Viiv Connectivity Issues with Buffalo Wireless-G Ethernet Converter

[blee]

Hi all,

I've been struggling with getting the Buffalo ethernet converter to work properly for me, so I could sure use some help and advice.

First off, I was able to successfully connect my HR20 to the WMP11 server on a non-Viiv PC via a Linksys WGA54G device. However, I had "borrowed" that Linksys from my Slingbox located in another room, so this was just a temporary solution. I decided to try out the Buffalo because of the great buy.com deal I read about here on this forum, plus the fact that it allowed more than one device to connect to it and I can certainly make use of that in my home theatre.

The setup of the Buffalo seemed very strightforward. I have security turned off, MAC address cloning disabled, and just to be safe I also disabled the "frame bursting mode" feature that I believe is specific to Buffalo devices. BTW, the Linksys had also been configured with security and MAC address cloning disabled. The HR20 was configured with a static IP address, and I was able to successfully complete the network connectivity test while connected to the Buffalo.

However, despite my rebooting the HR20 several times, the unit was never able to "see" my WMP server. When I go into the WMP server settings the "unknown device" is showing up there, but I wasn't sure if that was just due to the fact that my PC had previously discovered it while it was connected via the Linksys. So, what I ended up doing was installing WMP11 on a 2nd machine in my home, enabled the media server, and lo and behold the new "unknown device" showed up. However, when I go back to the HR20 it still cannot locate any media servers.

So, I next decide to reconnect the HR20 to the Linksys, reboot the HR20, and when it comes up I now notice that my WMP server now shows a second "unknown device" on my network. This tells me that whatever information gets broadcasted over the network is different between the Linksys and the Buffalo, so WMP thinks they are separate devices. As expected, my HR20 now sees my media server just fine.

Just for fun, I now disconnect the HR20 from the Linksys and plug it back into the Buffalo (without rebooting the HR20), and then I try accessing the media server. At first nothing seems to happen, but after a couple of minutes it somewhow figures things out and surprising I am able to access my media content through the Buffalo!

So, my conclusion thus far is that there is definitely some type of difference between the Linksys and the Buffalo in terms of what happens during the WMP server auto-discovery process. But it sounds like others on this forum are having none of these difficulties with the Buffalo, so I'm quite confused. BTW, my HR20 is running the 10b version of softare, and my wireless AP is a Linksys WRT54GS.

Oh, one last interesting tidbit. I also happen to own a Roku Soundbridge network music player device. The Roku has built-in wireless, but just for fun I disabled it and connected its ethernet port to the Buffalo. No problems whatsoever...the Soundbridge could access my WMP11 audio content just fine. Very strange...

Bob

[davidord]

Hi all,

I've been struggling with getting the Buffalo ethernet converter to work properly for me, so I could sure use some help and advice.

First off, I was able to successfully connect my HR20 to the WMP11 server on a non-Viiv PC via a Linksys WGA54G device. However, I had "borrowed" that Linksys from my Slingbox located in another room, so this was just a temporary solution. I decided to try out the Buffalo because of the great buy.com deal I read about here on this forum, plus the fact that it allowed more than one device to connect to it and I can certainly make use of that in my home theatre.

The setup of the Buffalo seemed very strightforward. I have security turned off, MAC address cloning disabled, and just to be safe I also disabled the "frame bursting mode" feature that I believe is specific to Buffalo devices. BTW, the Linksys had also been configured with security and MAC address cloning disabled. The HR20 was configured with a static IP address, and I was able to successfully complete the network connectivity test while connected to the Buffalo.

However, despite my rebooting the HR20 several times, the unit was never able to "see" my WMP server. When I go into the WMP server settings the "unknown device" is showing up there, but I wasn't sure if that was just due to the fact that my PC had previously discovered it while it was connected via the Linksys. So, what I ended up doing was installing WMP11 on a 2nd machine in my home, enabled the media server, and lo and behold the new "unknown device" showed up. However, when I go back to the HR20 it still cannot locate any media servers.

So, I next decide to reconnect the HR20 to the Linksys, reboot the HR20, and when it comes up I now notice that my WMP server now shows a second "unknown device" on my network. This tells me that whatever information gets broadcasted over the network is different between the Linksys and the Buffalo, so WMP thinks they are separate devices. As expected, my HR20 now sees my media server just fine.

