Emergency !!! Loss of squeezebox connection and need advice

RoadTripper · « **on:** 2 Apr 2006, 04:34 am »

Our local electric company turned off power to our neighborhood on Thursday and for fear of a power surge when they were to turn it back on, I powered off all my computer gear. And then went out of town for 3 days.

Now that I am back, when turning everything back on, my Squeezebox won't connect to my router. The problem this time is, having gone through this all once before, I know I have the correct 10 digit encryption sequence number, which is stamped on the bottom of the router and presumably can't or won't ever change. So nothing has changed. But it still won't connect.

My entire wireless computer (laptop) network is working properly without having required any fussing around. It just came up like it should have.

Does anybody have any ideas about how to get this going? I am desperate having gone without any music for the last 72 hours. Help please.

duff138 · « **Reply #1 on:** 2 Apr 2006, 04:39 am »

I had this happen before. I unplugged the slim device, plugged it back in. I restarted my computer a couple times, then it seemed to work fine.

RoadTripper · « **Reply #2 on:** 2 Apr 2006, 04:52 am »

Mine is battery operated. I have turned it off and on at least 8 times with no lucK. Is there some kind of reset happening in yours when you turn it off and back on? I think I recall that there was some kind of way to reset a Squeezebox.

Thump553 · « **Reply #3 on:** 2 Apr 2006, 02:16 pm »

I assume since you posted here that you are getting wireless connection on your PC.

I'd be pretty surprised that the encription key came stamped on your router-that just doesn't seem right to me (those keys are simple to change & generally publically displaying them-although mine are written on a piece of masking tape I put on the bottom of my router).

My nonexpert/tinkerer advice is to look up your router settings. I'd check for the following first: (1) what encryption system and key number is the router using-and do you have these properly set in the SB and (2) does your router have some of those features that causes headaches with SB, like some range boost or speed boost systems? They have been accidentally re-enabled when you started everything up again.

Good luck, let us know what the solution is.

Val · « **Reply #4 on:** 2 Apr 2006, 02:58 pm »

The best advice I can give you is to reset everything and start anew.

RoadTripper · « **Reply #5 on:** 2 Apr 2006, 03:56 pm »

It is stamped (with a sticker, but stamped) on the bottom. I don't see how the key could have changed.

Yes my set up is all wireless.

I would reset everything and start over, but I don't see any way to reset anything. All I would do is re-enter the same number that currently doesn't work, since I don't have any other encryption key number to enter.

The firewall settings are as they were before the power down, so the firewall is not the culprit.

Thanks for any help.

Charles Calkins · « **Reply #6 on:** 2 Apr 2006, 04:07 pm »

The SB3 owner's guide book at the bottom of page 8 says press the left arrow on the remote and hold it for 5 seconds. Squeeze box will return to the setup menu. Did you try this?

Cheers
Charlie

Paul_Bui · « **Reply #7 on:** 2 Apr 2006, 04:12 pm »

I would not assume everything stays the same after power off. Computer technology is about ever changing. Provided that your laptop is working fine with the router (and the Internet), I'd look into the router settings and see if they match your SB3 present settings (mostly password, AES/TKIP, channel, DHP/Static IP/PPPoE, IP address, SSID).

Tweaker · « **Reply #8 on:** 2 Apr 2006, 05:28 pm »

The only number on the bottom of your router should be the serial number and MAC address number.
If you lost power then it could be that, assuming you have your server, router, and SB set up to assign IP addresses automaticaly, that there is now a conflict somewhere with an address. I preach setting static IP's as this is where most problems occur. If in fact you have not assigned static IP addresses then to do so perform the following:
open the command prompt on your computer and type "ipconfig /all" (no quotes). Write down the IP address, subnet mask, default gateway, and DNS server info and then go to the Squeezebox and go thru the set up networking routine and choose "specify a static IP address". Copy the info you got from your computer exactly except the ip address which should be higher than the one for your computer. So if your computers IP is, for example, 192.168.1.101 make the address for the SB 192.168.1.103. Make your routers address 192.168.1.102, (the router will not have a DNS server number so you only need to change the IP address, subnet mask, default gateway), and you should be in business. If you have other computers on your network check their addresses first to make sure that there are no conflicts (same address).
Double check your security code as well to be sure the router and SB have the same security key.
Hope this helps!

Rashiki · « **Reply #9 on:** 2 Apr 2006, 07:23 pm »

Some wireless routers do come with a pre-programmed wireless encryption key printed on a label on the back or bottom of the unit. I've seen a 2wire router like that.

But, getting back to solving your problem, my recommendation would be to go to your router and temporarily turn off wireless encryption, then try to set up your squeezebox to connect without any encryption. Once you get it working without encryption, you can turn encryption back on and try again.

The other thing to check is the wireless network name. Your squeezebox may be trying to connect to one of your neighbors' networks. I'd recommend changing your wireless network name to something unique -- I named mine "Sangiovese" after the kind of wine I was going to have for dinner that night. Most of these routers use the same default name, so if one of your neighbors has the same brand of wireless router, you might not be able to tell your routers apart.

-Rob

RoadTripper · « **Reply #10 on:** 2 Apr 2006, 11:46 pm »

Thanks for all the suggestions. Unfortunately I have some fundamental issues keeping me from making progress.

First, using the back arrow on the remote (5 seconds) doesn't reset anything, it just seems to be used to allow you to get back to the start point. I can get to the start point when I turn it on by launching into the set up menus.

