HDX strange LAN behavior

Hi Chris,

This could well be a network issue.  Look for a post from Phil Harris, a few months go, where he recommended installing the Net Analyzer app on your iPhone.  That app will tell you if your HDX is actually 'on' your home network when it's not responsive, and whether if it is if it is running the Bonjour service at the time.  Some home routers are not all that Bonjour-friendly, and that can be an issue.

There are posts about this from a while ago; it's a good place to start. 

What home router are you using?

Bart, bonjour is used primarily for Spotify Connect on Naim platforms. I don't think the HDX supports this.

Chris if the HDX seems to disappear on a regular cycle.. Then there are at least two possible scenarios. DHCP lease renew issues or, MAC address (nothing to do with Apple Mac's) rediscovery issues. For both of these the LAN must operate in a timely and reliable manner. For DHCP lease renewing, this function is initiated by the DHCP server, usually your router. It is possible that there is an interoperability issue here between your router and HSX.

Therefore two suggestions to isolate issue.

1. Try to manually assign the HDX IP address so as to bypass DHCP.. Does the situation improve?

2. If not, use wifi or preferably wired connection between router switch and HDX to see if the MAC discovery or DHCP protocol timing starts to correctly function. Powerline adapters can be a little unreliable for lower level network functions and this can interfere with the correct operation of your LAN in certain scenarios. This could be caused by new 'noise' appearing on your mains.

You might find the Powerline adapters actually stop the DHCP lease renewing or discovery from working correctly for example between your router and HDX.

Simon

Simon I'm not so sure -- perhaps Phil will comment. 

From his 19 Dec post:

"If you have issues with autodiscovery of devices on your setup then perhaps this may help identify the cause of the problem and help you to resolve it.

With network based products there are several autodiscovery protocols in use - for users of Naim Streaming Products the common ones that are used are "Bonjour", (used by Apple Wireless AirPlay Configuration, Spotify Connect and the Naim app) "UPnP" (used by the streamers for locating UPnP servers) and "Ping" (used by our Music Servers for checking that devices hosting music shares and stores are still online).

When any of these autodiscovery services fail (for whatever reason) then you will find that 'things don't work' and it is quite obviously easy to throw a comment up on the forums or drop us an email saying 'Your kit doesn't work" - however we have many thousands of systems in use and can often see trends or common issues that perhaps don't seem so obvious when your own system doesn't work."

Hi and thanks to all of you! I going for fixed IP next step, I have just changed this in the router settings for the two HDX devices. 

Will let you know if the problem goes away.

Chris

Chris, setting a fixed IP address, as you just have, sorted out my Unitiserve discovery issues last year  (thanks also to Simon for the suggestion IIRC). It also helped, when I did it, to do a full power down and one-by-one restart of all devices on my network, it just made everything run a bit more smoothly, so that may be worth a try as well. 

Good luck, hope you get it sorted.

Chris.