Just for fun, I now disconnect the HR20 from the Linksys and plug it back into the Buffalo (without rebooting the HR20), and then I try accessing the media server. At first nothing seems to happen, but after a couple of minutes it somewhow figures things out and surprising I am able to access my media content through the Buffalo!

So, my conclusion thus far is that there is definitely some type of difference between the Linksys and the Buffalo in terms of what happens during the WMP server auto-discovery process. But it sounds like others on this forum are having none of these difficulties with the Buffalo, so I'm quite confused. BTW, my HR20 is running the 10b version of softare, and my wireless AP is a Linksys WRT54GS.

Oh, one last interesting tidbit. I also happen to own a Roku Soundbridge network music player device. The Roku has built-in wireless, but just for fun I disabled it and connected its ethernet port to the Buffalo. No problems whatsoever...the Soundbridge could access my WMP11 audio content just fine. Very strange...

Bob

I was able to get the Buffalo bridge to work and I have a Linksys WRT54G router. I had trouble accessing the web interface, but it seems you are able to do this. I have WPA security enabled, but I don't think that would make a difference. Make sure you have DHCP enabled. You can access this by hitting the advanced button on the bottom of the screen. Also, try manually assigning an IP address, and make sure you are on the same network. Also, in WMP 11, right click and delete the existing connections for unknown device. So, if it reappears, you will know it is establishing connection from the Buffalo device.

[blee]

I was able to get the Buffalo bridge to work and I have a Linksys WRT54G router. I had trouble accessing the web interface, but it seems you are able to do this. I have WPA security enabled, but I don't think that would make a difference. Make sure you have DHCP enabled. You can access this by hitting the advanced button on the bottom of the screen. Also, try manually assigning an IP address, and make sure you are on the same network. Also, in WMP 11, right click and delete the existing connections for unknown device. So, if it reappears, you will know it is establishing connection from the Buffalo device.

The problem occurs whether I'm using DHCP or assigning a static IP address. In both cases the HR20 passes the directv.com network connectivity test, but in neither case can it browse my WMP content. It seems the WMP only detects a new "unknown device" when I'm connected via the WGA54G, so there's something different about the Buffalo which is causing my problem. But as I said earlier, I can "register" the HR20 with WMP by using the WGA54G and then afterwards swap the connection to the Buffalo and access my WMP content succesfully, so whatever problem may be it's definitely something related to whatever handshaking occurs when the devices first communicate.

[Spanky_Partain]

I had flakey problems with the WMP where it would work then not work after a bit. I use a linksys bridge, see signature. I switched to the twonky solution. It seems to be stable and works well.

Have you tried any firmware updates for the Buffalo?

[blee]

I had flakey problems with the WMP where it would work then not work after a bit. I use a linksys bridge, see signature. I switched to the twonky solution. It seems to be stable and works well.

Have you tried any firmware updates for the Buffalo?

I checked for firmware updates, but there were none available that were newer than what I was already running.

[mikeny]

Hi all,

I've been struggling with getting the Buffalo ethernet converter to work properly for me, so I could sure use some help and advice.

First off, I was able to successfully connect my HR20 to the WMP11 server on a non-Viiv PC via a Linksys WGA54G device. However, I had "borrowed" that Linksys from my Slingbox located in another room, so this was just a temporary solution. I decided to try out the Buffalo because of the great buy.com deal I read about here on this forum, plus the fact that it allowed more than one device to connect to it and I can certainly make use of that in my home theatre.

The setup of the Buffalo seemed very strightforward. I have security turned off, MAC address cloning disabled, and just to be safe I also disabled the "frame bursting mode" feature that I believe is specific to Buffalo devices. BTW, the Linksys had also been configured with security and MAC address cloning disabled. The HR20 was configured with a static IP address, and I was able to successfully complete the network connectivity test while connected to the Buffalo.

However, despite my rebooting the HR20 several times, the unit was never able to "see" my WMP server. When I go into the WMP server settings the "unknown device" is showing up there, but I wasn't sure if that was just due to the fact that my PC had previously discovered it while it was connected via the Linksys. So, what I ended up doing was installing WMP11 on a 2nd machine in my home, enabled the media server, and lo and behold the new "unknown device" showed up. However, when I go back to the HR20 it still cannot locate any media servers.