I don't know how to determine the router's IP address. I also don't know how to set the router to disable encryption.

I believe I found the Sqzbx IP address but pinging it fails.

I also don't know how to set the router's IP address. I didn't think that was something I could change.

The advice to choose to enter IP addresses statically versus DHCP only comes after successfully getting past the encryption key entering step. I can't get past that step so I can't choose static IP addresses, as much as I would like to.

So, I guess the first thing is how do I disable encryption on the router, assuming that is possible.

The expiration of the 3 day DHCP data sounds like a promising lead because that is the only clue that relates to the fact that the computer system has been turned off for 3 days.

But, once again, I have to get past the encryption issue, I think, in order to get to the DHCP stuff.

Thanks again for all the input!

Rashiki · « **Reply #11 on:** 3 Apr 2006, 12:12 am »

Assuming that your laptop is running Windows XP, you can find out your router's address by going to the start menu, selecting Run, then typing in cmd. This will start up a command prompt window, which looks just like an old fashioned DOS screen, but in it's own window.

In the command prompt window, type:

ipconfig

It should show something like this:

C:\>ipconfig

Windows IP Configuration

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : somewhere.com
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.100
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.254.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

The "Default Gateway" address should be the IP address of your router. Most routers have web-based setup tools, so if you type that address into your web browser, it should connect you to a website with a bunch of info about your router and it's settings. It may ask you for a password -- the default password is usually mentioned in the owner's manual.

A router will have two IP addresses: the address on your home network and an address on the internet. The internet address is assigned to your router by your internet service provider, the home network address is a router configuration. Usually the router is responsible for assigning addresses on your home network. In the example above, the router's home network address is 192.168.1.1 and it assigns addresses to other devices (laptop, squeezebox, etx.) from 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.200. Usually the first three digits will be the same and only the fourth digit will vary. 192.168.1.XXX is the most common range of addresses for a home network, but some routers will use 192.168.2.XXX or something similar.

I hope that helps.

-Rob

jermmd · « **Reply #12 on:** 3 Apr 2006, 12:29 am »

Have you tried setting up the Squeezebox using no encryption? Try it and see if you connect.

RoadTripper · « **Reply #13 on:** 3 Apr 2006, 03:01 am »

I am back to listening to music. The bottom line is that I still don't know really what went wrong although the 3 day expiration theory on DHCP setups is the only one that addresses the fact that my whole system was down for 72 hours.

The breakthrough was learning the router IP address. I then entered it in my browser's URL bar which led me to a page where I could set the router to be encryption-less. Once I did that, I was able to get the Squeezebox configured to play music. However, my laptop then lost network connectivity. So, I went back to the desktop (a wired connection to the router) and entered a new encryption key of my choosing. I then returned to the squeezebox and started over connecting it with the new encryption key. This, too, worked. Once I clued my laptop into the new encryption key and rebooted it, my laptop is back online.

So, much thanks to all who took an interest in my technical problems. Because of all of you, I am now back to salve for my ears!

John151 · « **Reply #14 on:** 3 Apr 2006, 03:55 am »

How strong is the signal to the SB? I have a week signal to my SB3, and I sometimes lose the connection. For whatever reason, my signal strength on the SB varies from as low as 42% to 60%. It appears that I need appox 50% or stronger to maintain a connection.

RoadTripper · « **Reply #15 on:** 3 Apr 2006, 04:38 am »

My signal has always been around at least 75%. I have a direct line of sight wireless connection here.

Thump553 · « **Reply #16 on:** 3 Apr 2006, 02:19 pm »

MY SB almost always shows a pathetic signal strength-it's been as low as 35% and rarely exceeds 60%-bt I've only had dropped signals on rare occassion so I haven't done anything to improve it.

My router is in the NE corner of the basement up near the rafters and the SB is on the first floor SW corner, moderately small (2000 sq ft, more or less) frame house. Any suggestions on what I can do to improve signal strength outside of buying a booster antenna?

Edit-Semenarian: you may want to pull out the manual for your router. It should list a webpage address you can type into your browser to pop up a window with its configuration settings. You may need a user name and password (the defaults I've seen are blank (enter nothing) for the user name and admin for the password). It may give you a better idea what is going on. It's great yours is back working again.

Paul_Bui · « **Reply #17 on:** 3 Apr 2006, 04:04 pm »

A simple solution to improve signal strength: Buy from 1 to 3 Hawking antennas, replace your SB's antenna with one, replace your router's 2 antennas with the new antennas from Hawking.

Edit: Sorry the above applies to SB2s only. While my router is Linksys, I heard from an IT network admin that dropouts are minimized with Netgear routers.

mcgsxr · « **Reply #18 on:** 3 Apr 2006, 04:21 pm »

With the SB3, the antenna is internal... but decent suggestion around the aftermarket ones for the router itself.

I have a similar PC vs SB3 setup myself, and have found few problems once setup. Sometimes the music will stutter, while the buffer deals with the 30% signal strength, but after 30-40 seconds, no problems.

Charles Calkins · « **Reply #19 on:** 3 Apr 2006, 04:33 pm »

I had a Linksys router(I think it was a 54?gs or something) and I was only getting 70 or so signal strength.Now I have a 2wire wireless modem and I'm getting a 90 signal strength. Never goes below 87.

Cheers
Charlie