Good… I couldn’t see if your app was running on Android or iOS… the former can be less than totally reliable here…
So if iOS and the app still plays up… the issue will lie with your wifi or connecting switch (unlikely) … in short it can be loosing the discovery multicast messages.
Yes please don’t point everything to 2.4 as you will be disabling the more performant and tolerant wifi protocols.
I must admit from your narrative, your wifi product sounds like it is possibly not really up-to the task… you might want to consider an alternate… especially if you are using the iOS apps and having issues. Unfortunately reading web forums there there appear some poor products out there.
These days ISP products including wifi from the likes of people like BT are pretty excellent… and are designed to work well in real world environments and be plug and play.
Well Naim gear needs to take advantage of properly working network equipment… if your Naim is not working, then in all likelihood you will run into issues with UPnP automation, home automation, printer discovery etc sooner or later.
Where are you? Who is your ISP? Can you not order a bundled wifi mesh with your isp broadband router. If you are with BT in the UK you could be sorted.
If getting a third party wifi solution make sure it’s a wifi bridge (really important), no router, NAT or dhcp or anything like that… keep it simple for normal LAN use.
Don’t get hung up with the word ‘mesh’ … much of it in the consumer space is twaddle and is simply referring to wireless uplinks… it is actually best to use Ethernet uplinks where possible.
I guess, but don’t know, Sky do similar things as BT here… ie wifi discs that connect to their router?
All I know is that BT and Naim play well together…
Edit Sky have something called ‘wifi boost’ … doesn’t look as good as the BT options, but worth a try if you are in a contract with Sky… the BT discs will also work with other ISPs… but try the sky product first…
Sadly I’ve already upgraded to their boost product and have one of their extender devices.
WiFi coverage around the house has improved but the Naim gear/app doesn’t like it. I can’t pinpoint the problem to the upgrade as the Star has never really been reliable tbh, compared to NDX2 or 272
If you remove the Sky extender device does it improve your issue?
The Netgear Orbi MESH system is good and can be used in either router mode or access point mode, which you need with your Sky router. The 2-pack RBK50 is a good choice, as it is tri-band. Just remember to turn off the Wi-Fi in your Sky router.
Yes just make sure what you get is in bridge mode… or equivalent… that is it’s NOT trying to be a router… which won’t work.
A bridge is the term used to describe the joining of two network segments into the same network subnet. This is what you need for applications like Naim and other equivalent systems.
One other thing I’ve noticed is that even after successful connection and play requests, the app becomes completely unresponsive to any taps and needs to be closed. What causes the app to freeze?
Sorry you’re having such problems with your network. I initially had to wonder if this wasn’t, indeed, the case, as I can’t imagine Google or Eero as a standalone introducing issues of this sort.
We live in the country and had to resort to a local satellite service carrier (which is quite good, actually) until fiber makes it this way. Funny, because we lived about 2 miles away on the other side of the highway before building and that area has normal fiber up to 1G. We’re the cutoff for that.
Anyway, our service uses a Ubiquity Cube router that everyone else in house connects to. I created a sub-system with the Google Home router/mesh satellites that really only sees my music system…and possibly my wife’s computer/printer to her office when she’s working.
I know this doesn’t help much, but it illustrates how I, personally, have worked around issues such as yours in the last six months or so. Before the second router/mesh addition, I encountered a myriad of issues, and inconsistent ones at that; some very similar to what you’re describing. £177 penalty may be avoidable after all, but in the event it’s not and you choose to go that route, in the larger scheme of things when it comes to all things audio it’s a worthwhile hit for possible peace of mind with another carrier.
Is there any chance you could have a SKY technician come out and help sort all of this?
I spoke to Sky today…their tech support didn’t know what UPnP is…let’s leave it at that. In general the ISP is only interested if there is a broadband connection to the house and WiFi around the house…which there is. I then got transferred to an accounts guy to discuss the early termination penalty. Ironically he was quite a techie and interested. His suspicion is that the router blocks a port and that some kind of port forwarding changes might help…he wouldn’t go into details as they’re not really meant to advise you to tinker with the kit.
Last summer, everything was fine so I still would bet my money on a firmware update or app change that happened around September time…but I can’t prove that obviously. I have asked Naim if I can rollback to an older version.
If I knew that throwing Sky away would fix it then I’d pay it, but without a clear root cause I am reluctant to switch to BT. With the whole house working from home then it’s not a good time to be switching isp when everything else is ok.
Interesting turning of events, especially with what the account rep had to say. Keep us posted on how you’re getting on. If a solution is found on your end it may really help out others who encounter this sort of thing.
If you’re leaning towards a mesh system anyway… you don’t need to ditch Sky as your isp. You should be able to switch the router to modem-only mode (which switches off the WiFi too), and plug a mesh base unit into it. The mesh base unit then takes on the whole network management. As a bonus, if you position one of the satellite units near your Star, you may be able to hard wire it. I don’t think the current google units have ethernet jacks; I think the eero do. Make sure the mesh unit is the only device plugged in to the sky box - no extra switches!
It’s also reversible - so if it doesn’t work any better, you can just undo the changes and put it all back in the box…
Edit - or the Netgear Orbi MESH system in access point mode as suggested by @XMB…
Interim update. I got Sky to switch off Broadband Shield yesterday afternoon. I’ve played with the app during yesterday evening and today ( used different sources, lot’s of in and out of standby and opening/closing the app) and it has only glitched once. So the UPnP doesn’t like whatever their Broadband Shield is doing (blocks dodgy internet sites I think).
Will keep testing and then setup the Orbi in a few days time.
Sometimes the app launches and it looks like it has connected properly, because it presents the dashboard view with sources along the top and the other data, but it doesn’t respond to any screen presses. So either it’s caching a previous ‘view’ or it is completing the unpnp browse and then crashing.
Does anyone know if the app caches or refreshes from new each time it’s opened?
In my current 1-satellite setup, most of the wireless clients are latching to the satellite, even though it is further away than the router…is that normal and would it led to performance degradation for UPnP?
I do not see any performance or UPnP issues no matter if the devices connect to the satellite or main router. The dedicated 5GHz back-haul ensures there is no performance hit.