So, I next decide to reconnect the HR20 to the Linksys, reboot the HR20, and when it comes up I now notice that my WMP server now shows a second "unknown device" on my network. This tells me that whatever information gets broadcasted over the network is different between the Linksys and the Buffalo, so WMP thinks they are separate devices. As expected, my HR20 now sees my media server just fine.

Just for fun, I now disconnect the HR20 from the Linksys and plug it back into the Buffalo (without rebooting the HR20), and then I try accessing the media server. At first nothing seems to happen, but after a couple of minutes it somewhow figures things out and surprising I am able to access my media content through the Buffalo!

So, my conclusion thus far is that there is definitely some type of difference between the Linksys and the Buffalo in terms of what happens during the WMP server auto-discovery process. But it sounds like others on this forum are having none of these difficulties with the Buffalo, so I'm quite confused. BTW, my HR20 is running the 10b version of softare, and my wireless AP is a Linksys WRT54GS.

Oh, one last interesting tidbit. I also happen to own a Roku Soundbridge network music player device. The Roku has built-in wireless, but just for fun I disabled it and connected its ethernet port to the Buffalo. No problems whatsoever...the Soundbridge could access my WMP11 audio content just fine. Very strange...

Bob

This did the trick for me. Thank you! I could not WMP 11 to find anything to connect using the Buffalo at first. After reading your post, I ran a 50 foot CAT 6 cable to the HR20. I defalulted the internet values and rescanned. It passed and immediately thereafter the Music & Photos option appeared in the HR20's Menu. I went to check WMP 11 and there was an "Unknown Device There". I tried the music, seemed good.

Went to reconfigure the Buffalo as the HR20 stole it's IP address creating a conflict. Resolved conflict, connected Buffalo to HR20 and after a minute of handshaking, it KEPT WORKING.

I went to check WMP 11. Now there are 2 unknown devices. Ha. As you said, I deleted one, and it popped right back.

Thanks a lot.

I wonder what would happen now if I reran the internet test on the HR20. I'd be too nervous to to that now, as maybe it would read the info off of the Buffalo? It should be the same though. I'll leave it. Thanks again.

[blee]

This did the trick for me. Thank you! I could not WMP 11 to find anything to connect using the Buffalo at first. After reading your post, I ran a 50 foot CAT 6 cable to the HR20. I defalulted the internet values and rescanned. It passed and immediately thereafter the Music & Photos option appeared in the HR20's Menu. I went to check WMP 11 and there was an "Unknown Device There". I tried the music, seemed good.

Went to reconfigure the Buffalo as the HR20 stole it's IP address creating a conflict. Resolved conflict, connected Buffalo to HR20 and after a minute of handshaking, it KEPT WORKING.

I went to check WMP 11. Now there are 2 unknown devices. Ha. As you said, I deleted one, and it popped right back.

Thanks a lot.

I wonder what would happen now if I reran the internet test on the HR20. I'd be too nervous to to that now, as maybe it would read the info off of the Buffalo? It should be the same though. I'll leave it. Thanks again.

Glad to hear that my frustration today resulted in your gain :lol: If I were you I would just leave things alone for now. If you ended up restarting the HR20 while connected to the Buffalo you will likely lose connectivity to your WMP...at least that's been my experience.

[mikeny]

Glad to hear that my frustration today resulted in your gain :lol: If I were you I would just leave things alone for now. If you ended up restarting the HR20 while connected to the Buffalo you will likely lose connectivity to your WMP...at least that's been my experience.
seems to have already happened. I saw a message that I was disconnceted by the server on the HR20 so I rebooted it. Maybe this was because I was adding filed to the WMP libraries. No more Music & Photos...short lived party.. I think we're on the right track I think. WMP still shows the 2 connected devices but that's probably because of earlier.

Tomorrow, I'll run the cable quickly and try to leave it alone. This may have been because I was trying to uninstall TwonkyVision.

[mikeny]

I reconnected the cat 6 directly from HR20 to the router and I revived the music and photos options, swapped it out again, and used the buffalo for a few minutes, viewing folders off the "server". Then I started to get pop-ups, Profile Mike2 logged off server, Profile Owner logged off server, then the picture froze, song kept plugging and the unit stopped responding to my commands from the remote or face controls.

