Ceton InfiniTV 6 - No InfiniTV Found

[Crash2009]

2 nics in 1... a couple of gotcha's.. different subnets, teaming, load balancing, fail over. How is WMC1 set up? This article might be a little dated (2011) but I thought it might be worth a look.....to arouse the expertise of our Network Experts.

http://www.ni.com/white-paper/12558/en/

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/175767

[Crash2009]

Some of the causes mentioned are:
programs that do scans or automatic login
What do you have on your network that might be scanning your tuner? Smart TV? DLNA Server?

This might qualify as a program that does a scan.

Maybe the tuner or your WMC's need to go on the exclusion list (did you say your server was System Center 2012?)

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/data-c ... y-options/

[Cirdecus]

Thank you again everyone!

I'll try and work my way through these:

1) Great idea on simplifying the network Crash. Depending on what Ceton responds with, i was planning on doing another format and making a small network with only the Ceton, my PC and a small switch to eliminate any problems. Ceton asked me to uninstall my anti-virus (which i installed while waiting for them to reply lol) and uninstall RecordedTVHD which i use for DVR shows. They then told me they saw a ton of uPnP broadcasts hammering the network which could cause interference with the Ceton. I didn't think this was important as my tests with the Ceton plugged directly into a newly formatted Windows PC should have ruled that kind of thing out, but i went ahead and followed their instructions and the problem persists. I'm waiting to hear back now.

2) Thank you SOO much for posting a downloadable firmware file. You'd think this would be easily accessible on their site in the downloads section. At some point i may try to do the firmware update and see if it resolves anything.

3) Your post on the InfiniTV ETH 6 being a mini network, with its own built-in DHCP server is a very interesting one. I don't have any IP's in the same subnet, but i wonder whether I'm supposed to leave the default IP of 192.168.200.1 with DHCP server enabled? I turned the DHCP off obviously because I didn't want the Ceton handing out an IP address to some of my devices on the network. I also want to be able to communicate with the Ceton on my own local subnet of 10.0.0.0/24. But maybe giving the Ceton a static IP on my own network isn't right.

4) Good point on the switch, I checked and green mode is disabled thankfully. You're right that it could definitely cause problems.

5) Ryc, I know you mentioned that your ETH shows up as a media device. Mine definitely doesn't. I'm not sure if that is a problem or not.

6) on the Dual NIC question, i probably confused you guys a bit. I have been troubleshooting with 2 Media Center PC's and my own gaming PC. The gaming PC has dual NICs which is an ASUS Z97 Deluxe board. I haven't been using two NICS on the ASRock based PC.

While I wait the next 24 hour cycle for Ceton to respond, I'm going to try and research some of the network details of the ETH6 to see if somehow the network configuration got jacked up. Ether there some deep network config problems or the thing is defective. Ceton is extraordinarily adamant that the tuner is in perfect working order (which I take with a HUGE grain of salt).

I really want to reformat my second WMC PC and make a small little network without any third party interference.

FYI, while i wait for their response, here is the latest:

Thank you for updating us with a new diagnostic this one has gotten us closer to understanding your problem. You're network is being flooded by UPnP requests and it is causing the InfiniTV to drop. Most of the time its 3 party programs like Plex, NAS, HDRecorded TV Services, etc.

1. Completely uninstall Bitdefender
2. Completely uninstall HD Recorded TV Services
3. OCUR PID has not been activated on this PC you'll need to run through the Digital Cable Activation wizard. When installing DCA, it's considered best practice to run WinSAT on your system first. This will help Windows fine tune your computers video and Media Center experience.

First run Winsat:

Open an Administrative command prompt and type in “WinSAT Formal” and let it run once finished open WMC. To open an elevated command prompt window, click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, right-click Command Prompt, and click Run as administrator.

After WinSAT completes proceed with the instructions below to run DCA:

1. Start Windows Media Center
2. Select Extras from the main menu
3. Select Extras Library
4. Select the Digital Cable Advisor icon (picture of a coax cable)

After starting the Digital Cable Advisor, follow the on-screen instructions. If you don't see the Extras Gallery in your Windows Media Center, you can manually download and install it by using the below link that's appropriate for your version of Windows 7:

x86 - 32 bit Windows 7: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=195559
x64 - 64 bit Windows 7: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=195560

After doing so, you should be able to follow the previous instructions. Please let us know if you have any questions.

