? about sharing with WMP 11 to my theater

[Jacksmyname]

Hi all. Hope this is the right place for this question.
I'm trying to play music files, stored on my PC, through my A/V systems.
Here's my setup:
Two computers, right next to each other, so no need for wireless. They're both hard wired to a Linksys 4 port router.
Two A/V systems. Main system, in the living room, has a Yamaha RX-V3800 receiver.
Second system, in a family room on the second floor, has a Yamaha RX-V2700 receiver.
Both are networking receivers. Both are connected to the router via a product Logitech used to sell called The Play Link. Play Link was made to allow XBox wireless for the those like me, no wireless.
Play Link consists of two small boxes, about 3 1/2 inches square, that connect to each other via RF. They were made in matched pairs so as to only connect to each other. Each box has a wall wart and an ethernet cable. I have one box connected to the router, the other to the ethernet port on the receiver. I had a set that I had never used, and wanted to try internet radio. Worked like a charm on the living room system, so I found another set (Play Link is discontinued), and connected it to the system on the second floor. It also works great. Internet radio is surprisingly good.
With me so far?
The problem I'm having is getting the receivers to "see" the files on my PC. I know the receivers are set up correctly; again net radio works fine. I can also ping the receiver, and get a reply.
Yamaha specifies Windows Media Player 11 for playing files on the PC (WinXP).
When I get to the NET/USB menu on the receiver, I have 3 choices: Internet radio (works fine), USB (works fine) and PC/MusiCAST (MusiCAST is Yamaha's system).
If I select PC/MusiCAST on the receiver, the next screen should show "server", with an arrow over to the right side, and then the files on the PC that I want to play.
I get "server" on that screen, and the arrow, but that's it. No folders or files.
I've tried EVERYTHING that I've read in help files, on-line sites like this one, etc. Submitted the question to Yamaha, but all they did was to repeat what I'd already read. I've disabled firewalls and anti-virus. Services that need to be running are. Media Player is set to allow sharing. Same problem on both receivers.
There's some setting, somewhere, on the PC and/or in Media Player that I'm missing, but I can't for the life of me figure it out.
Any ideas?
Sorry for the long post, but I'm absolutely stumped.
Thanks.
Jack

 

[Jacksmyname]

Hi again.
Well, I found the problem.
UPnP was disabled on my router. I enabled UPnP, and bingo, success.
But still have a problem.
If I turn off the Yamaha receiver, I'm back to square one. WMP server doesn't show up on the 3800. I also have Twonky server, and it also doesn't show up.
I have to disable UPnp on the router, and then re-enable it. When I do that, both WMP and Twonky show up on the 3800. I can choose either one, and play files. All is good.
Turn off the 3800, and then turn it back on, and once again neither server shows. Have to do the disable/enable thing on the router.
Any ideas?

Thanks once again.

 

[itschris]

Hi again.
Well, I found the problem.
UPnP was disabled on my router. I enabled UPnP, and bingo, success.
But still have a problem.
If I turn off the Yamaha receiver, I'm back to square one. WMP server doesn't show up on the 3800. I also have Twonky server, and it also doesn't show up.
I have to disable UPnp on the router, and then re-enable it. When I do that, both WMP and Twonky show up on the 3800. I can choose either one, and play files. All is good.
Turn off the 3800, and then turn it back on, and once again neither server shows. Have to do the disable/enable thing on the router.
Any ideas?

Thanks once again.

I just did some looking into what you were experiencing and really couldn't find anything that would be of help. Sit tight though. I'm sure others will chime in at some point. A not easily fixed problem is usually like throwing down the gauntlet. I'm sure someone will have the answer.

 

[Jacksmyname]

Thanks chris.

 

[sparky77]

I would try assigning static IP addresses for each device connected in your routers settings, to make sure when you turn the receiver on you always get the same IP address. Not sure if it would help because your link adapters are probably always on, but it's all I can think of.

 

[MDS]

Is the startup type for UPnP set to Automatic or is it set to Manual and each time you go into Services and start it? It should be set to Automatic so it is configured at boot time.

 

[Jacksmyname]

I would try assigning static IP addresses for each device connected in your routers settings, to make sure when you turn the receiver on you always get the same IP address. Not sure if it would help because your link adapters are probably always on, but it's all I can think of.

IP's are static.
Thanks spark

 

[Jacksmyname]

Is the startup type for UPnP set to Automatic or is it set to Manual and each time you go into Services and start it? It should be set to Automatic so it is configured at boot time.

