HDX and Nserve

Have a look in 'settings' on the ipad to see if the ipad is picking up the HDX under 'select server' - is it set to auto connect?

G

Hi Graeme,

Yes it's set to Auto Connect but it says No Server Found. 

Russ

You may have to manually type in the HDX address then. G

Hi russ,

i experienced that kind of trouble with my uniti serve. Seems like your network is reindexing the ips.

do you use fixed ips or DHCP? A switch? or directly connected to your router?

also reinstalling the app helps to find the server again.

greetz, mak

Thanks Graeme. I'll try that. 

Hello Mak. Directly connected to the router.

Thanks for your help. 

Russ

My strong advice, after tearing my own hair out one weekend after a similar problem, is don't panic.  If all the computer terminology is a foreign language (I have no idea what DHCP means and nor do I want to) then ring Phil Harris at Naim and he will sort you out in a jiffy.

I did and it felt like being rescued from a particularly dangerous mountain that I had stupidly climbed.

Good luck.

G

Have you checked to see if your iPad is online? I inadvertently switched off my wifi connection on my ipad one evening & experienced the same as you have described. 

Yes Ipad is online. I think I will follow Graemes advice and contact Phil. 

Russ

Very wise.  I ended up waaaay up the mountain and fettling with my router settings and modem configuration when I didn't know the way back.  Phil fixed it remotely in about 20 seconds flat.

The feeling of relief marginally trumped the feelings of what a collossal arse I'd been to go there in the first place. G

DHCP means that the router/switch is assigning ip adresses randomly to any device connected and this causes trouble sometimes. DHCP is set as standard in the naim devices, but you can change it in the menu (done that with unitis, ndx....) but doubt its an option on the hdx, as it isnt with the unitiserve. So what you can do is telling your router to assign a fixed (static) ip adress to the mac adress of the hdx (visible in the network menu of the hdx). Highly recommended, pretty sure it will fix your problem.

if you dont wanna fight with your network, of course calling naim or your dealer makes strong sense

What i would do anyway is to delete and reinstall nserve on your ipad. this would trigger a new search process and works in many cases, interim solution

hopefully you can solve this issue and enjoy music again...

I use nServe on an iPod Touch to control my HDX.  Losing the network connection seems to happen more frequently recently, I have no idea why.  Anyway, doing a cold boot on the Touch always seems to remedy the situation.

Experienced a similar situation with my HDX.  Doing a reboot of the HDX solved everything.

Did you try rebooting your HDX??

Regards,

Michel

Nooooooo! We all learn by trying things - and you can't do anyone any harm with the settings on a router and how else do you learn?

Networks and networking are inherently *REALLY* simple at the kinds of levels that we're working at - they may seem "hard" but that's just because you don't do them every day, just think of it this way, there's nothing hard in itself about building a wall but I couldn't do it and make a decent job of it!  TBH a lot of the complexity is caused by the "external influences" side of WiFi and Ethernet over Mains which is why you'll always catch me banging on about why they shouldn't be used unless absolutely necessary.

So - learn away (there are many really good resources on the Internet for networking theory) and if you've any questions, give me a shout.

Cheers

Phil

OK - logical places to start.

If the iPad app won't automatically discover the HDX then go to the system status page on your HDX and look for the entry "IP address".

What address is it showing? Most home networks will have IP addresses starting 192.168.0 or 192.168.1 (or 10.0.1 if you use an Airport Express / Extreme).

Change the settings of the n-Serve app from "Auto Connect" to direct connect and enter the IP address of the HDX into the IP Address box at the top of the n-Serve settings page - does it connect now? (The title bar will change from Red to Black when it is connected.)

What router do you have? (Some simply don't allow the Auto Discovery protocols through - such as Virgin SuperHubs.) 

Give that a try - if you don't get anywhere with that then I'll be back home later on this afternoon ... drop me an email on phil.harris@naimnet.com and maybe we can get it sorted by this evening?

Cheers

Phil

Nothing with computers happens randomly...

Even with DHCP the router keeps a table of IP addresses that it has allocated out to devices using what is called the MAC address (nothing to do with Apple computers) so that when the devices lease time expires it should be allocated the same IP address again ... of course if the router crashes or is rebooted then that clears the table and IP addresses are them handed out (usually in sequence) freshly again.