Thank you,
Ceton Support

Of course i have done all of this many times and did it again with a new diagnostic post to humor them, but i'm no closer to solving this riddle..

[Cirdecus]

Here's a screen (hopefully my link works) of the kind of thing I'm experiencing:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8hzwh7c9i77x8 ... 2.png?dl=0

I can get the Ceton Diagnostic Tool to see the ETH6 if I reboot it enough times, but it doesn't last. It will either throw a CableCard error or some other random red check mark. When going through LIVE TV setup, WMC is also PAINFULLY slow between each screen. It takes a good 15 minutes to complete the process when it took less than 2 minutes in the past.

Once Live TV Setup is finished, WMC simply says "no tuner" or spends 10 minutes trying to tune the channel and finally displays it for 10 more minutes before displaying "no tuner"

So this really isn't a scenerio where the Ceton is 100% gone. It's just completely unstable and unusable lol. Sometimes when going through live TV setup, it will detect only 3 tuners (tuner 2, 3 and 5). Then another time it will grab only tuners 5 and 6. Then sometimes it will just find all 6 with no problem. But most of the time, it's in a state in the screenshot above. I can easily access it via a browser, but WMC and Ceton Diag have no idea it exists.

[Crash2009]

I'll try and work my way through these

1) Will we call this one WMC3 or 4? Yes....Simplify. Brand New, Activated, Win7(64). Use something with only 1 NIC. 2 NIC's will create other challenges. Keep it simple, If you have to install antivirus to get all the Updates, use Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE is light weight, free, and wont bother the tuner). Set "Both" the ETH and WMC3 to DHCP. Default network settings on both. No Static. Acquire IP automatically.
2) You might want to read the entire post. It is mostly about ETH6 and all about the firmware you already have.
3) Leave WMC3 and ETH6 at their default settings. Win7 sets itself up to Acquire IP Automatically, and so does ETH6. They don't need any help. Just take them back to original with a reset, and they will figure it out on their own. You only need static in a dual NIC setup,
4) After we get this ETH problem ironed out, we could give you a hand with the HP48. Port Mirroring and Wireshark really come in handy to see what's going on inside the network. For example, you would be able to see all those uPnP broadcasts that Ceton was talking about, determine where they come from, and reduce, eliminate, or redirect them.
5) This is a problem that will correct itself with the steps in 1) and 3). If windows can't see your tuner then niether can WMC.
6) Yup and don't use a 2 NIC box for the next test.

I see in your screencap from DropBox that your IP is 10.0.0.111 I thought you did a reset back to 192.168.200.1

[Crash2009]

I just thought of something. Shut off the Xbox and try the tuner again. Not just unplug the Cat5e (it will continue to connect with WIfi)..... Shut it Down.

One of the kids here hooked up an xbox one time without reading the manual. This damn near brought my network to its knees. Took me a long while to find the source of the problem. 9 boys, 6000 square feet, blah, blah.

There is a Cat5e in each room but he was using the Cat5e for his computer and running the xbox wirelessly. When it was on, I barely had enough bandwidth to check my email. Long story short it was too far from the wireless access point (my router) and was re-sending the same bits and bytes over and over again which saturated the network. (clogged the pipe with BS).

Anyways, I solved the saturation problem by installing a dumbed down router in his room which had a few ports he could use as a switch.

Digging in to it a little deeper, I got a bit of a uPnP education, and found out that it was sending uPnP requestto everywhere trying to find a router that would allow it to get out of the house. Now the simple solution would be to enable uPnP in my router but I didn't want to give up control, or lose security, so I did a bit of reading and found out that the Xbox was trying to open up ports in the router and the router refused because allow uPnP requests were disabled.

If I had allowed uPnP requests in the router, anything on the network could open any of the ports and the entire network would be wide open to internet with a firewall that looks like Swiss Cheeze. So that turned into a Manual Port Forwarding Project which might have some bearing in your case. I might add though I had the benefit of a Wireshark capture so I knew what I was looking for.

