Internet streaming radio timeout error on my wifi network.
November 17, 2022 6:08 AM Subscribe
I need some help troubleshooting what I would call a partial connectivity problem that only affects one type of device on my network -- internet streaming radios.
I have a wifi network using a NetGear router and Spectrum internet. It is used by a laptop, a Roku player, my phone, and 3 Grace Digital internet streaming radios. It’s the radios that are causing a problem. They have worked flawlessly for 2 years, but now I’m getting weird network timeout errors when I try to access my saved streams and podcasts. (“The network timeout time was reached” is the exact wording.) I also cannot search for new streams, I get the same error messsage. SiriusXM, however, streams perfectly. So I know the radios are connecting to my wifi, but something’s going wrong after that. I have made zero tech changes in the house; things were working fine one day and not the next.
Things I have tried:
1. Using another wifi network with the radios. I took one to work and tried it with the building’s wifi, and tried another with my phone as a mobile hotspot. The radios work perfectly. I have not yet tried the radios with another Spectrum wifi network.
2. I have restarted and factory reset all radios. No soap.
3. I have restarted the cable modem and router, and I also updated the firmware on the router. Nothing.
4. I tried connecting with a static IP address (which is something I only have a hazy idea about), but then I got no connection at all. I also tried connecting directly to the cable modem, using an ethernet/USB adapter, but also got no connection. It is possible I made mistakes here, however, because I was kind of pushing my tech abilities.
5. I have called Grace Digital. They walked me through stuff and determined it’s not their problem.
6. I have called Spectrum. They said if everything else on the network is working, it’s not their problem, I should call NetGear.
I have not called NetGear yet, because talking to the first two companies exhausted me. I thought I’d try you all first for any bright ideas or maybe some hints as to how to talk to NetGear.
I can provide model numbers for all devices if that would help anyone. I also can connect to my wifi network on a web browser and provide numbers that show up there.
Expertise level: This is not exactly “Talk to me like I’m 5,” but it is kind of “Talk to me like I’m 10 or 12.” (See #4 above, for instance.)
I have a wifi network using a NetGear router and Spectrum internet. It is used by a laptop, a Roku player, my phone, and 3 Grace Digital internet streaming radios. It’s the radios that are causing a problem. They have worked flawlessly for 2 years, but now I’m getting weird network timeout errors when I try to access my saved streams and podcasts. (“The network timeout time was reached” is the exact wording.) I also cannot search for new streams, I get the same error messsage. SiriusXM, however, streams perfectly. So I know the radios are connecting to my wifi, but something’s going wrong after that. I have made zero tech changes in the house; things were working fine one day and not the next.
Things I have tried:
1. Using another wifi network with the radios. I took one to work and tried it with the building’s wifi, and tried another with my phone as a mobile hotspot. The radios work perfectly. I have not yet tried the radios with another Spectrum wifi network.
2. I have restarted and factory reset all radios. No soap.
3. I have restarted the cable modem and router, and I also updated the firmware on the router. Nothing.
4. I tried connecting with a static IP address (which is something I only have a hazy idea about), but then I got no connection at all. I also tried connecting directly to the cable modem, using an ethernet/USB adapter, but also got no connection. It is possible I made mistakes here, however, because I was kind of pushing my tech abilities.
5. I have called Grace Digital. They walked me through stuff and determined it’s not their problem.
6. I have called Spectrum. They said if everything else on the network is working, it’s not their problem, I should call NetGear.
I have not called NetGear yet, because talking to the first two companies exhausted me. I thought I’d try you all first for any bright ideas or maybe some hints as to how to talk to NetGear.
I can provide model numbers for all devices if that would help anyone. I also can connect to my wifi network on a web browser and provide numbers that show up there.
Expertise level: This is not exactly “Talk to me like I’m 5,” but it is kind of “Talk to me like I’m 10 or 12.” (See #4 above, for instance.)
I have had the exact same issue with an internet streaming radio today. Connects to Spotify fine but internet radio times out. Weird.
posted by nthdegx at 6:31 AM on November 17, 2022
posted by nthdegx at 6:31 AM on November 17, 2022
I thought, given your follow-up, I'd give Roberts a call and my issue seemed to unjam itself very quickly. But one thing they wanted to check that isn't explicitly on your list (though maybe it's one of the things Grace Digital ran through with you) is making sure the device software is also up to date. Under settings there's hopefully a check for updates option, or if you can view the version you're on, perhaps Grace Digital can confirm it's up to date.
posted by nthdegx at 6:41 AM on November 17, 2022
posted by nthdegx at 6:41 AM on November 17, 2022
Response by poster: Streaming radio software is up to date, yes.
posted by JanetLand at 7:22 AM on November 17, 2022
posted by JanetLand at 7:22 AM on November 17, 2022
1. Is it possible the three radios are now interfering with each other? Power two down and see if the third one works well.
