So basically I, like most people, have been forced back into the office after working from home for over 2 years. Setting aside the many inconveniences of this fact, one of them is that I cannot use Roon at work-- at least until ARC was implemented. ARC sounded like a dream come true but it appears that IT has caught-on and locked out even ARC. So basically any streaming services have be blocked somehow. Personally I think this is pretty lame since streaming music is never a major drain on any robust system. But I digress, I’d like to somehow get ARC to work but I’m not sure how.
I mentioned that streaming services are all blocked and this is mostly true but I noticed that SiriusXM is still accessible (at least for now) and it’s been my only lifeline to music (and also no distraction from office commotions).
My question is, what makes SiriusXM still accessible? And can Roon ARC be configured in the same way so I can actually stream my own music (with better sound quality and no annoying cross-fading to boot!)?
And before you mention it, yes accessing VPNs is also blocked. Any ideas would be appreciated.
Your office network is probably blocking the use of the ARC port (as well as the use of the VPN port). Advice: do not use your the office network for playing music with Roon. Use the cellular data connection on your phone (not WiFi).
What kind of phone do you have? If you have an older iPhone, I have no ideas other than using cellular data. If you can’t stream over Wi-Fi, and you can’t stream over cellular data, and you can’t store files locally… there’s pretty much no other way to get the data.
Incidentally, I forgot to try PlexAmp. It worked beautifully. So, again, I ask my question in modified form:
What makes SiriusXM and Plex different than Roon ARC so that they work and Roon ARC does not? And, can Roon ARC be configured/changed to work like the latter two services?
@J_B, you got SiriusXM and PlexAmp working at your office because they use URL internetstreams on port 80 and/or port 443. These are common used internet ports for HTTP/HTTPS traffic which your office do not block. Roon ARC use its own port and that is a different story.
I can try those but I do not think it’s strictly a port thing. Plex’s default public port is in the 30000s and it is working fine. I can try turning off Plex and configuring ARC to be the same port but I suspect that it will still not work.
Maybe it has to do with the type of traffic is detected? I mean, some firewalls can detect what is streaming vs other traffic. Maybe it has to do with encrypting the stream? Or maybe somehow my ISPs dynamic IP gets obfuscated somehow with Plex?
I don’t know. 443 is a typical port for encrypted traffic but, like I said, the plex port I configured is 32000 (or something like that). I also opened that port in my firewall so, presumably, it is not using 443 but rather 32000.
If Plex is indeed sending traffic through URL can Roon not do the same thing? This seems like a more robust solution.
My hypothesis remains that on your office network only the most common ports (such as ports 80 and 443 for HTTP/HTTPS communication to websites) are open and that all other ports are closed. I still think that PlexAmp is using one of these open common ports (probably port 80 or 443) and not port 32000 as you suspect. You can test this by closing port 32000 (which you evidently configured for Plex) on your network (disable the portforwarding and if applicable also the firewall rule for that port) and see if (parts of) PlexAmp are still working in your office network.