I had to reboot...and of course when it came back up...no music & photos options.

Any other suggestions. Why am I getting booted off the server, and losing the connection?

[blee]

I reconnected the cat 6 directly from HR20 to the router and I revived the music and photos options, swapped it out again, and used the buffalo for a few minutes, viewing folders off the "server". Then I started to get pop-ups, Profile Mike2 logged off server, Profile Owner logged off server, then the picture froze, song kept plugging and the unit stopped responding to my commands from the remote or face controls.

I had to reboot...and of course when it came back up...no music & photos options.

Any other suggestions. Why am I getting booted off the server, and losing the connection?

Some of the other Viiv threads seem to indicate that the logoffs are occurring at periodic intervals, so what you're saying isn't all too surprising. I am noticing the same thing now.

I think the HR20 Viiv software is pretty buggy, so I'm just going to sit tight for awhile and see what the next software update brings us. I'm hoping that the issue with the Buffalo has something to do with the buggy HR20 software.

[Cyrus]

I think the HR20 Viiv software is pretty buggy

This being the initial ViiV release it wouldn't be surprising to find bugs. But failures that happen with non-ViiV systems may not be actual bugs. HR20 was tested and certified with ViiV PCs, and that's probably the only platform that D* officially supports.

[mikeny]

A couple of observations:

When I hardwired the HR20 to the Negear router, the mac address was reported correctly in the routerlogin configuration.

However, after connecting the Buffalo Ethernet Converter, the mac address of the HR20 changed to that of the Ethernet Converter.

Blee you mentioned how you configured it with "disabled MAC address cloning". Is that what happened? I should try disabling the "frame burting" too.

Then again, with this configuration, you're reporting similar problems.

I think when FiOS comes Tuesday, I'm going to ask them to permantly run the cable. I may send back or sell the ethernet converters.

PS I was not impressed with the slide show, or manual photo presentation from what I saw. I like the Wii stretches the photos and it runs much faster. On the Wii, you also see previews of the pics. You can also increase or decrease the amount previewes on your screen, thereby increasing or decreasing the size of them. With the HR20, you'r looking at hundreds of DSC121106.jpg titles.

With that said, if the future is streaming video off your pc, it'll be more worthwhile to have this set-up one way or another and I think that will happen.

[blee]

That's very odd that the HR20 was registering with the Buffalo's MAC address. I am certainly no expert in this area, but that doesn't seem right. I mean, what happens when a 2nd device is connected to the Buffalo - does it also register with the Buffalo's MAC address? Actually, I've never been clear on what the MAC address cloning parameter on these wireless bridges really mean. On the Buffalo you can specify "MAC address of this unit" or "MAC address of the first connected device". Does this first option imply that all connected devices inherit the MAC address of the Buffalo? Your observations seem to support this, although I interpreted this setting as pertaining to the Buffalo itself, not to the downstream devices.

I experimented both both settings of this parameter, as well as all combinations of the "bursting" parameter and haven't had success with any of them.

[Spanky_Partain]

Here is what happens with the MAC and the deivces on the network...

When the HR20 is plugged into a cable going to a router or switch, it uses it's own hardware to identify itself on the network and the confiuration is setup in the network in the HR20 software to present itself in that manner.

When a bridge is in place the HR20 software is setup to basically become a pass through device instead of presenting itself to the network with it's own MAC and IP address settings. Those settings and MAC are presented to the network from the bridge.

That is why it is important to use the proper setting in the network setup on the HR20, so it is presented to the network in the proper fashion.

[mikeny]

Here is what happens with the MAC and the deivces on the network...

When the HR20 is plugged into a cable going to a router or switch, it uses it's own hardware to identify itself on the network and the confiuration is setup in the network in the HR20 software to present itself in that manner.

When a bridge is in place the HR20 software is setup to basically become a pass through device instead of presenting itself to the network with it's own MAC and IP address settings. Those settings and MAC are presented to the network from the bridge.

That is why it is important to use the proper setting in the network setup on the HR20, so it is presented to the network in the proper fashion.

