BD-C6500 unable to see PC

Thanks for the reply!

It didn't show any sign of the C6500, but I assumed it was only looking at the current system, and not the network in general; that may have been a mistake on my part. Are you familiar with the Spy utility? Either way, I'll give it a try when I get home, but I'm just wondering (because then you might give me pointers on how to use it more effectively if I'm not!)

Does the C6500 have an ethernet port? I assume so, but I didn't even think to check. I'll dig up a cable and try that as well, it's a good idea. Start at the lowest level I suppose!

I wondered about the router, but why was it able to see the PC initially if the router was interfering? I suppose the router might have been setup in such a way that the MCS service got through, but not the Samsung software?

The Intel utility shows my Samsung TV's DNLA media renderer (plus Message Box service for a mobile phone app.)

The service didn't work when I had a wireless connection in the path, as my router was preventing wireless transmission of the multicast packets from the TV's discovery service. Only some routers do this.

The multicast address is 239.255.255.250:1900 - check the address or port is not being blocked. If you have the "sniffer" utility, this should show packets from your device. Transmission is every 30 seconds or so.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was Device Spy I was using, that sounds right.

And it definitely didn't show anything from the C6500, so this could very well be what the trouble is. The router is using defaults for everything, but I don't know if that means the port is likely blocked or not -- I suppose if I'm not seeing anything, it likely is. I'll try all this tonight when I get home first thing.

Thanks for all the help -- I'll update tomorrow with the results

I couldn't get my hands on a long enough ethernet cable tonight (I tried moving it to the computer, but its hard to operate it without the TV ) but I have one at my folks' place that I'll pick up tomorrow night. I'll try that again.

In the meantime, I looked through the router settings and I can't figure out how to do anything with the multicast settings. There's no specific setting for Multicast (or Multicast streams?) which I assume would be the one I'd want. There is a firewall setup, but its currently disabled -- I could add enable it and add a rule to forward 239.255.255.250:1900. What exactly would I be doing, forwarding it from that to both the PC & TV, or what? Or am I completely misunderstanding it?

And I see the Sniffer utility you mentioned, I'll give that a try when I get the ethernet cable. Anything special I need to do to configure it, or is it going to be obvious if the traffic I want to see is there?

Thanks again for the help, its very much appreciated. I'll post again tomorrow after I get the results with the cable.

Forgot to mention: the Device Spy picks up this in addition to the Share Manager entry:

Base URL http://192.168.1.2:5678/
Device URN urn:schemas-upnp-org:device:InternetGatewayDevice:1
Embedded devices 1
Friendly name TRENDnet Wireless G Router
Has presentation True
Interface to host 192.168.1.15
Manufacturer TRENDnet
Model description Wireless G router
Model name TEW-432BRP
Unique device name upnp-InternetGatewayDevice-1_0-12345678900001
Version 1.0

Methods 2
Parent presentation URL http://192.168.1.2:5678/http://192.168.1.2:80
Parent UDN urn:schemas-upnp-org:device:InternetGatewayDevice:1
Service ID urn:upnp-org:serviceId:L3Forwarding1
Service URL http://192.168.1.2:5678/Layer3Forwarding.xml
State variables 1
Version 1.0

---------

That's the service (something about upnp forwarding) that's running on the router. I have no idea if that's helpful or not, but I thought I should mention it.

The sniffer picks up packets every 30 seconds from my TV. If it was working on wireless, you'd see something, too, but since Device Spy isn't showing the device, Sniffer probably will show nothing as well.

You shouldn't need a TV. Once the BD is on, it should start sending multicast packets.

The multicast packets should be broadcast everywhere on the LAN. As I said, my old router blocked broadcast traffic from the wireless.

UPNP on routers is usually for external traffic. I don't know much about it. that service could just be there to advertise its presence to PCs etc that might want to access it by clicking from an Explorer window, instead of just entering its LAN address in a browser. You could try disabling it in case it's interfering.

That jives with what I've read about the uPNP on routers -- seems to be more for letting devices & services hook up external to the LAN, not locally. I'll add disabling that to the list of permuations to try

One stupid clarification -- you suggested plugging the player into my PC directly. Did you mean that literally -- using a crossover cable (its been a while, is that still necessary?) -- or did you mean plugging it in by cable to the router? I realized when I went to do it that maybe just plugging into the router directly might bypass any routing nonsense, but I wasn't sure.

