Toshiba 55SL500U not recognized automatically...

[pteeson]

Warning: Newbie Twonky user. I have a MacPro "nehalem" Dual Quad 6GB Ram and 320GB HD etc.
I have setup the above Toshiba on my LAN and I can ping it from my Mac,
Now I want to setup Twonky as my media server in order to play my DVD ISO collection on the TV.
(I just copied a couple of DVD's as a test. They play fine on the Mac).

So I DL'd TwonyServer tonight as as start to setting up a media server and went to the config page and did what the manual said. The TV was turned on and had the IP setup OK (remember I was able to ping it OK).

But it was not recognized by TwonkyServer. So I manually entered it's MAC address in TwonkyServer in the Media Receivers page. I did that in the first field. I also selected Toshiba Regza TV in the drop down menu.
Toshiba states that this TV is Regza and DLNA certified.

Did the usual dance of power on/off the TV and stop/start the TwonkyServer but no luck.

So far I am not able to get the TV to see Twonky as a media server or Twonky to recognize the TV.
What might I be doing wrong or not doing that I should?

Any help to set this up would be appreciated.

respect....

Peter

[pteeson]

I forgot to mention that when I go to the relevant menu item the Toshiba does not see the TwonkyServer either.
So there is something not happening between them.
How can I find out which ports Twonky uses?
I did a port scan on the Toshiba and it shows port 20000 DNP as being open.

Sure would appreciate some advice on how to proceed.

respect....

Peter

[Twonky_Rick]

Hi Peter,

Normally the server automatically selects the best profile for you, but this process is not perfect.
After you select a new profile, you'll need to press the Save Changes button and wait a few seconds for the changes to take place. In some cases this will solve problems.

Note: Device profiles are only used when pulling content from the server. They will not change the behavior when pushing media by dragging and dropping it.

In addition to the Toshiba Regna profile, which you're currently using, you may want to also try the Generic Media Receiver and Generic DLNA 1.0, but I'm not convinced that this is the cause of your problem. So what is the problem?

1. I would start by moving your PC near your TV and connecting them both to a wired switch. This is just for testing purposes and minimizes the complexity of your system.

2. Some routers and switches disable UPnP traffic. Check your router settings pages for this.

3. Other routers and switches block ports that we need to operate. Make sure the following ports are not blocked.
The server uses UDP ports 1030, 1900, 9080
The server uses TCP port 9000. If that is already in use it select the first available free port after 9000.

4. Oftentimes users find when they swap out their older routers/switches for a newer one, the problems go away.

5. And lastly with some TVs you need to enable media server support from a settings page on the TV.

Please let me know if any of these suggestions help.

- Rick

[pteeson]

Hi Rick:
Thanks for the reply and the suggestions.
(1) I am hard wired into the Alcatel/Lucent CellPipe 7130 Residential Gateway.
(This is what Bell Canada uses for their iPTV offering)
(2) I checked the UPnP setting and it is enabled.
There is also a setting for a UPnP log but I haven't found it yet on the CellPipe. Just the System Log.
(The UPnP lines are interwoven in the System log. )
(3) I understand that port 1900 is for ssdp multicast and 9000 is for cslistener. Didn't know about 1030 and 9080.
I can't find anything on the CellPipe management pages about blocking ports; only port forwarding.
(No ports are blocked except 25 and 80)
The router/switch is really brand new and installed just last month as part of my subscribing to Fibe TV.
This is the Bell Telecom offering of what they call iPTV (which is really VDSL2).
(4) The TV (a) is correctly allocated an IP by the CellPipe and (b) shows up in the CellPipe Device list.
(5) I have done everything I can find in the Toshiba manual that I can think of:
(a) There is a menu for Media Player and selecting it there is an item to setup a Media Server.
(b) but when I select that there are no servers displayed.

Checking the TwonkyServer log shows it has scanned through my Music and Photo collections as I configured them and I can display the pictures and play the music in the browser on the Mac. But they don't get to the TV.

