New to this forum. Major problem

[Ronnie Bailey]

Day 7 and my IP camera and networked tuner that had been dropping off the network every night, has not dropped off. I still do not know why. I will add a couple of devices back into my system today. I will not add my Zidoo X9S (running OpenWRT in the background)or my Asus router back into the system for a couple more days.

The rep from my electricity company returned my call yesterday, to inform me that they recived my voice mail. She said the techs were preparing an an answer to my questions and will call me when they have an answer. I explained about my networked devices dropping off the network, and wanted to know what they did on their end.

 

[Ronnie Bailey]

Day 8 and camera and tuner still on network and working great. Today, I will add my Zidoo X9S (running OpenWRT in the background). I will run that a couple of days before adding other devices.

 

[Ronnie Bailey]

Day 9 and camera and tuner still on network and working great. I am at a total loss as to why they are NOT dropping off the network. I still have a few devices to put back onto my network. Tomorrow, I will swap out my Trendnet router with my Asus router and set everything back up the way it was, before my devices started dropping off the network.

The techs from my electricity company, still have not called me to explain what they did. Since the only thing my networked TV tuner and my IP camera that were dropping off the network had in common was power from the breaker panel, is it possible a power related issue?? Really doesn't make sense, but nothing makes since, I have swapped or replaced almost EVERYTHING on my network, that carries the data.

 

[Ronnie Bailey]

Day 10, and camera and tuner still on network and working great. Today, I am going to remove my Trendnet router and replace it with my Asus router. I confirmed that the router was not the problem, because even after I swapped my Asus router for my Trendnet, the problem of my devices dropping off the network continued for weeks.

At this point, I still can't determine what was causing my devices to drop off the network. Every time I thought I had the issue solved, the devices continued to drop off the network. Every morning, I would notice that my video camera had stopped working and I would have to go to the basement and cycle power on it to get it to work again. Same thing for my networked TV tuner, it would stop working, so I could not watch or record anything TV shows from my antenna. I would have to power cycle the tuner to get it to work again.

One other thing I have done is remove the Plex server from my Vorke V2 microPC a couple of weeks ago, and I haven't had any issues of my devices dropping off the network since. I don't believe that would be the cause, but I will add the Plex server back onto that device next week.

I still have not heard from my electric company to see what they tell me they did.........

 

[Ronnie Bailey]

Day 11, and camera and tuner still on network and working great. I just don't understand it. At this time I have NO clue on what was causing my devices to go off the network. I still have a couple more devices to put back onto my network, including adding my Plex server back onto my Vorke V2 microPC running Windows 10. Whatever caused it, did not just heal itself, and WILL come back, IF I don't find out the cause....

I really don't wan't to go through this again.

Also, when I added my Asus router back, I turned on the native Asus DDNS and VPN modules.

 

[degrub]

with any luck it will be last device/service you add to the network.

or maybe it just wanted some TLC

 

[Ronnie Bailey]

with any luck it will be last device/service you add to the network.

or maybe it just wanted some TLC

I have pulled out most of my hair that I have left......... Networking can be a real pain in the butt. I am sooo glad I put my Asus router back into service and that nothing is wrong with it.

Most of the crap devices that I have on my network, are really not needed or used very often. I have several Android devices that I have replaced Android with other operating systems, mostly just for something to do.

I have one device that is running my Tvheadend DVR server under CoreELEC (minimal Linux distro), and it constantly hijacks my LAN master. As most of you know, one device on your network, becomes the master, I just learned this a couple of years ago. Anyway, when some of my other networked devices, like my NAS's or other Windows computers are the master, all my devices are discoverable using Windows explorer. When , my CoreELEC box hijacks the "master", no devices are discoverable from any of my Windows machines. Of course, Linux NEVER fails to discover the devices on my network, but I only use Windows on my desktop computer. I run Linux on some of my cheapie boxes connected to my different TVs.

I must have my devices, like my NAS's discoverable, because I am constantly moving files back and forth on my networked devices. I have created shortcuts for those devices, but it is much easier to just use Windows explorer, since I have so many different devices.

I use Scotties LAN scanner tool to check my network to see which device is the master.
https://scottiestech.info/downloads/

 

[sfx2000]

I have one device that is running my Tvheadend DVR server under CoreELEC (minimal Linux distro), and it constantly hijacks my LAN master. As most of you know, one device on your network, becomes the master, I just learned this a couple of years ago. Anyway, when some of my other networked devices, like my NAS's or other Windows computers are the master, all my devices are discoverable using Windows explorer. When , my CoreELEC box hijacks the "master", no devices are discoverable from any of my Windows machines. Of course, Linux NEVER fails to discover the devices on my network, but I only use Windows on my desktop computer. I run Linux on some of my cheapie boxes connected to my different TVs.

check the CoreELEC's Samba settings...

Items to look for... you can disable them by commenting out the lines, and that should sort out the election process... their defaults are below... smb.conf is usually over in /etc/samba...