Xbox requires ports 53,80,88,1863 and 3074 to be open to do its thing. Manual Port Forwarding these ports in the router would reduce the UPnP requests. Basically Xbox is asking the router to open doors numbered 53,80,88,1863 and 3074. We don't want to leave these doors open all the time so we uPnP the doors (sort of like a motion activated sensor) or we Port Forward the doors (like a security guard will open the door if you show the correct ID)

Here is a page on forwarding an RT-87U Router. Select your Xbox model from the list.

http://portforward.com/english/routers/ ... /RT-AC87U/

[Cirdecus]

1) Will do, i'll try and get started on it tonight and hopefully finish either late tonight or tomorrow with a completely fresh environment.
2) will do
3) Alright, I'm going to ignore the tech experience screaming at me to not allow a second DHCP server on the network and see what happens when this guy is defaulted back
4) That would be awesome, I know the switch can do more than what I'm using it for. A lot of consultants I hire use wireshark but I haven't touched it in years. I'd love to know what's going on in the network. I did recently reformat my server from Win 2008 R2 to win 2012 R2. Hope I didn't install anything to cause this craziness. I do use Emby heavily with a ton of media.
5) alright, though i really can't remember seeing a Ceton in devices in years, i'll keep an eye out for it if we can get this to work in the test environment

In the screen grab, I didn't reset the Ceton, i was just following the Ceton instructions first and they didn't ask me to reset it again. That screen was sent back to them as a reply asking for next steps.

My xbox 360 was behaving strangely earlier, my WMC PC couldn't connect to it claiming it was on a "different network". I thought this was a side effect of the Ceton spitting out 192.168.200.0/24 IP's all over my network. I'll completely turn it off and unplug it. I also have a Pioneer Elite VSX-53 Receiver that connects to the network and allows iPads, Androids and other devices to send audio to it and airplay. I can unplug this as well. Other than this i just have various iPads and 2 gaming PCs, one which i mentioned earlier.

[Crash2009]

1) - 5)

3) I agree with your reluctance to have 2 (or more) DHCP servers. I went to the same school. This is just a guess on my part, but I believe where the problem comes in, is 2 DHCP servers managing the same set of IP addresses. The 3 DHCP servers I have on my network and the numbers each one manages are:

192.168.1.0 (Lan1) managing 1.1 to 1.254
192.168.2.0 (Lan2) managing 2.1 to 2.254
192.168.200.0 (Ceton) managing 200.1 to 200.7 (in your case) and likely up to 200.254

The Ceton works fine on either side, or any network for that matter, because it is set to acquire an address automatically, while at the same time it is permitted to manage its own .200 network and convert or route 192.168.200.*** to (in your case)10.0.0.***. Since all 3 manage different numbers there are no conflicts.

I use Emby also, but mostly just to access live TV in the truck.

Re Strange behavior of the Xbox, it can't be a side effect of Ceton DHCP as was explained in (3) above. More than likely the WMC PC that was claiming it was on a different network, had simply lost its IP and had defaulted to the 169.254.***.*** which means your computer couldn't find your ASUS Router. Quick fix for that is set it to acquire an IP automatically, save, go to a dos prompt and type ipconfig /release then ipconfig /renew Google: APIPA for an explanation.

I don't know about the Pioneer, I'm not much in to Audio.

Here is a little project for you. Grab one of your laptops and plug it in to the switch HP48, install Wireshark including the Pcap. Once you open up Wireshark select the laptops WIRED network adapter, then click Capture. You will see whatever traffic is passing by the port you are plugged in to. Doesn't really matter which port you are plugged into but lets use port 20 as an example.

Then, figure out which port the Xbox is plugged into in the HP48, lets use port 30 as an example.

Port 20 is the Destination
Port 30 is the Source

Login to the switches webpage, go to the mirroring section and set the source and destination, click Apply. Now you will see everything going in and out of the Xbox on the Wireshark screen. A mirror image so to speak. By the way port 20 will be useless for anything else but mirroring until you remove it as a Destination from the mirroring section of the HP48's webpage. Also you can change the Source port to any port you are interested in. Port 30 will remain normal.

[Crash2009]

Mirroring Page 32

http://h20565.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/pub ... cale=en_US

[Crash2009]

Here is a hard copy of the switch configuration.

[Crash2009]

Ether there some deep network config problems

Time and Date can throw your network for a loop.

What Time and Date does your switch think it is? page 23

Do you remember if you set up SNTP? Page 27

[Cirdecus]

Looks like my switch thinks its 1970. The Ceton says I installed the latest beta firmware in 1980..\

lol.

