BT Homehub 5 irritations

I use BT HH4 - don't need Infinity with 20-24mbs line speed,  but I have helped set up Linn & Cyrus networks for others with BT HH5 on Infinity. 

First is KISS (keep it simple)  - forget all about fixed IP addressees, at least until its all up & running on DHCP first.  So if you do have fixed IP addresses, go to DHCP - the HH5 is the DHCP manager & you will find the set up screen in the BT HH Mngr web page under Advance Settings

Turn off everything, leave it for 10 minutes so BT server knows you're off line,  & the restart in the following order.

BT  - let it complete its full restart procedure

NAS - let it finish

NDS - it will tell you it can't find the network

Switch

The NDS might need a little help with the Input buttons & List/OK to find the NAS.

Re noticing if its faster,  the NDS won't show you that unless you had a mega slow sub 3mbs line speed before & you had iRadio dropouts,   you will see it with www   

Hi, reading your description, I think the 'upgrade' went quite well. The router in your setup controls your home LAN therefore if you swap it out then devices relying on it are going to need to refresh their settings. In consumer land that usually means turning off and on. 

By using a switch between the router and some devices, those devices will have no way of knowing specifically .. at least until DHCP leases expire, that you have changed the router.

Goodluck with your superfast enablement (I assume that is what you will be having). 

I am envious, our village is not due superfast until 2018' and even that has been with quite a lot of lobbying for  UK /EU government funding and approval.

Mike, one of the big benefits of Superfast  broadband (VDSL with FTTC) over regular broadband (ADSL2/ADSL Max) is that the uplink sync speed is significantly greater. Typically on older ADSL it is 512kbps to 1Mbps and  on VDSL can be  around 8 to 10 Mbps.. This can be of benefit with cloud services... but yes if you mostly consume data from the Internet then regulate ADSL with a good down link sync speed should be fine

Indeed,  but after talking to a local OpenReach/BT guy - in the pub - as your do. It seems I've been put at the back of the queue for fibre-optic & he reckons we are many months away & probably well into 2016 at least.   

The exchange is all fibre & all the outlying villages & parts of the main village areas have been converted; but my local cabinet is giving 18-24mbs & OpenReach are putting resources into the slower line speed areas - & rightfully so !!!   

However Mrs Mike is a cloud user & if often tut-tutting at her 'poota because of one of those a slow moments.  Plus we get a regular teasing reminder every time we walk to the shop as we pass a new cabinet with a big bold bragging BT Infinity sticker on - 

I hear ya Wat, problem is BT (OpenReach) provide the cable/fibre network for other ISP's.  But I must say that my BT experience in the last few years has been good.

The only glitch I've had in their customer service in last 5 years was a refusal to accept the HH3 was not up to the job - probably applied level of authority/approval structure in the call centre - & it wasn't until an engineer came to fix an actual line break fault that he decreed it to be a crock of poo & magically transformed it into HH4.     

I seem to have the same problem, only I have taken out my BT hub 5 and purchased a Netgear AC1600 and now cannot use the 172xs as it cannot find rooms in the naim app. The 172 screen displays no time, does anyone know what no time means?

For me 'no time' means no internet connection. If there's no internet at Naim kit switch on, the unit will not display any time. If disconnecting internet after a successful Naim kit switch on the units retain the time display. If I subsequently switch off a Naim unit and restore power I get 'no time' again. Internet and power is going on and off all the time here.

PS. My router does not need to establish a connection to the internet for the home network (NAS / PC / Naim units ) to continue functioning. There may be a lift in SQ even when 'cut off'. I was thinking of trying some sort of isolation switch, but not worked out a reliable method other than pulling out the RJ45s!

I'll admit I was just venting in my initial post.  SWMBO uses BBC player and its commercial TV equivalents, so a faster broadband will hopefully stop her moaning about the occasional pause while they buffer.  Also she has managed to exceed my 40GB allowance 3 times in the last year,o the increased data allowance will cure that!    (though I will admit that last month that may have been due to the Windows 10 upgrade downloads for her laptop and for Bootcamp on my Mac)

I don't expect the NDS to work any better than before.  That wasn't the point of the change.

I had already assumed that my fixed IP address for the NDS would disappear, and I am planning to run without one for the time being to see how much of a problem (if any) that causes.

Thanks Simon, I did do the the 'turn everything off, go for lunch, then switch it all back on" trick when I was setting it all up.   Alas that didn't cure the Humax player app problems, and apparently this is something that is known to Humax, which is how I found out about restarting that particular machine.

One other 'glitch' has occurred since I originally posted, and that was that the WDMyCloud Public alias (for the NAS I use for non-music related duties) was no longer valid, and it took me a little while to access that drive prior to doing a ChronoSync backup of photos and other documents last night (ChronoSync is a Mac app that defines synchronising/mirror activities for backups, for those who don't know).   I don't use the Mac Time machine app.

I'll admit I was just venting in my initial post.  SWMBO uses BBC player and its commercial TV equivalents, so a faster broadband will hopefully stop her moaning about the occasional pause while they buffer.  Also she has managed to exceed my 40GB allowance 3 times in the last year,o the increased data allowance will cure that!    (though I will admit that last month that may have been due to the Windows 10 upgrade downloads for her laptop and for Bootcamp on my Mac)

I don't expect the NDS to work any better than before.  That wasn't the point of the change.

I had already assumed that my fixed IP address for the NDS would disappear, and I am planning to run without one for the time being to see how much of a problem (if any) that causes.

Thanks Simon, I did do the the 'turn everything off, go for lunch, then switch it all back on" trick when I was setting it all up.   Alas that didn't cure the Humax player app problems, and apparently this is something that is known to Humax, which is how I found out about restarting that particular machine.