# The following are default values for the master selection process
local master = yes
preferred master = auto
domain master = auto
os level = 20

 

[Ronnie Bailey]

check the CoreELEC's Samba settings...

Items to look for... you can disable them by commenting out the lines, and that should sort out the election process... their defaults are below... smb.conf is usually over in /etc/samba...

# The following are default values for the master selection process
local master = yes
preferred master = auto
domain master = auto
os level = 20

Using Putty, I opened the /etc/samba smb.conf using nano. This is what I see.....

 

[sfx2000]

Using Putty, I opened the /etc/samba smb.conf using nano. This is what I see.....

There's more lines in that conf file...

One can always do cat <file> > output.txt

 

[Ronnie Bailey]

There's more lines in that conf file...

One can always do cat <file> > output.txt

Thank you, you are correct, I did not scroll down. Looking at the lines you pointed out, they were already commented out...........

P.S. thanks for your help.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Insert the following line to ensure that this device doesn't become the local master browser:

local master = no

 

[Ronnie Bailey]

Insert the following line to ensure that this device doesn't become the local master browser:

local master = no

Thank you, I will do that tomorrow. I have lived with that problem of that particular device hijacking the master for at least two or three years.

 

[Ronnie Bailey]

Day 12, and camera and tuner still on network and working great. Yesterday, I added my Plex server device and Plex Media Player back into my system. I did NOT add the Plex server to my Vorke V2 (Windows 10 microPC), but instead added one of my Android boxes running Linux and Plex server running on that. That particular box is a 4 year old + Android box with a Rockchip RK3288 SoC, with Ubuntu 16.04 Linux installed to the internal ROM. These boxes only use less than 10 watts at full load.

My Plex Media Server is also running on an Android box that uses less than 10 watts full load. It is running on an X9 (Amlogic S905x) that is dual booting Android and OpenPHT, which is a stand alone Plex Media Player.

When my problem started, more than a month ago, now, both of these devices running the same OS's that they are running now, were dropping off the network EVERY night, along with the IP cam and networked tuner.

I am still at a loss on what is causing my devices to drop off my network.

I still have one more Linux box to put back onto my network. I still have to install the Plex server onto my Vorke V2. Then, I should have everything back on my system, when my problem started.

IF, I can NOT get my devices to drop off the network, again, can I **ASSUME** it was a power issue from my electricity provider?? I have no other explanation........

But IF it was a power issue, why only certain devices dropped off the network??

 

[Ronnie Bailey]

Insert the following line to ensure that this device doesn't become the local master browser:

local master = no

I just tried to install that line in the file, but it won't let me. I also tried to chmod the file, but won't let me do that either......

 

[Ronnie Bailey]

Insert the following line to ensure that this device doesn't become the local master browser:

local master = no

By the way, how do you and SFX2000 know so much???

 

[ColinTaylor]

I just tried to install that line in the file, but it won't let me. I also tried to chmod the file, but won't let me do that either......

It looks like the file in that location is located in ROM (which is fairly typical for an embedded device vs. a normal PC). So the actual configuration file is probably located elsewhere with a link to this file.

I'm not familiar at all with CoreELEC but searching with Google seems to suggest there might be an editable file located at /storage/.config/samba.conf so try that file instead.

By the way, how do you and SFX2000 know so much???

I can't speak for SFX but it's been my day job for the past 35 years (and college before that).

 

[Ronnie Bailey]

It looks like the file in that location is located in ROM (which is fairly typical for an embedded device vs. a normal PC). So the actual configuration file is probably located elsewhere with a link to this file.

I'm not familiar at all with CoreELEC but searching with Google seems to suggest there might be an editable file located at /storage/.config/samba.conf so try that file instead.


I can't speak for SFX but it's been my day job for the past 35 years (and college before that).

Ok, you are lucky........ this is a big learning experience for me.

 

[Ronnie Bailey]

It looks like the file in that location is located in ROM (which is fairly typical for an embedded device vs. a normal PC). So the actual configuration file is probably located elsewhere with a link to this file.

I'm not familiar at all with CoreELEC but searching with Google seems to suggest there might be an editable file located at /storage/.config/samba.conf so try that file instead.


I can't speak for SFX but it's been my day job for the past 35 years (and college before that).

Thanks for the tip, in the configure settings, there is a sample samb.conf file. I copied the information that I obtained from nano using putty and created a samb.conf file. I then copied that file to my CoreELEC configfiles using Windows explorer. Now I will see if it works.
Here is what my lanscanner looks like....

 

[Ronnie Bailey]

That did not work. I powered off my Tronsmart Windows 10 microPC which was my master. Now my lanscanner app is getting an error while trying to scan my network. This happens when my CoreELEC device hijacks my master browser. Now, I will power off my CoreELEC box, and one of my other devices will become my master browser, usually one of my NAS's.