If anyone goes to any of our events and I'm there then I'm more than happy to spend time going through any networking queries with people if they want to ask...

Phil

Russ, Phil alluded to it but I didn't find anyone advising you to re-boot the router.

I'm not a believer in manual IP address allocation, DHCP works just fine, but I have seen many routers*  that get their pants in a twist where the occasional re-boot straightens things out.  Give it a try, it can't hurt anything!

If that doesn't work, you'll find Phil's galactic experience will get you running again in no time.

(*I speak from my experience of IT support)

Haha of course, thats what i ment. with some routers (especially the ones provided by my internet provider) I experienced the problem that they "loose" the table from time to time (for whatever reason) and then i couldnt find my devices. I sorted that by using a new, better router and a dedicated switch for my hifi stuff and by assigning static ips on the new router for the various mac adresses. Since then never lost connection again.

Setting up ones network is little try and error..... Fun stuff, with a big learning curve

RRuss, as Phil says networking at this level is straightforward, but sometimes too little knowledge is not helpful when troubleshooting..

So you say your HDX reports to Nserve server not found? Doe other apps on your iPad work ok when this happens? I assume they do..

Now DHCP will, but doesn't have to use the same IP address when re assigning it periodically however DHCP is often blamed when it is not at fault. As Phil refers to  really within a single network a lot of the communication is reliant on the layer2 frame addresses or also known as MAC addresses.. This is what switches, devices and wifi use to send data to each other in a single network.

These layer 2 addresses are stored for a period of time and eventually flushed if not used by switches and routers, and then when someone wants to talk to a device and the layer 2 or MAC address is expired, then there is a general broadcast sent by the device wanting to talk saying, ' hey! Listen up! Tell me if your name is this IP address!' usually the answer is forthcoming from the device with that name (if it gets that broadcast message), and the layer 2 addresses are restablished and routers and end devices (ipad/HDX/NAS etc) repopulate the ARP table- this table holds the the IP (layer3) to MAC (layer2) address mapping.

Now sometimes poor wifi and switch implementations in poor consumer routers  mangle that broadcast 'hey! Listen up!' message in some scenarios, and connectivity is lost.. Also they can interfere with other discovery broadcast messages. This is where the frustration sets in...

My suggestion is to take control... Use a dedicated switch like a Linksys or a Netgear attached to your router.. Plug the HDX into the switch and use a quality wifi product that works well with broadcast and multicast network traffic such as Apple AirportExpress also plugged into that switch. Use that wifi for your media control such as Nserve. I suspect your discovery and network 'connectivity' issues will then be a thing of the past.

BTW I design these things for a living, but usually many thousands of times bigger.. Believe me I *FEEL* your frustration with some cheap consumer routers..... You'd be surprised/horrified where these are used in commercial/ industrial setups as well!

Simon

Thanks everyone for all your advice.

Just to clarify a few points:

I have re-booted the HDX, Ipad and Modem/Router to no avail.

I'm running Vista and Virgin provide my broadband. The modem/router is a Netgear(not the Superhub).

I will be out now for most of the day so it will probably be tomorrow before I can try out Phil's suggestions. I'm not too frustrated as I can still use the HDX and the more I listen the more I prefer it to my CDX2. On the other hand of course I never had to worry about Servers, Ethernet and Static IP addresses with my CD player

I'll let you know tomorrow how I get on.

Russ

I got home earlier than expected so decided to follow Phil's suggestions.

Success. I de-selected Auto Connection in the Settings page of Nserve and typed in the IP Address and everything is back to normal. I can now see all my albums and the album tracks.

Many thanks to Phil and everyone else for their advice. Just the small matter now of ripping another 400+ albums to the HDX

Russ

Russ, good news. BTW if you follow my suggestion at some future point so you can reenable Auto Connection, please let us know if it works.

Thanks

Simon

Glad to be of assistance! G

You were spot on Graeme. Thanks.

Simon.

As soon as I've ripped all my CD's I'll turn my attention to adding a switch.

Look out for for my post as I'm bound to need some guidance bearing in mind my lack of expertise in all things relating to I.T.

Russ

A useful "free" app for the iPad is FING which will show the IP addresses of every device connected to your network