Reformatting WMC PC 2. Going to install only drivers. Maybe not even windows updates. I'll plug the ceton into the switch and unplug everything else. Then plug only the WMC into the switch. I'll keep it off the router too

[Cirdecus]

Does anyone know what kind of port configuration the Ceton requires? 100HDX, 100FDX ?

[Crash2009]

Does anyone know what kind of port configuration the Ceton requires? 100HDX, 100FDX ?

Gig 1000

1000FDX assuming that means full duplex

[Crash2009]

Looks like my switch thinks its 1970. The Ceton says I installed the latest beta firmware in 1980..\

lol.

Reformatting WMC PC 2. Going to install only drivers. Maybe not even windows updates. I'll plug the ceton into the switch and unplug everything else. Then plug only the WMC into the switch. I'll keep it off the router too

You will have to set the time and date every time you boot the switch.....until you set up simple network time protocol SNTP Page 27

What time and date does the router think it is?

same for the pc your going to use.

wmcpc2 will at least need to be activated, activation can screw you too.

The rest of the plan looks good.

[Crash2009]

I thought that was a GIG switch. It's only 10/100. Only the fiber ports are gig. Page 31

I think it will be ok for the test, but once you get rocking and rolling recording 6 and playing 6 you will be close to saturation.

Each HD stream is about 13.5 X 6 tuners = 81 and your switch port capacity is only 100. That's fine for the tuner port, but where the problem comes in is in the wmcpc2 port. 81 coming in from the tuner and 81 going out to the devices puts you at 62 over what the port can do. Plus...whatever else is going on.

Ceton install directions specify GIG all the way through....GIG wire coming out of the tuner...... to a GIG switch..... to a GIG NIC on wmcpc2.

The good news is....this doesn't screw the test....you have more than enough capacity to run 3 tuners and play 4 shows at the same time. actually its a little tight, 2 and 2 no problem.

[Crash2009]

I am confused.
The 2 HP documents seem to have conflicting information. The first one HP1810-J9660A_Switch, Page 7, says it has 48... 10/100/1000 ports. That makes it a GIG switch.

The 2nd HP document HP1810-J9660A_Switch_Configuration, Page 32 says only the fiber ports are 1000FDX....GIG

I suppose the only way to know for sure is to ask you.

When you go to configure the speed of the ports in the switch webpage, does the webpage give you the 1000FDX option for all 48 ports?

[Cirdecus]

Thank you Crash!

1) Thank you for the tip on the switch. I was confused because it wouldn't let me manually update the time. After turning on SNTP and setting a time server it corrected itself!
2) The router is thankfully configured to use an NTP server and it appears that it is getting updates multiple times a day
3) I just reformatted the PC, so i'll be making sure the time is set correctly. I started it last night and I'm finishing up windows updates this morning. I also found a small Cisco/Linksys SE2800 switch that i'll use in the mini test environment.
4) Ok just checked. I can't select duplex settings manually that are greater than 100FDX, BUT when devices connect and ask for 1000, they get it. I posted a few screens. The second screen you'll notice that the Ceton is plugged into port 11 and there is absolutely no traffic on port 11.. strange? I know i switched ports probably 5 times, but if the NIC in the Ceton actually worked, you'd think I'd see some kind of traffic.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6q9u61b6yu20kvu/hp1.png?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ozlseettlzhlkwv/hp2.png?dl=0

Almost finished with updates. What's the best way to factory reset the Ceton for this test? (FYI I refreshed the firmware with the same beta you sent me just in case). Also, how in the world do you get the Ceton to not think it is not 1980?

[Cirdecus]

I'm a little sad, I updated Ceton mid-day this past friday and asked for next steps, it's been over 24 hours and still no response.

[Cirdecus]

Test Environment done, diagram attached NOTE: I forgot the coax in the diagram that goes from the splitter to the cable modem, but please assume that it exists lol

1) Windows 7 64-bit fresh install, no software installed, just windows
2) All Windows updates complete
3) All BIOS and driver updates finished
4) Ceton Drivers installed from website

The only devices in play here are:

1) Ceton InfiniTV ETH 6
2) Charter Cable Modem
3) Small SE2800 switch
4) Tuning Adapter

That's it. You can see from the attached screenshots that the InfiniTV is still no where to be found. I hit "reset network settings" which did absolutely nothing.

Have no idea how Ceton employees think this is not a defective unit.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ni42mbetm0wqm ... p.pdf?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0kzv0n4cekkex ... 1.png?dl=0

HELP!