I hear what your saying, I think and it makes sense. The only part that doesn't back though that up is that if I run, the internet test on the HR20, with it plugged into the bridge, it results in identical readings as compared to being connected to the router for IP address, Subnet Mask, Default Gateway, & DNS.

So when you say to "use the proper setting in the network setup on the HR20" Idon't see anything else to change. It all seems right.....unless with this setup it should be manually changed to something else for this hardware configuration to make it work. I hope I'm clear.

[Spanky_Partain]

When setting up the network via the HR20, you should have seen a selection for a direct connect, a wireless connection, or a connection through a AC adaptor.

This link will also describe the connection type...
http://forums.directv.com/pe/RepositoryFileDownloadServlet/10180530/DIRECTV_ViiV_Final_SM.pdf

This is where it makes it a pass throgh.

I cannot ping or use traceroute form my router to the IP scheme setup on the HR20 but I can to the bridge IP scheme, as it should be.

[mikeny]

When setting up the network via the HR20, you should have seen a selection for a direct connect, a wireless connection, or a connection through a AC adaptor.

This link will also describe the connection type...
http://forums.directv.com/pe/RepositoryFileDownloadServlet/10180530/DIRECTV_ViiV_Final_SM.pdf

This is where it makes it a pass throgh.

I cannot ping or use traceroute form my router to the IP scheme setup on the HR20 but I can to the bridge IP scheme, as it should be.

I never saw any selection for Wireless, direct connect or AC adaptor through the GUI of the HR20. I hit Network- Connect Now and I'm pretty pretty sure I was congratulated. That was it. I've cleared the defaults a few times and retried it and I get repeated results.

[Spanky_Partain]

I'm out of ideas...

I did select the wireless scheme when I was prompted during the setup and I use a static IP for the advanced feature.

[mikeny]

My apologies. I reran setup and I saw the choices you described.

[Rambler]

This did the trick for me. Thank you! I could not WMP 11 to find anything to connect using the Buffalo at first. After reading your post, I ran a 50 foot CAT 6 cable to the HR20. I defalulted the internet values and rescanned. It passed and immediately thereafter the Music & Photos option appeared in the HR20's Menu. I went to check WMP 11 and there was an "Unknown Device There". I tried the music, seemed good.

Went to reconfigure the Buffalo as the HR20 stole it's IP address creating a conflict. Resolved conflict, connected Buffalo to HR20 and after a minute of handshaking, it KEPT WORKING.

I went to check WMP 11. Now there are 2 unknown devices. Ha. As you said, I deleted one, and it popped right back.
This method seems to be my last resort in trying to get my Buffalo ethernet converter working. I just ordered a 100' cat5 cable that I can run from my PC upstairs in the computer room to the HR20 downstairs in the family room. If this method of hardwiring the HR20 then swapping to the Buffalo doesn't work, then I'm just giving up on it. Will post back after I give this method a shot, wish me luck...

[mikeny]

This method seems to be my last resort in trying to get my Buffalo ethernet converter working. I just ordered a 100' cat5 cable that I can run from my PC upstairs in the computer room to the HR20 downstairs in the family room. If this method of hardwiring the HR20 then swapping to the Buffalo doesn't work, then I'm just giving up on it. Will post back after I give this method a shot, wish me luck...

I gave up and permanently connected ethernet cable to the 2 HR20s directly to an Actiontec Router. The swap method just wouldn't hold. It was a week long of frustration. I returned both Buffalo Adapters today, and refused shipment of D-Link model a couple days ago that I was going to try.

Now, using Twonkymedia, it's much more stable than the WMP. WMP was logging me off a lot faster even when hardwired. Twonky holds the connection much longer and if it drops, it seems to pick right up again.

[Rambler]

I gave up and permanently connected ethernet cable to the 2 HR20s directly to an Actiontec Router. The swap method just wouldn't hold. It was a week long of frustration. I returned both Buffalo Adapters today, and refused shipment of D-Link model a couple days ago that I was going to try.

Now, using Twonkymedia, it's much more stable than the WMP. WMP was logging me off a lot faster even when hardwired. Twonky holds the connection much longer and if it drops, it seems to pick right up again.
I'm hoping this is something that D* can hopefully resolve in a FW update soon.

