Beyonwiz T4 network connection dropped - can not see it on windows explorer

[JasonPale]

Hi

I have a Beyonwiz T4, i have been able to see it via Windows explorer for about 2 years or from when i bought it. I transfer files to watch on the TV over to the internal hardrive i put into the T4.

PC
Windows 7 Professional

Beyonwiz
Chipset BCM7424 CPU BCN7425B2
Drivers 2016-04-05
OE Core 16.1
Last Upgrade 2017-03-10

Modem
TP LInk Archer VR900
though i have had the beyonwiz connected via a TP LINK switch TL-SG1008D for about 4 months. Working fine.

All by ethernet cable routed through the roof - so 3 cables in total

There is a RJ45 wall plate in my study, with a cable to the switch (then to the router)
Cable run throughout the roof diagonally to the other side of the house and down the cavity to another wall plate that comes out near the TV
Cable runs from wall plate in TV room to back of Beyonwiz T4

I note there is no green light on the port the T4 cable is connected to, green light for other ports
i have tried connecting the cable (wall plate in study) to other ports on the switch still no green light
I broke out a new ethernet cable and placed that from the wall plate in study to the switch, still no green light
I tried the same cable in the TV room, wall plate to back of Beyonwiz - still doesnt show up on Windows Explorer

I went to Network setting in the T4 and did the test i get

Lan Connection TICK
Local Network Disconnected
DHCP Enabled
IP address CROSS 'unconfirmed'
Nameserver CROSS 'unconfirmed'

restarted network

ran Network test again
same results

In the LAN Connection screen, adaptor settings
Ip address
n/a
subnet
n/a
Gateway
has a address
Primary DNS
has the same address
Secondary DNS
0.0.0.0

I logged into the router and it can see its 4 individual LAN ports, one of which is the switch. It cant see any of the 8 potential items plugged into the 8 ports on the switch though. I did test cables currently in the switch by plugging them into the routers ports and it could see them. But not the cable to the T4, that goes to the wall plate and then through the roof.

Note: the only thing i did do, is go up into the roofspace to a little storage area i have made and move some boxes around. They are very close from memory to where the cable guys originally routed the ethernet cable through the rafters, this area is almost above the study, so maybe i damage the cable. I will go up now and see.

Questions
What else can i do to diagnose this?

is there a somewhat cheap tool i could buy from Jaycar or something to test continuity along a ethernet cables length? maybe for now i go and connect the laptop i have into the ethernet cable in the TV room, the one coming out of the wall plate?

[JasonPale]

hmm it seems the Beyonwiz T4 now does show up in the router as beyonwizt4 and thats plugged into the switch as well.

But its still not showing in Windows Explorer?

went back and ran the network test in the wiz and results

Lan Connection TICK
Local Network Please wait
DHCP Enabled
IP address Confirmed
Nameserver Confirmed

so only the local network still has an error

I am trying to find what i did initially but I don't remember going through a mounting process or Map my network drive process.

In fact I think my experience was as described in this article

It turned out we didn’t actually need FTP. We eventually noticed that the T4 had made an appearance on the list of network resources in Windows Explorer. A couple of seconds of clicking around and we found the ‘movie’ folder which contained all the recordings. No need for the web interface, nor for FTP, we could just drag and drop files to our computer

http://i.nextmedia.com.au/Assets/SI_Jun ... nwizT4.pdf

[MrQuade]

You should try temporarily moving the T4 to the switch (or vice versa) and plug it directly in with a single patch lead.

If you still get no green light on the T4, then your Ethernet port may have failed.

If you do get a green light there, you can start tracing through the fixed wiring in the roof/wall for the discontinuity.


Also, you may want to consider a manual firmware update (USB method). The version you are using is quite old, and the latest 17.5 series has a lot of improvements and security enhancements. Upgrading from 16.1 to 17.5 does unfortunately necessitate re-configuring your settings and timers manually though.

[JasonPale]

hi Mr Quade

there is a green light on the back of the Beyonwiz, well a orange and green one.

When I mentioned no green light before i meant in the study, the port light on the back of the switch wasnt lighting up. Now it is as well.
The router in the study with the PC connected to it can see the Beyonwiz, the Open Webif gets me to the Beyonwiz if I type its IP address.

So I assume i do not have to do the below?

If you do get a green light there, you can start tracing through the fixed wiring in the roof/wall for the discontinuity.

I will consider the firmware upgrade but shouldn't i be able to get it work without the upgrade, see the edit to my post about how easy it was initally and windows explorer just 'appeared'

[MrQuade]

there is a green light on the back of the Beyonwiz, well a orange and green one.

When I mentioned no green light before i meant in the study, the port light on the back of the switch wasnt lighting up. Now it is as well.