One other 'glitch' has occurred since I originally posted, and that was that the WDMyCloud Public alias (for the NAS I use for non-music related duties) was no longer valid, and it took me a little while to access that drive prior to doing a ChronoSync backup of photos and other documents last night (ChronoSync is a Mac app that defines synchronising/mirror activities for backups, for those who don't know).   I don't use the Mac Time machine app.

I have gone back to the BT hub and am still seeing no time, it seems really screwed up no. it will still play if I use the selectors on the 172 or the remote. I'm begining to think CD's the way to go.

Maze,  calm down dear,  its only a streamer !!!

Have you been using fixed IP addresses on the Naim & NAS?? if so get everything back on DHCP.   

Once that's done you need to switch it all off,  leave it for 10 mins & do a sequenced restart. 

Even if you have not been messing with IP addresses,  I would do a sequenced restart anyway to remove the connection glitches you might have as that might fix whatever reason you can't see the network. 

Switch everthing off - leave the router off for 15 minutes to (this allows the ISP hardware to recognise that the router has gone offline)

Restart the system in the following order

BT HH - let it complete its start process, then wait 5 minutes to be recognised by ISP.

NAS - let it complete its full start process.

172

LAN switch (if fitted) …. the Network player should now find the network but may need some manual help with the front panel buttons - Input, List/OK.

Control Device – good idea to reset the app as part of this process. 

Also worth knowing that your 172 looks for the time server when you turn the 172 on and after that it only retries occasionally.  It's a while since I looked at this in setup but I think you can change the retry period. (Via the spanner button on the remote).

Anyway after doing something you hope has let your 172 find the network, you probably should try rebooting it on its own and if that doesn't work then go through the whole sequence as Mike-B describes. Otherwise you can't just look at the 172 time display and tell whether whatever you have done worked or not.

best 

David

I'm calm, I'm calm honest I am. I am off the ceiling and will do as you describe. I have to shut everything down tonight and clear the room as we have builders in Tomorrow anyhow.

looking at the naim support section it mentions bonjour support, I can see bonjour on my PC but not the router and iPad, how do I get all to offer bonjour?

i have also gone back to my new Netgear modem/router as I I understand it's better than the bt hub.

i am on dhcp.

This is basic UPnP discovery, not Bonjour.   

Suggest you read this sticky (FAQ) by Naims Phil Harris.

https://forums.naimaudio.com/to...pnp-discovery-issues

And I disagree that the BT HH5 is a problem,  its simpler than the Netgear,  but its a known good performer, easier to diagnose & IMO changing to another hub that is also suspect is just unnecessary confusion.

Mike I have gone through all what is in the link and as suggested Netgear is reportedly to have no issues for naim, hence I bought a Netgear modem/router in order to secure a better network, obviously l am not getting the experience I expected.

i have gone through the procedure you described earlier to no avail. I have to say I am getting dissolutioned with streaming and the difficulties just to listen to music.

I don't really know what to try next.

Maze,  sorry but what you are experiencing would never be tolerated by the worlds millions of satisfied streamer users. It really is not like this & to me is indicative of a problem with your network,  I suspect it will turn out to be a simple solution.  As for your Netgear reasoning,  sorry but I don't see it.

How is your network set up - fully ethernet wired, partial wired, or wireless

is 172 & NAS into router or into a switch

maze,

I also believe that your issues are network related. Specifically, it does appear that your 172XS is not connecting to the Internet. Your player should sync with a time server on the Internet for its time display. If you are unable to get a time displayed this might be the cause. Have you tried to connect to any iradio stations? If you cannot connect to these, then this would also indicate a problem connecting to the Internet. 

You should be able to log into your BT HH5 via your web browser by typing its IP address of 192.168.1.254 and see your all your network devices with their IP addresses. Check that your 172XS is listed there.

To Mike-B and sjbabbey I agree definitely a network issue, how to fix though? Login to either hub and neither are showing the 172 or my nas.

All items are hard wired  including a switch, the only wi fi is using the naim app.

I will try a different route when I get more time, troubles only really started since a recent house move, however occasionally at our old house I could lose discovery but not to the extent I experience now.

There are so many other wf fi users around other properties here that we never had at our old house as there were only five houses. Here I can see multiples of BT, Sky and other users. I don't know if this complicates matters.

I know deep down it will be a simple fix, they usually are, I just need to find it.

But thanks for all your help and insight.

I have an NDX connected (via Ethernet) to my home network with a BT HH5 and have no problems at all. One thought that occurs to me is to log in to the HH5 Manager and check that the Firewall UPnP settings (Advanced Settings -> Firewall -> UPnP) are as shown below.

UPnP:                               On

Extended UPnP security:  On

Hope this helps.

David

I've got Plusnet Unlimited Fibre, which I believe is owned by BT, and I haven't had any problems with it in the three years I've been a customer. 

I recently bought a BT HomeHub 5 off an auction site because as I understood it, it meant I could have one router box as opposed to the two I got from the Plusnet engineer. It was a rudimentary swap once it arrived, and yes, it works as advertised. 

I did have my UQ2 connecting to the HH via wifi - and did experience some dropped connections. That was until I put my qnap and UQ2 on a switch attached to an Apple Airport Express unit I had lying around, which is bridged to the HH. I guess the AE is very resilient and even if there's a dropped connection, it'll just reestablish it? I haven't noticed a single issue since. 

We have 78 megalomania bits and even watching catch up on iplayer it still buffers!!!! in the same way it did when we had 17 and it didn't seem any faster using the equipment we had. I wouldn't go back, but I may not have gone forward had I known that.

Indeed, bandwidth/speed is not usually the issue. I can watch iPlayer TV, or stream Tidal 'HiFi' without dropouts on a 4MB connection through a rusty old bit of copper miles from the nearest exchange.