Finally I should note that I am running Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.4 and that I am a (mostly) retired Mac programmer. (I started on IBM mainframes as a Systems Programmer but for the last 22 years have been on the Mac.)

Is there any way to run Server in debug mode so I can see what UPnP flow is? It seems as though neither the TV nor Server can discover each other.

I tried to find the protocols for DLNA but I guess it's just UPnP with an architecture of Controller,Receiver,Server, Client etc.....

Nevertheless I am stuck with this and not sure where to go from here.

Any other suggestions?

respect......

Peter

[Twonky_Rick]

Hi Peter,

Here a few more suggestions for you:

1. Make sure your TV is UPnP AV or DLNA-certified. I know the Toshiba 55UX600U is DLNA-certified, but I'm not sure if yours is. You can check the DLNA.org website to see.

2. If you're TV is listed on this site, then I would still bypass your home gateway for testing purposes. By inserting another switch, you'll ensure the problem isn't your home gateway/router.

3. Make sure your TV or server aren't connected to another router or switch. My set top box can NOT see my TwonkyServer when it's plugged in a switch which is plugged into my home gateway. It only sees my server when it's plugged directly into my home gateway.

4. Since you're a programmer, you might want to enable logging on the server (if you haven't done so already). You can do that by pointing your browser to the server setting page. On our Mac, this looks something like: http://localhost:9000/config. Note: I jotted this down quickly, so it's possible it's not quite right. There should be many other posts on the forum which show how to access this page. You'll find logging by clicking on the Maintainence link under Support.

5. If you have a PC in your home, you might want to download and install the free Intel Tools for UPnP. This includes a different media server. If your TV can't see that one, it's probably not a Twonky problem. Device Spy is also part of this package that you might want to mess around with.

- Rick

[pteeson]

Hi Rick:
Thanks for the response.
(1) The Toshiba 55SL500U is listed on the DLNA site.
Plus manual very clearly states it DLNA Certified.
I got it from Best Buy in April this year.

(2) & (3) I connected the TV directly to the LAN.
Are you proposing that I connect it directly to my Mac?

(4)Yes I fully explored the config page and did turn on logging right away.
But there is nothing that immediately catches my attention.
What should I expect to see there?
How could I determine if there is an error?
Do you want the log?

(5) This sounds like a good idea and I will do that.
Out of curiosity what version of MacOS X are you running on your Mac?
As I mentioned I am using Snow Leopard 10.6.4.

Are you using Snow Leopard?
Or are you still using Leopard?
There were some changes that might be causing us trouble.

I will continue to pursue this for now. Be kinda nice to get this to work.
It ought to be a simple Plug N Play exercise one would think....<grin>

respect...

Peter

[pteeson]

SOLVED!
I blush to admit what the cause was but the truth will set one free.
Before retiring from freelance programming I had a paranoia about security on my network so as to protect my client's data when I was doing development for them.

This has apparently still remained with me because when I installed TwonkyServer I did not allow network connections when asked.

While I was still trying to track down why things were not working I booted into Leopard and installed TwonkyServer and that's when the light bulb went on - I had refused connections under Snow Leopard.

So I booted back into SL, went to Security and the firewall and allowed TwonkyServer to accept incoming connections and presto changeo things began working.

The TV showed up along with it's MAC address and it's IP address.
Interestingly the Host Computer also showed up with a MAC (which I think is synthetic since it's not the one on the NIC) and an IP (which is correct).

Back at the TV I was now able to see Twonky as the Media Server and with the MAC of the ethernet card.

So far so good.

As to navigating on the TV using the remote it works - sort of. There are a bunch of absurd things happening which I will document and focus on and then try to decide if its Toshiba's firmware or related to Twonky.

But that's for another day. Sufficient unto this day were the troubles thereof!

Tune in anther day for the next episode....

respect.....


Peter

[Twonky_Rick]

Thanks for letting us know what the solution was. Something else to add to my list of things to check.

- Rick