The same idea goes for both ends of the link then. It does sound like something is intermittently connecting there, so it would be interesting to know why the switch's LED suddenly sprang into life.

Anyway, it sounds like the Wiz is connected properly for the time being.

Now the harder problem is the Windows Explorer issue. This is basically the fault of the SMB protocol in the way that it browses for SMB servers on the network. There are quite a number of posts on the forums that describe the SMB "master browser" issue. Have a search for that term for more info.

In short, a Windows network always has a "master browser". It is any one of your PCs, NAS, Router, or Beyonwiz...anything that supports Windows networking. The master is decided by a "master browser election". Sometimes your network ends up with multiple master browsers because the protocol is not that reliable. Your T4 may have registered with a different master than your Windows PC and thus Windows can't see it at the moment.

The T4 itself may be the master, and that is quite likely, as the T4 on the 16.1 series firmware attempts to nominate itself as master with a very high priority by default.

You can still access your T4 by typing \\beyonwizt4 into the address bar of explorer, or your run prompt though, it just won't appear in the Explorer network discovery area until your master browser clash is sorted out.

You can sometimes fix these issues with selective rebooting of equipment until the master browser is consistent across all devices.

I will consider the firmware upgrade but shouldn't i be able to get it work without the upgrade, see the edit to my post about how easy it was initally and windows explorer just 'appeared'

Yes you should be able to . The firmware issue was not really related to this issue as such, I just noticed that you were about 2 years out of date and thought I would suggest the update.

Several of the enhancements were around the network sharing and security settings in fact. That being said though, you may find that the master browser issue becomes less of a problem with 17.5, since the T4 will no longer nominate itself as a master with maximum priority.

[JasonPale]

hi again thanks again for the responses

\\beyonwizt4

being able to just type the above to open up the media area would be handy as I then just dump my downloads from my PC there.
but when i put the above in, it will not resolve it just keeps working away trying to get somewhere with the tab showing a blank page

Directly typing the T4s ip address gets me into Open Webif, where it looks like i can still download to my PC any T4 recordings, but not the other direction?

[MrQuade]

hi again thanks again for the responses

\\beyonwizt4

being able to just type the above to open up the media area would be handy as I then just dump my downloads from my PC there.
but when i put the above in, it will not resolve it just keeps working away trying to get somewhere with the tab showing a blank page

Directly typing the T4s ip address gets me into Open Webif, where it looks like i can still download to my PC any T4 recordings, but not the other direction?

If you got openwebif, then you have typed that into your browser's address bar. I meant to type it into your Windows Explorer address bar.

If \\beyonwizt4 doesn't work, but \\ipaddress does, then it means you may also have a DNS problem on your network.

Both your Windows PC and your T4 should ideally both be using DHCP to get their IP address, and they should both be using your router (which I am assuming is your DHCP server) as their DNS server.

When you are configured that way, the Windows PC and the T4 will register their own names with the DNS server automatically, then when any device on the LAN queries DNS for their name, the DNS server will be able to respond. If your LAN devices use an external DNS server (such as Google's or Cloudflare), then they will not be able to query THAT DNS server for your T4 or PC's network names.

[JasonPale]

If \\beyonwizt4 doesn't work, but \\ipaddress does, then it means you also have a DNS problem on your network.

ah, sorry, typed it into windows explorer and it works!

and i can drag files into it or out of it back to the PC, thats great.
Could i map network drive to it?

Both your Windows PC and your T4 should ideally both be using DHCP to get their IP address, and they should both be using your router (which I am assuming is your DHCP server) as their DNS server.

iam sure this is the case, the namserver field and primary DNS field in the T4 is the router. The address is also the same as the Gateway?

For the PC, via Adapter Settings in Network and sharing, details, the DNS and DHCP and Gateway are also the same number as the T4.

Does that confirmation help with the Master Browser or just confirm that the \\beyonwizt4 should work (which i confirm it does)

on the masterbrowser i saw this from 10 years back
https://scottiestech.info/2009/02/14/ho ... workgroup/

[MrQuade]

Does that confirmation help with the Master Browser or just confirm that the \\beyonwizt4 should work (which i confirm it does)

The second thing

Could i map network drive to it?

You can, but mapping drive letters to network shares is a bit old fashioned in Windows-land these days. The general advice these days is to always access network resources using the UNC instead.
I find it easier to simply mark the network share folder as an Explorer Favourite location, and that way it always appears in the top left hand side of explorer under "Quick Access" when I need it. When you have the desired folder open, right-click "Quick Access" and select "Pin current folder to Quick access".

On the masterbrowser i saw this from 10 years back
https://scottiestech.info/2009/02/14/ho ... workgroup/

Yep, there are a bunch of Good resources on the subject around. The trick is to try to encourage only one of your device to ever be the master. That one device should be an always-on device do that the chances of something else using over are minimised. My NAS is my preferred master browser.

