Hi there, help needed,
Running High Sierra 10.13.2 on our Mac Mini, iMac and my Macbook Pro. The Mac Mini is used "headless" to serve music via SPDIF to the SuperNait DAC.
We were happily controlling the Mini using the in-built OSX screen sharing via WiFi. It started to get flakey, requiring toggling WiFi on/off and/or restarting the Mini to get it to show up as an option in the Finder Sidebar on the Macbook. Eventually it stopped showing up at all.
I updated all OSs, thinking a compatibility issue. No dice.
Been through Apple support and they got me to try everything I'd already tried. No luck.
1. All computers are on the same WiFi netowrk
2. All computers are logged into the same iTunes account and AppleID.
3. Users are all "Admin" level and all permissions set to allow screen sharing
I've also tried going direct to the Mini's IP address, (Using Go>>Connect to Server in Finder) but it can't find it that way either.
A router reset fixed it once for a short while but that doesn't fix it any more. Basically the Mini just refuses to show up as a computer connected to the network. Even though is definitely a computer connected to the network.
I'm at my wits end.
(We also used to be able to control iTunes on the Mini using the "Remote" App on iPhones and iPads, but the library has disappeared as an option there too.)
Posted on: 15 January 2018 by Innocent Bystander
Yes indeed, check when there is a problem, as some addresses are assigned dynamically, or whatever is causing a clash may be unconnected.
Posted on: 15 January 2018 by Mike-B
Thanks. Good suggestion. My router lists all the devices and they all have different IP addresses (as they should). There is perhaps something hidden from this list, I guess. It's all currently working, but if it fails, I'll check the IP addresses again. Thanks.
Set the router & all the audio with IP addresses to DHCP & you will never have an IP address problem, thats what the router DHCP mngr does, its designed especially for home wifi+ethernet systems. Leave the static IP's to very large systems & IP pro's
Posted on: 15 January 2018 by NickSeattle
At one point, just before my old router died, I got IP conflict warnings, increasingly. I tried setting fixed IPs, but the network eventally fell over completely.
Nick
Posted on: 15 January 2018 by james n
Winky - one thing worth checking is that you've not got an IP address conflict between your Mini and something else on your network. I had this issue with a disappearing NAS which would come and go. I ran a free network checker (Fing) on my iPad which listed all the devices active on my network and found a data logger unit I was using at the time was allocated the same IP address. Changing this to a different fixed IP address made the issue go away.
James
Thanks. Good suggestion. My router lists all the devices and they all have different IP addresses (as they should). There is perhaps something hidden from this list, I guess. It's all currently working, but if it fails, I'll check the IP addresses again. Thanks.
My router list didn't show the problem, but the using the network sniffer did so it's worth checking that out. Good luck Winky, i'll be interested to see what you find.
James
Posted on: 24 January 2018 by winkyincanada
Quick update. The Screen Sharing has been working fine for the last couple of weeks. One issue that keeps cropping up occasionally is that the Mini just disconnects itself from the network (turns WiFi off) from time to time. It is set to automatically join known networks, and only the one I want it to join is listed (so it shouldn't be getting confused). I can't think of a setting that could be wrong, and I've never experienced it with other products. Anyway, if the SS stops, it is now the first thing I check.
Just to be clear, it isn't/wasn't the whole issue, though. Previously, the SS was flakey even with the WiFi definitely on the right network, and the Mini demonstrably connected to the network and internet. But it likely made trouble-shooting more difficult, until I noticed it as an occasional issue.
Thanks again to everyone for their help.
Posted on: 25 January 2018 by SB955i
Really, why so. These days Mac tends to use mDNS for discovery, which uses a multicast address not dissimilar to SSDP used by Windows and UPnP.
if there are discovery issues I would first look to your Wifi access point and ensure it’s correctly processing multicast addresses. If you can try disabling IGMP snooping to see if it all kicks into life...
Hi Simon (it's Simon!).
could you elaborate what the IGMP is doing or meant to do. I'm not familiar. This is very interesting and may help me diagnose..
I have an apple network and Macs. IGMP snooping is already disabled. Over the last 4-5 months, my time machine backups have been acting up ( can't find backup share, timeout ). When I tried browsing the (any) shares I found I couldn't connect from Finder. I found that a force quit of Finder made them 'findable' again. Nothing else was needed. Printer has been bulletproof so I think Bonjour/mDNS is working ok? Seems local to the Finder/TM code?
Posted on: 25 January 2018 by alainbil
I had similar irritating problems with my MacMini.
If you Google "mac mini wifi problem" you will discover that this is a known issue. The only solution I found was to give up using wifi on the Mac Mini and connect it through Ethernet, then I bought a Melco wich is (for music) much better than the Mac Mini in all aspects.