Automatic.
Thanks MDS

 

[Jacksmyname]

Hi again all.
I'd like to ask a favor of you networking gurus.
Are there any other settings I have to make on my router, besides enabling UPnP, to solve the problem I'm having?
An example would be on the UPnP Forwarding page of my router setup (Linksys BEFSR41 wired ).
All kinds of settings there, none of which are enabled (such as FTP, TELNET, SMTP, DNS, TFTP, etc.).
I have no idea if any of them need to be enabled or not.
Another example would be, do I need to set up port forwarding, and if I do, how do I do it?
I'm a total greenhorn with networking.
Could someone be so kind as to check?
Thanks!

 

[MDS]

Jack,

You shouldn't have to set up any port forwarding. That's for a different purpose such as exposing an internal server on your machine or another machine on your local network to the internet.

From your description of the problem it sounds like once you enable UPnP on the router (and the receiver is ON), the router broadcasts its UPnP information immediately and the receiver sees it and configures itself. When the receiver is turned off and then later turned on again, it looks for UPnP information but sees none most likely because the router only broadcasts UPnP information at set intervals.

Most routers are similar. My NetGear router has a setting for 'advertisement period' which defaults to 30 minutes. This means it will only send out its beacon with UPnP information once every 30 minutes (which is normally sufficient because you don't often have multiple devices coming and going in a short period of time).

The first thing I would try is reducing that advertisement period to a lower number.

There could also be a setting in the receiver (I don't know for sure...but maybe) that allows you to tell the receiver how often to look for UPnP information or a setting to tell the receiver to cache the last UPnP configuration information it got and just use that instead of waiting to see the advertisement beacon from the router.

 

[Jacksmyname]

Hi MDS.
Ok, I understand what you've posted.
There's nothing to set on the receiver, it was just plug it in and it worked.
I've checked my router setup page (Linksys), and the only thing I can find when it comes to time is "Client Lease Time", which is under "Local DHCP Server" (which is enabled).
There's a "client lease time" there that's set to 0 minutes (0 means one day).
That's all I can find.

Thanks again!

 

[Jacksmyname]

Hi again.
After researching countless articles on my problem, I'm still nowhere.
So, even though the IP address is always the same on my 3800, the last thing I can try is setting it to static.
I've never done this before, so I need some guidance.
In the net setup for the 3800, DHCP is set to on. The router also has DHCP set to enabled.
To set a static IP for the 3800, do I just do it in the net setup GUI, or do I also do it in the router setup?
I pretty much need a step by step.
PC is WinXP, Linksys BEFSR41 (wired).

Thanks again!

 

[krzywica]

Hi again.
After researching countless articles on my problem, I'm still nowhere.
So, even though the IP address is always the same on my 3800, the last thing I can try is setting it to static.
I've never done this before, so I need some guidance.
In the net setup for the 3800, DHCP is set to on. The router also has DHCP set to enabled.
To set a static IP for the 3800, do I just do it in the net setup GUI, or do I also do it in the router setup?
I pretty much need a step by step.
PC is WinXP, Linksys BEFSR41 (wired).

Thanks again!

Setting a static IP might fix your issue, but it likely will not. I think MDS is on to something with the UPnP broadcast interval. It could also be the UPnP daemon crapping out on your router, which wouldn't surprise me as those old Linksys box's are notoriously flaky and unstable on their stock firmware.

AFAIK it looks like you cannot manage the DHCP scope other than setting the start and end range. See page 15 in the manual.

http://downloads.linksysbycisco.com/downloads/userguide/1224638986426/BEFSR41-EU-LA_V43_UG_NC-WEB.pdf

 

[Jacksmyname]

Setting a static IP might fix your issue, but it likely will not. I think MDS is on to something with the UPnP broadcast interval. It could also be the UPnP daemon crapping out on your router, which wouldn't surprise me as those old Linksys box's are notoriously flaky and unstable on their stock firmware.

AFAIK it looks like you cannot manage the DHCP scope other than setting the start and end range. See page 15 in the manual.

http://downloads.linksysbycisco.com/downloads/userguide/1224638986426/BEFSR41-EU-LA_V43_UG_NC-WEB.pdf

Thanks. You could be right, although the router has been very stable.
thanks again.

 

[Jacksmyname]

It's working!!!!!!!!
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!
The fix was to set "filter multicast" to enabled on my router.
Did that, and lo and behold, problem solved!
Thanks again to everyone for the replies!