage advice for any piece of malfunctioning IT- 'Switch-off and switch-on ". I also checked how securely the Ethernet-over-mains plugs were settled in their sockets and I decided to move them to different sockets,  And it's all just..............worked.................

So many thanks once again. It just proves to me, once again, that it's good to talk and there's no limit to the amount I don't know I don't know, to paraphrase Rumsfeld .

Glad to hear your issue is solved - let's hope it lasts. I would still consider, if you can, getting rid of the EoM stuff altogether, but don't lose any sleep over it!

Hi - just caught up with this thread - drop outs like this are more down to transport latency than anything else - and really for the Naim streamers you need a reliable duplex connection if using ethernet - you mention Powerline Adapters - these are bad - they are not real ethernet - and of course the poor Naim streamer sees an ethernet connection and expects that - but the Powerline adapters are effectively providing a half duplex bridge between two ethernet segments - this can be  bad news for Naim streamers (which are designed for proper network connections ( WLAN or ethernet) - especially for the slightly higher bandwidths such as  the BBC HD.

It sounds like you are having quite high latency anyway - perhaps caused by other apps on your internet doing 'stuff' at certain times.. anyway by removing Powerline adapters by using either Ethernet or Wifi directly to the streamer  should reduce (though not entirely eliminate) the chances of drop outs..

For NAim devices best use proper network connectivity rather than consumer network ethernet 'look-a-like' kludges - they are going to confuse certain devices which are expecting quality network connectivity.

Good luck 

Simon,

Many thanks for your advice.  The iRadio BBC3HD dropouts came back with a vengeance last week, so I decided to adopt a step-by-step approach to solve the problem. 

Firstly, I switched to using the Wi-Fi connection between the NAC172 and the BT hub and the whole system worked perfectly, with no dropouts. This proved the NAC172 was working perfectly. However I was, probably needlessly, bothered that the signal strength meter on the NAC172 wavered between 20-80%. I couldn't hear any difference when the radio was playing, but I thought it was worth trying to get a stronger signal.

Eventually, I fixed the problem another way.  As I can't fit a direct Ethernet cable between the NAC172 and the hub, I upgraded the hub to the "BT Smart Hub", and installed the largest "TP-Link 2-port gigabit" Powerline adaptors. Now it all works, rock solid, and I have been happily listening to iRadio3HD with no dropouts.

So many thanks to everyone who raised & developed the issues of using Ethernet-over-power. This Forum is really helpful.

Best wishes