2. Have the radios been moved, or has anything big like furniture - especially containing metal - been moved to a spot that might interfere with the line-of-sight signals between your wifi access point and the radio(s)?
This sounds to me like a signal strength issue, where the radio is awaiting an packet acknowledgement or some other expected response and it hasn't happened because of one thing or another interfering with the signals between the radio(s) and the wifi access point.
Alternative ideas: Your internet service provider is blocking or throttling the port required for radio streaming, but I thought that streaming happened over the same ports as web pages so I'm not sure on that one. Do your Grace radios all connect to some Grace server to stream, or do they connect to servers operated by the radio services? Perhaps the servers have some issue
posted by TimHare at 8:21 AM on November 17, 2022
2. Have the radios been moved, or has anything big like furniture - especially containing metal - been moved to a spot that might interfere with the line-of-sight signals between your wifi access point and the radio(s)?
This sounds to me like a signal strength issue, where the radio is awaiting an packet acknowledgement or some other expected response and it hasn't happened because of one thing or another interfering with the signals between the radio(s) and the wifi access point.
Alternative ideas: Your internet service provider is blocking or throttling the port required for radio streaming, but I thought that streaming happened over the same ports as web pages so I'm not sure on that one. Do your Grace radios all connect to some Grace server to stream, or do they connect to servers operated by the radio services? Perhaps the servers have some issue
posted by TimHare at 8:21 AM on November 17, 2022
Response by poster: Grace swears there are no issues with their servers.
1. I tried powering down two radios but it doesn't help.
2. The radios have not been moved, and no furniture has been moved. Nothing in the house has altered at all except that I gave away some glassware from the kitchen.
posted by JanetLand at 9:13 AM on November 17, 2022
1. I tried powering down two radios but it doesn't help.
2. The radios have not been moved, and no furniture has been moved. Nothing in the house has altered at all except that I gave away some glassware from the kitchen.
posted by JanetLand at 9:13 AM on November 17, 2022
Best answer: Well, the problem has been fixed. I consulted a wonderful guy who as part of his job sets up and troubleshoots all kinds of connectivity. I am including his findings here in case anybody else has this problem and googles about it. Short answer: It was Spectrum's fault.
"I began by testing the ports using "telnet a.b.c.d xxxx", substituting the
ports one at a time for "xxxx" and the address of my server in Germany in
place of "a.b.c.d"; if there were a problem with the router or something
on Spectrum's network, it would likely affect the ports no matter what
address I used.
However, none of the ports was blocked. So, the next step was to try to
find Grace's server address via Google. I got
"myradiosplus.gracedigital.com" when Googled for "Grace radio database",
so I tested the DNS lookup via "nslookup myradiosplus.gracedigital.com".
I got:
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: myradiosplus.gracedigital.com
Address: 44.240.173.174
Name: myradiosplus.gracedigital.com
Address: 54.200.231.251
... and then it sat there for five seconds and returned "connection timed
out, no servers could be reached."
That was weird. If it couldn't reach the servers, then how could it return
any addresses at all?
I tried using 8.8.8.8 as the DNS server and repeating the command; this
time, it returned the two addresses and gave me a command prompt without
the error message.
Evidently Spectrum's DNS servers were trying to look up an IPV6 address
for myradiosplus.gracedigital.com, timing out, and reporting an error.
Janet logged into her router and changed the DNS server settings to
8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4, which are Google's DNS servers. After doing so, the
radios now worked properly."
posted by JanetLand at 2:37 PM on November 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
"I began by testing the ports using "telnet a.b.c.d xxxx", substituting the
ports one at a time for "xxxx" and the address of my server in Germany in
place of "a.b.c.d"; if there were a problem with the router or something
on Spectrum's network, it would likely affect the ports no matter what
address I used.
However, none of the ports was blocked. So, the next step was to try to
find Grace's server address via Google. I got
"myradiosplus.gracedigital.com" when Googled for "Grace radio database",
so I tested the DNS lookup via "nslookup myradiosplus.gracedigital.com".
I got:
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: myradiosplus.gracedigital.com
Address: 44.240.173.174
Name: myradiosplus.gracedigital.com
Address: 54.200.231.251
... and then it sat there for five seconds and returned "connection timed
out, no servers could be reached."
That was weird. If it couldn't reach the servers, then how could it return
any addresses at all?
I tried using 8.8.8.8 as the DNS server and repeating the command; this
time, it returned the two addresses and gave me a command prompt without
the error message.
Evidently Spectrum's DNS servers were trying to look up an IPV6 address
for myradiosplus.gracedigital.com, timing out, and reporting an error.
Janet logged into her router and changed the DNS server settings to
8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4, which are Google's DNS servers. After doing so, the
radios now worked properly."
posted by JanetLand at 2:37 PM on November 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
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posted by JanetLand at 6:10 AM on November 17, 2022