If you have a linux box on the network running the full Samba software suite, it is actually easier to determine the master browser since it has be reporting tools than windows ironically. If you are running windows 10 you can actually install "windows services for Linux" and install a full Ubuntu distro that runs under windows without virtualisation. This will let you run the Linux Samba software from Windows to use as a diagnostic tool among many other things.

[JasonPale]

The trick is to try to encourage only one of your device to ever be the master. That one device should be an always-on device do that the chances of something else using over are minimised. My NAS is my preferred master browser.

hi in my case it would only be the modem that is always on.

My PC i try to shutdown regularly and the T4 is being turned on and off as TV is finished being watched.(though never shutdown ?)

So I assume attempting to make the TP LINK VR900 is the best option

[MrQuade]

So I assume attempting to make the TP LINK VR900 is the best option

Possibly, but I don't see a nice easy method for increasing the VR900's master browser election priority in the user manual.

If you leave the T4 permanently in standby, then it may be the best candidate to leave as the master browser after all. You just have to ensure that all your other devices agree with that.

This arrangement should be reasonably stable as long as the T4's network connection is not flakey (not yet established) and the T4 doesn't get rebooted regularly.

[Paul_oz53]

As a frequent contributor to discussion of master browser issues, by far the best option is to use the router to allocate IP addresses to the T4 and PCs by their MAC addresses.

My experience after swapping to this approach is this'll greatly reduce the disappearing network connections. The Master Browser when its a PC or T4 updates on a 5 to 15 minute cycle and not too reliably when it does. Hence the missing connection. The router holds the list far more reliably than either the T4 or PC.

You can use the T4 as the master browser but be prepared for occasional disappearing connections.

PS. If your lights are orange on the switch etc, this probably means it is connected at a lower speed. That would be consistent with a damaged cable or connection.

[MrQuade]

As a frequent contributor to discussion of master browser issues, by far the best option is to use the router to allocate IP addresses to the T4 and PCs by their MAC addresses.

My experience after swapping to this approach is this'll greatly reduce the disappearing network connections. The Master Browser when its a PC or T4 updates on a 5 to 15 minute cycle and not too reliably when it does. Hence the missing connection. The router holds the list far more reliably than either the T4 or PC.

You are describing two different things there.

IP address allocation is not related to master browser functions.

[Paul_oz53]

You are describing two different things there.

IP address allocation is not related to master browser functions.

Noted MrQuade but I take a different view: I think there is an interaction at play here. It is true the master browser doesn't care which device allocated the IP address. What I have found is that the disappearing "network connection" issue appears strongly correlated with the quality of the master browser's maintenance of the list of IP allocations. Errors appear to occur less frequently if you assign IPs via the router.

Despite the master browser polling the network at intervals from 5 to 15 minutes, back when the router did not allocate IPs, it was quite hit or miss whether whichever device was the master browser properly updated its list (be it a PC or the T3, T4 or U4), even when forced to refresh the list. It was disappointing that neither a PC nor one of the Wizzes did a good job in this regard.

However, since swapping to router assigned IPs I have had no such problems with any of my devices, despite not changing the master browser arrangements in the network. In the past, I experimented with extreme settings of each device to be the master browser to try and find a reliable setting. This had limited success. It worked most of the time but not always. I have noticed recently the router tends to be dominant as the master browser too, despite the settings in the T series firmware being as they are. It may be that the real culprit was the old router all along because I swapped to router assigned IPs when I got the new NBN router.

The point of my post is just that my experience is that assigning IPs via the router results in better stability than via the reserved address option in each device. In part, this appears to be because the master browser is less likely to have an incomplete list.

Curiously, the DP boxes never seemed to suffer the same fate and were always available when accessed by Yardwiz or one of the other boxes. It had always been the PC folders or the T/U series folders that disappeared.

Since it ain't broke anymore, I'm in no rush to fix it! For anyone having similar issues, I'm comfortable suggesting router assigned IPs may help.

[MrQuade]

Curiously, the DP boxes never seemed to suffer the same fate and were always available when accessed by Yardwiz or one of the other boxes. It had always been the PC folders or the T/U series folders that disappeared.

Very different protocol in use there. Much more straightforward and reliable as a result. It didn't rely on DNS resolution or a central tracking matter, rather it discovered on demand.

[prl]

Much more straightforward and reliable as a result.

Straightforward, reliable and proprietary (though the protocol was made available to developers by Beyonwiz).

[raymondjpg]

Noted MrQuade but I take a different view: I think there is an interaction at play here.

I take a similar view. I have previously said that in my opinion there is more than just a master browser issue at play with the disappearing network resource. I also think that election of two master browsers on a LAN is a red herring, because the issue can arise even when just one master browser has been elected.