Direct connection would eliminate the router completely, as long as both devices had static IP on the LAN ports. Crossover cables are seldom necessary nowadays.

If successful, then connecting both to the wired side of the router as a next step would eliminate the wireless part of the router.

Sorry for taking so long to get back -- busy weekend

I've tried all the various things you suggested and I think there's enough here to suggest a solution (or at least, point at the problem) but I'll wait until I hear what you have to say on the subject

First thing I tried was plugging the PC & 6500 in directly. That didn't work, but then I realized you mentioned they both had to have static IP addresses. So I assigned two: 192.168.1.10 & 192.168.1.99 for the PC & 6500 respectively. No dice. In fact, I couldn't even ping 192.168.1.99 from my PC. Through trial & error, I think I've deduced that the 6500 will not even turn on its network if it can't pass the Network Test. At least, I had no luck but once I managed to trick it past that, things got interesting.

I tricked it by plugging the 6500 into the router and having obtain an IP address automatically. Then I had it pass the Network Test. Once it did that, I plugged it directly into the PC -- suddenly I can ping the address (now 192.168.1.17) and no problem. Fire up Share Manager and it sees it in the device list; I set the policy to allow the player access to the share. At this point, I go back to the player and find to my delight that it can see my PC! I can browse the videos I've shared, they start, everything is peachy.

A few things though: first, once I verify that it was working, I fired up Device Spy -- I never see anything but the name of my media server. It doesn't see the renderer on the player. Two, although I once -- briefly -- saw what looked like packets from the player on the Sniffer, even when I had it working I couldn't see much. I find that one particularly odd.

That said, at least I can verify the damn thing can work. So I plugged it back into the router, plug my PC into the router, we're back to square one -- can't see my computer from the 6500. I can still ping it, and if I delete the policy entry from the Share Manager & restart, it will find the player (still at 192.168.1.17).

So I *think* the problem here is the router entirely. I'm guessing that if I stick a better (newer?) router in here everything might just work? Or am I overlooking something? What's your take?

I guess if it is the router, I may need a new thread to ask other C6500 owners who have this working what router they're running!

Device Spy on my machine shows both "WiselinkPro" (Share Manager) and Windows Media Player sharing, which show up only a few seconds after starting. Both these are running as services from start-up. Do you have Share Manager server running when you test?

Sniffer would not show packets from the PC, I think, only inbound ones from other devices.

The failure after re-connecting could be due to the address "trickery". It would be wise to re-start to acquire new addresses.
Or else, are you still using wireless? I can only say my router (D-Link) would not allow the multicast packets on to the wireless network (presumably to prevent flooding by actual video streams) and didn't seem to have a capability to enable it - either through firewall or protocol filter. I installed a wired solution (Homeplug) to get around the issue.

When I run Device Spy, I see just the PC Share Manager service, but that's because I've disabled the Media Player Sharing -- whenever I had that turned on the player would see nothing else. Though I suppose once I have this working I could turn that back on now and see if I get presented with two options. I'd use the MPS since it works through my wireless stuff except I can figure out how to get it to actually share anything

I was just using the wired portion of the router when it failed after I had it working. I reacquired the IP address on the router but it didn't seem to matter; as soon as it wasn't directly plugged into the PC it stopped seeing the Share Manager. I talked to my brother yesterday (he was the one who gave me the router) and he was pretty sure its a low-end on. I'm going to 'borrow' my folk's much nicer wireless router tonight and see if that does any better I'll try it wired first, then wireless if I get wired running.

I suspect if I just used a brain-dead hub and not a router this would work fine. Not sure what the router is doing that's doing all this. I mean, its not even the one handing out IP addresses; I have a linux box behind the router that's the actual gateway. That box is plugged into the router and the router is -- other than for wireless -- supposedly acting like a normal hub. Except that, apparently, its doing other stuff (I think). Anyways, the router my folks have is pretty new, so if it has this problem I'll have to assume it something else. I have an old hub lying around too, if I can find the power cable I could try that and see how well it works as well.

Thanks again for the help, I'll let you know how it goes