What the Wifi is going on here?
February 25, 2012 7:08 AM
Help me diagnose problems with my Macs/Apple TV now that I have an XFinity wireless router please!
I had an Apple wifi router and all was happy. I had 5 Mac computers, 2 iPhones, 2 iPads, 2 Apple TVs, and 1 HP PC all living in wireless harmony.
But the range of the Apple router was short, and the router itself was buggy (required weekly reboots, and every firmware upgrade made things worse) so when XFinity upgraded our service we switched over to their new router.
Everything is DHCP. I have 2 Macs' wireless turned off and they are plugged into the router with a Cat-5 cable. The rest are running wireless.
All my devices can, 100% of the time, get on the internet. But now there's problems with them talking to each other. They're all IPed but here are the problems:
*Apple TVs cannot find the computers that have iTunes open and Home Sharing on them. The computers, however, CAN find the Apple TVs. So I cannot browse libraries on the Apple TVs, but if at a computer I can send video to the Apple TVs
*The computers have file sharing turned on, but it doesn't always work. I see lists of computers on the network in the left bar of Finder under "Shared" but (a) sometimes the same computer will be listed twice, (b) clicking on a computer name usually results in a long wait followed by a failure. BUT, if I go to the same computer by choosing "Connect to server" and typing an IP address, it loads perfectly.
*Screen sharing is the same way. If a computer shows up in Shared and I click on it and choose "Share screen" a long time passes and it usually fails. But if I load screen sharing and enter an IP address, it connects 100% of the time.
I am at a loss of what's going on, and of course Apple support communities blame XFinity, XFinity support says it's a configuration with my Apple devices since they can all get on the internet flawlessly.
Google Fu turned up no results. Hoping someone here can help?
I had an Apple wifi router and all was happy. I had 5 Mac computers, 2 iPhones, 2 iPads, 2 Apple TVs, and 1 HP PC all living in wireless harmony.
But the range of the Apple router was short, and the router itself was buggy (required weekly reboots, and every firmware upgrade made things worse) so when XFinity upgraded our service we switched over to their new router.
Everything is DHCP. I have 2 Macs' wireless turned off and they are plugged into the router with a Cat-5 cable. The rest are running wireless.
All my devices can, 100% of the time, get on the internet. But now there's problems with them talking to each other. They're all IPed but here are the problems:
*Apple TVs cannot find the computers that have iTunes open and Home Sharing on them. The computers, however, CAN find the Apple TVs. So I cannot browse libraries on the Apple TVs, but if at a computer I can send video to the Apple TVs
*The computers have file sharing turned on, but it doesn't always work. I see lists of computers on the network in the left bar of Finder under "Shared" but (a) sometimes the same computer will be listed twice, (b) clicking on a computer name usually results in a long wait followed by a failure. BUT, if I go to the same computer by choosing "Connect to server" and typing an IP address, it loads perfectly.
*Screen sharing is the same way. If a computer shows up in Shared and I click on it and choose "Share screen" a long time passes and it usually fails. But if I load screen sharing and enter an IP address, it connects 100% of the time.
I am at a loss of what's going on, and of course Apple support communities blame XFinity, XFinity support says it's a configuration with my Apple devices since they can all get on the internet flawlessly.
Google Fu turned up no results. Hoping someone here can help?
It was not enabled...
I'm wondering if it may be the Wifi security I'm using? I'm using Security:WPA2PSK-AES
Half our devices didn't work when the router's default of WPAWPA2-PSK (TKIP/AES) was used.
posted by bodgy at 10:05 AM on February 25, 2012
I'm wondering if it may be the Wifi security I'm using? I'm using Security:WPA2PSK-AES
Half our devices didn't work when the router's default of WPAWPA2-PSK (TKIP/AES) was used.
posted by bodgy at 10:05 AM on February 25, 2012
I should add I also tried WPA-PSK (TKIP) and the same problems occurred so I am again at a loss
posted by bodgy at 10:08 AM on February 25, 2012
posted by bodgy at 10:08 AM on February 25, 2012
check all the machines to make sure their DNS match.
Also, take the xfinity router back and buy one. Their default all-in-one box stinks and teh D-Link we got uses a custom firmware that experience taught me gets confused between wired and wireless connections.
you may want to see if the troubles go away if you do wireless connections on the macs first.
posted by mephron at 12:37 PM on February 25, 2012
Also, take the xfinity router back and buy one. Their default all-in-one box stinks and teh D-Link we got uses a custom firmware that experience taught me gets confused between wired and wireless connections.
you may want to see if the troubles go away if you do wireless connections on the macs first.
posted by mephron at 12:37 PM on February 25, 2012
*Apple TVs cannot find the computers that have iTunes open and Home Sharing on them. The computers, however, CAN find the Apple TVs. So I cannot browse libraries on the Apple TVs, but if at a computer I can send video to the Apple TVs
This sounds as though the Xfinity router isn't passing broadcast messages from the wireless network to the wired network. I don't know for certain because I don't own an AppleTV, but it sounds like the router is filtering out whatever packets are associated with the AppleTV's attempts to discover what services are available on the local network, but is allowing the same traffic to pass in the opposite direction.
Is there some way to send a ping from the AppleTV to the other computers on your wired network?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:49 PM on February 25, 2012
This sounds as though the Xfinity router isn't passing broadcast messages from the wireless network to the wired network. I don't know for certain because I don't own an AppleTV, but it sounds like the router is filtering out whatever packets are associated with the AppleTV's attempts to discover what services are available on the local network, but is allowing the same traffic to pass in the opposite direction.
Is there some way to send a ping from the AppleTV to the other computers on your wired network?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:49 PM on February 25, 2012
I can ping the Apple TVs but not from the Apple TVs. And the problem isn't just Apple TV related, the same thing happens computer to computer... it's like IPs only work.
I am going to try hooking up a DLink router today and see if it makes any difference...
posted by bodgy at 7:25 AM on February 26, 2012
I am going to try hooking up a DLink router today and see if it makes any difference...
posted by bodgy at 7:25 AM on February 26, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 7:21 AM on February 25, 2012