What it is due to I do not know. It has been suggested that it may be down to routers, and in one instance on my LAN, I use an ageing Netgear wireless router as an AP for a T2, which regularly disappears from the file explorer, while an ethernet wired U4 is usually found to be present. I also find, curiously, that if my Win7 desktop is set as the master browser, and network services Server and Computer Browser are restarted. then all network resources are generally visible, while the same cannot be said for a Win10 desktop on the LAN when set as the master browser.

Since it ain't broke anymore, I'm in no rush to fix it! For anyone having similar issues, I'm comfortable suggesting router assigned IPs may help.

I did try your suggestion of reserving IP addresses for the T2 and U4 in the gateway modem/router, but it made no difference. Network resources still went AWOL from time to time. Maybe if I had reserved addresses for all devices on my LAN it might have made a difference, but like you I'm in no rush to change what is currently working well enough for me with fixed IP addresses.

[MrQuade]

Let me be clear.

The best option to solve all the issues is to have the router assign fixed IPs to all of your LAN devices using DHCP. Of that there is no debate.

1) Fixed IP addresses will help the master browser keep a more reliable list if SMB clients. Also valid.

2) Linked DHCP/DNS servers (or on the same device) will allow the router to properly resolve IP addresses when attempting to connect to devices by name.

3) Ensuring there is one single SMB master browser on the network will ensure that all SMB clients have a consistent view of all of the other SMB devices on the network.

These are three separate measures that can be taken to ensure reliable operation of SMB, and particularly, ensuring that devices automatically appear in the Windows Explorer.


The exception that I was originally making was really with this statement:

You can use the T4 as the master browser but be prepared for occasional disappearing connections.

There is no reason that using the T4 as the master browser would result in dropped connections. If the T4 is the master browser, and you have fixed DHCP-assigned addresses for all devices, then there should be no issues.

I could have been more clear when I was trying to point out that the DNS problem and master browsers problem were separate. The problems do interact to make overall issue diagnosis more complicated.

[Paul_oz53]

The exception that I was originally making was really with this statement:

You can use the T4 as the master browser but be prepared for occasional disappearing connections.

There is no reason that using the T4 as the master browser would result in dropped connections. If the T4 is the master browser, and you have fixed DHCP-assigned addresses for all devices, then there should be no issues.

I could have been more clear when I was trying to point out that the DNS problem and master browsers problem were separate. The problems do interact to make overall issue diagnosis more complicated.

Hi MrQuade,

Apologies for drawing out the discussion - just trying to recount the frustration as we experienced it with the T4 as master browser. It wasn't hopeless but nowhere near perfect either. Best I can do is offer you a virtual beer - a real one if you're ever in Melbourne.

By and large, we are in total agreement.

As you say ... There is no reason why the T4 should result in dropped connections ... but for reasons unknown sometimes our T4 as master browser would be very slow to recognise that one or other of the machines was online or had come back online. Left long enough, the share would eventually reappear most times but cold consolation with an impatient household.

I very deliberately set the T4 master browser election parameter to a high priority value. A check of the logs and from the PC would confirm it was polling the network as the master browser but not seeing the new connection. But the responses would list other machines that were already on. I would reboot machines including the T4 and the router when a device (usually a PC) was missing - but not something that impressed the other half - and usually, that would fix it.

Later I tried the T3 as master, since it was left on for long periods whereas I often fiddled with the T4. That didn't work any better and briefly, I also tried the U4 and one of the Windows 7 PCs. Around about now I expect peteru to chime in with homilies about how great samba is. In practice, the election process did not always go as expected, even when the priority values were carefully coordinated.

I do find on our current setup things are pretty good now. Very rare to have an issue except if I restart the U4. The shares sometimes have to be remounted but that is a limited problem associated with doing an update to software typically.

[MrQuade]

What device did you end up using as the master browser then?

[Paul_oz53]

What device did you end up using as the master browser then?

Oops, I thought I replied last night but forgot to press "submit".

My Win 7 PC is currently the master browser. It has the registry hacked to make it the first choice. It is generally on 18 hrs a day as I work mostly from home now. I suspect the T4 is the alternate but can't readily check that without coopting the other PC - not easy when the other half is around.

At one stage LANScan showed the router as the master but I have my doubts as the router does not have an accessible setting to make it a master browser. Only a couple of models of router have true smb master browser functionality from what little I've read.

[MrQuade]

Any SMB enabled device can become a master browser, but not all will expose the ability to adjust the election priority.

[Paul_oz53]

Any SMB enabled device can become a master browser, but not all will expose the ability to adjust the election priority.

That would explain it then. If my PC was off and I ran LANscan from one of the other PCs or a laptop it could have found the router acting as master.