While trying to get my Buffalo unit working, I was viewing my Twonky network connection on my PC. It appears that Twonky will not allow viewing of pictures in nested subfolders, is this really the case? If so, then Twonky won't work for my setup even if I go get everything working as it should. WMP11 doesn't have any issues with nested folders though.

[Spanky_Partain]

Make sure none of the folder names have special characters, like "&".

That is one of the tips off the twonky website.

[Rambler]

Make sure none of the folder names have special characters, like "&".
Thanks, I did have some of those characters in there.

That is one of the tips off the twonky website.
I checked the FAQs section, but couldn't find the unsupported character list. Is the ' character not to be used as well?

[theantidote]

This is actually an issue with the ethernet converter. The converter is basically a tiny Linux box which has internet connection sharing on it. The Buffalo developers were too lazy to put Samba on it (Samba is a program used to allow Linux computers to connect to a Windows workgroup) so basically you become segregated from your Windows workgroup that all your other computers are on. I used this for a little while with my PC and I could never see any other workgroups under My Network Places.

There is no fix for it except what was mentioned earlier. I'm assuming what happens is that the HR20 connects to the Windows workgroup and then doesn't need to actually "see" it again because it knows how to connect to it. The ethernet converter simply stops the HR20 from "seeing" the workgroups.
The strange thing is that my Xbox 360 works fine through the ethernet converter.


EDIT: After doing some research this may work:
1. Plug it directly into your router
2. Set your computer's IP to 1.1.1.2 and the gateway to 1.1.1.1 with a mask of 255.255.255.0
3. Go to 1.1.1.1 on your computer and setup the converter to connect to the right wireless network, etc.
4. Before exiting the configuration make sure to manually set the converter's IP to something with the same subnet as the rest of your network, for instance my network is 192.168.1.x, that's probably yours' too, so I'd set the converter's IP address to 192.168.1.222 because I know that's free on my network and above the DHCP range. If you don't know what I'm saying then just set it to 192.168.1.222 and it should work.
5. Unplug the converter and set your computer's IP address back to normal
6. Plug the converter back in and connect it to the HR20, make sure you've disconnected the converter from the router!
7. Profit

I'm going to try that now, wish me luck!

[Spanky_Partain]

I'm hoping this is something that D* can hopefully resolve in a FW update soon.

While trying to get my Buffalo unit working, I was viewing my Twonky network connection on my PC. It appears that Twonky will not allow viewing of pictures in nested subfolders, is this really the case? If so, then Twonky won't work for my setup even if I go get everything working as it should. WMP11 doesn't have any issues with nested folders though.

My picture set is c:\documents and settings\<your name>\my documents\my pictures\<many different folders, very few individual pictures> and I see every folder and picture. The All Pictures shuffle works as well for seeing them all.

Not sure what else it could be.

When sharing out your pictures, you should put the path of the parent directory that you want to see.
My path is c:\documents and settings\<my name>\my documents\my pictures.

Do a rescan and a restart of the twonky and see if that helps after checking the path of the pictures you expect to see.

[theantidote]

Hmm...my suggestion doesn't seem to work for me. Has anyone else tried it yet?

EDIT: Actually it works! My computer sees the HR20 but the HR20 hasn't seen the computer yet. I've allowed access and all but still nothing so far. I'm using EyeConnect on my Mac but I'll try Twonkyvision instead to see if that works.

[mooniac]

I checked for firmware updates, but there were none available that were newer than what I was already running.

I just found out from Buffalo tech support that there is a firmware version newer than 2.5 (labelled 2.53). 2.5 is the newest on their support website but 2.53 can be gotten from their ftp site at ftp://24.153.165.234/WLI-TX4-G54HP/. This fixed my connectivity issues to twonky.

[blee]

I just installed this latest firmware (thanks mooniac), and lo and behold, this appears to have fixed the problem and I am able to connect to my WMP 11 server just fine. Only got a chance to play with it for a few minutes, so I don't know how stable it is or if there might be some other issues. I did install the latest 0x115 software update the other day, but that update by itself did not resolve the problem. So, either this firmware update fixed it, or maybe a combination of the firmware update plus 0x115...not really sure.

[Spanky_Partain]

I had flakey problems with the WMP where it would work then not work after a bit. I use a linksys bridge, see signature. I switched to the twonky solution. It seems to be stable and works well.

Have you tried any firmware updates for the Buffalo?

