Interesting DLNA Problem. Solved.

[Jimmersd]

My home system has several other components besides the HTPC and a couple Echos. I also have a Synology DiskStation which serves video and audio to my wireless devices and a couple Roku's

This problem came about while using Synology Audio Station. I added a bluetooth connection from the Diskstation to my home stereo receiver and was using the Android DS Audio app to control playback. With this app I can play audio files from my Diskstation as well as internet radio. I connect to the DS with my tablet through WiFi and stream to a bluetooth receiver connected to the stereo.

Last night I started to have problems with both of my Echos, the playback would stop, lockup then I would get the WMC popup that said that there was a network connectivity problem, wanting to test the connection. We've all seen this. It happened whether I was watching live or recorded. Since the only thing that had changed before this problem cropped up was the installation of the bluetooth connection that was the first place I looked.

To be clear. I have disabled Window network throttling on all my Windows boxes and have almost no problems for quite some time.

After doing some searching I found that DS Audio Station had been searching for DLNA connections and pinging everything that was DLNA compliant on my network. Namely the Echo's, Rokus, and HDHR Primes. Since my network is pretty resilient and even full throttle with multiple tuners supplying signals to the HTPC for recording as well as watching live on both Echos I haven't seen this network bandwidth error in quite a long time. My managed switch barely get's past 10% on CPU usage.

The problem turned out to be a combination of things. First: althought I had turned off the stream from an internet radio broadcast I still had the DS Audio ap opened on my tablet. Call this one an Andrioid programming/user fail. Second: There is a switch in DS Audio Station which tells Audio Station to search for DLNA devices. This had been set to ON. This was probably my fail. Both added up to something that caused the Echo to struggle with a connection to WMC and caused WMC/Echo to be less than user friendly.

Food for thought if you are troubleshooting an apparently freezing glitchy Echo box. My Echos have been bulletproof for quite a while.

[Crash2009]

It doesn't take much to mess an Echo up. Recently, I setup a dedicated mirror port in the switch, to monitor one of my Echo's when problems arise. Still trying to understand what I'm seeing, but some things are obvious. Something as simple as one of the kids, plugging in a router and forgetting to turn off DHCP, seems to cause combing, network issue, and eventual freeze and reboot. Another time the kids plugged in a Wifi extender to use as a switch, with the same effect on Echo. Obviously my network is not as solid as I think. Your issue sounds complex, glad you figured it out.

I haven't played around with DLNA much. Are you actually using it? or, was the problem DS Audio Station thinking you should be?

[jec6613]

It's generally wise to run single purpose devices like the Echo on their own VLANs. You can have your switch assign to the proper VLAN based on MAC address, and then either create an inter-VLAN route, or use a second NIC or a NIC that supports 802.1q tagging.

I have four VLANs at my place, (servers, clients, WMC/streaming, and home automation) and never have any such troubles.

[Jimmersd]

I haven't played around with DLNA much. Are you actually using it? or, was the problem DS Audio Station thinking you should be?

I'm pretty sure that the video streaming to my tablets using HDHR View does use DLNA but I don't see much reason for Audio Station to be getting involved. I have disabled DLNA searching. Bluetooth doesn't need it. No problems since.

[Jimmersd]

It's generally wise to run single purpose devices like the Echo on their own VLANs. You can have your switch assign to the proper VLAN based on MAC address, and then either create an inter-VLAN route, or use a second NIC or a NIC that supports 802.1q tagging.

I have four VLANs at my place, (servers, clients, WMC/streaming, and home automation) and never have any such troubles.

Thats a great tip! Thanks I will look into that.