Sure glad you got it going. Sorry I just don't get to do this often enoguh...:lol:

Have fun...

Spanky

[houskamp]

anybody found a way to fix the 7 minute timeouts?

[Spanky_Partain]

anybody found a way to fix the 7 minute timeouts?

I have followed every post that I have seen with the network and I have not seen a workaround/fix for this one.

There was another free software posted earlier called ORB in this thread...
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=75774&highlight=orb

Link to ORB is in thread if you want to give it a try!

Spanky

PS
Guess you are using a Dell for the server...not a HP portable.

[oldguy1]

anybody found a way to fix the 7 minute timeouts?

I have been using Nero Mediahome Nero version 7 enhanced) with much success.

[mikeny]

I have been using Nero Mediahome Nero version 7 enhanced) with much success.
oldguy1,

Are you streaming .mp3s and .jpgs with Nero?

[Rambler]

I have been using Nero Mediahome Nero version 7 enhanced) with much success.
I just happen to have this software myself, and didn't know it had a media server function! :lol: I'll play with this tomorrow.

[oldguy1]

oldguy1,

Are you streaming .mp3s and .jpgs with Nero?

Yes.

[BriWill]

I just found out from Buffalo tech support that there is a firmware version newer than 2.5 (labelled 2.53). 2.5 is the newest on their support website but 2.53 can be gotten from their ftp site at ftp://24.153.165.234/WLI-TX4-G54HP/. This fixed my connectivity issues to twonky.

Hi all,

I got everything working finally. I'm using WMP 11 and the Buffalo wireless bridge, and I had the same problem as others are describing: WMP would not discover the HR20 after I checked the "Share my media" box in WMP. I could see from my router that the HR20 had an IP address, and the "network test" functionality worked just fine. Here are the two things I did that got it working:

1. Make sure your firewall is not blocking communications to the HR20. I'm using ZoneAlarm, and I had to add the HR20's IP address to the "Trusted Zone". To do this, open ZA, then click "Firewall" on the left, then click the "Zones" tab (upper-right). Click the "Add >>" button at the lower-right, then add an "IP Address" or "IP Range" or "Subnet". Any of these should work, so I added an IP range consistent with the IP addresses that my router gives out: "192.168.1.100" through "192.168.1.200".

2. Upgrade your Buffalo's firmware to version 2.53. It ships with 2.50 installed. As stated above, you can get the firmware upgrade from ftp://24.153.165.234/WLI-TX4-G54HP/. Download the 2.53 ZIP file, unzip the file, and then upload the firmware update using the Buffalo's web-based configuration tool.

After I uploaded the new firmware, nothing happened right away. But after 5 minutes or so, the Buffalo rebooted itself and WMP repolled the network and found the HR20. So far everything works pretty well, although the HR20 hasn't found my AAC files (as I discovered after ripping 50 CDs or so, iTune's default music file after ripping is AAC not MP3, grrr.....).

Many thanks to Mooniac for finding the firmware upgrade. That was the key!

[WERA689]

Hi all,

I got everything working finally.
Many thanks to Mooniac for finding the firmware upgrade. That was the key!

Indeed it was!!! Thanks to you all for the research and legwork, and for sharing what you found! I had pretty much given up, as it just wasn't worth stringing 50' of cat5 for!;) :D

Neil

[Rambler]

I had pretty much given up, as it just wasn't worth stringing 50' of cat5 for!
Well, the powerline ethernet adapters could've been another option for you. But glad to hear the new firmware got it working for you.

[Strejcek]

I just found out from Buffalo tech support that there is a firmware version newer than 2.5 (labelled 2.53). 2.5 is the newest on their support website but 2.53 can be gotten from their ftp site at ftp://24.153.165.234/WLI-TX4-G54HP/. This fixed my connectivity issues to twonky.
You are the man mooniac!! Thanks for finding this. This was driving my crazy last night. This is why this forum is so great! Thanks again.:)

[dvrblogger]

for all those with connection issues
I saw a problem in one of the xbox forums that many wireless routers don't handle the discovery process correctly for UPNP (SSDP) or may need a firmware upgrade similar to the powerline adapters. Microsoft has an FAQ for WMP11 with a list of recommended routers.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/devices/wmconnect/faq.aspx