How to Get Back Access to my I7 NUC based ROCK

Support
1

So I’ve been having problems with my work Roon setup being flaky with devices disconnecting from time to time.

The setup was a Netgear DEVG2020 modem connected to the internet with an unmanaged Netgear GS105 switch. Intel i7 NUC running ROCK, and three RPi based DACs running RoPieee, and a Windows 10 laptop connected via Cat6 cable to the modem or switch. An iPad Pro and some android phones connected via Wi-Fi.

I started to suspect there might be a problem with the Netgear GS105 switch and I needed more ports so I ordered an unmanaged Netgear GS108 switch to replace my Netgear GS105 switch.

The Netgear GS108 switch arrived and I swapped it into the setup. Nothing worked. Fing on the iPad typically couldn’t find any of the devices on the switch.

At this point the setup was:
Netgear DEVG2020 modem/router/switch/wi-fi connected to the internet.
Apple iPad Pro 10.5 and some Android phones connected via wi-fi.
Netgear GS108 switch connected via Cat6 cable to the Netgear DEVG2020.
Window 10 laptop, Intel i7 NUC (ROCK) and three RPi based DACs running RoPieee connected via Cat6 cable to the Netgear GS108 switch.

Every now and again Fing on the iPad briefly finds some of the devices on the GS108 switch but I can’t get access to their web interface. Even when I change cables, move devices back to the Netgear DEVG2020, or move the GS108 to different ports on the Netgear DEVG2020, the problems persist. At best I see them for a few minutes and then they’d go missing in action.

The only success I’ve had is that the Windows 10 laptop can connect to the internet when it’s plugged directly into the Netgear DEVG2020. It stays connected. When connected to the the GS108 switch it doesn’t find the internet.

So I gave up and switched the Netgear GS105 switch back in, but the same things were happening. For some reason my setup had gone from mostly working with some rare intermittent disconnections, to not even working long enough to configure it.

Even with the ROCK and RPi based devices connected direct to the modem, they were still mostly not working.

I was pointing the finger at the Netgear DEVG2020 modem, but really I was totally stumped.

I called my internet provider and described the problem. They agreed it could be a modem problem.

It just so happens that we’re about to switch from an ADSL 2+ internet connection to NBN broadband, so there was a new Netgear V7610-1TLAUS modem here waiting for that to happen. They decided to switch to the new modem now. So it was setup and basically nothing changed. Same problems.

I was then put in contact with their premium support service. After going through everything I’d already done, the finger was pointed at dirty power to the Netgear V7610. It was plugged in to a power board running from a UPS.

Changing to a powerboard connected to a wall power point seemed to makes things more stable. The RPis connected to the Netgear V7610 modem stayed connected. But the ROCK kept disconnecting a few minutes after startup. (I haven’t tried them on the GS105 or GS108 switches.)

I connected a HDMI monitor to the ROCK so as to see more of what was going on. But the display just says what the IP address is, and does not show an error when the unit disconnects.

The support guy thought it might be a problem with IP addresses being assigned and decided to give the ROCK a static IP address. he entered most of the appropriate values, but before I could stop him he just entered 8.8.8.8 for the DNS server address.

Now the ROCK searches for an IP address and can’t get one. He’s effectively bricked the device because I can’t access it.

SO MY QUESTIONS ARE… @support

How do I go about getting access to the ROCK again? Is there some tricky way, or am I going to have to rebuild the ROCK from scratch?

Assuming I can get access again, how do I set it to have a static IP address properly?

Any ideas as to why the ROCK might be behaving as it was?

2

Before the real experts see this with help - is your NBN FTTN, FTTC, FTTH?

Reason I ask - if it’s the latter two, do you have a router you can test, in place of your provider’s supplied modem?

Just a temporary test.

With both FTTH and FTTC I’ve used an Asus RT-AC86U router --> NetGear GS108 unmanaged switch --> ROCK’ed NUC7i7

And have no issues.

FTTN needs a modem though.

Is it only your ROCK’ed NUC that’s an issue? Internet works ok for other stuff, on the other switch ethernet ports?

3

We’re not NBN yet. The connection is still ADSL 2+ but now with mobile data failover, as a result of the new modem.

4

Ok cool. Hope it gets resolved for you.

5

I think that if you plug in a USB Ethernet interface into a NUC USB port, that port will DHCP itself a new IP address, so it should appear on your network.
A network diagram would help debug this further, as you never seemed to have a stable system.

6

Right now it’s very simple. ROCK, one RPi device and a Windows 10 laptop, connected via Cat6 cable into the Netgear V7610 modem. Apple iPad connected via Wi-Fi.

8

I always start by going back to the basics and re-check everything. So, my first question, did you verify that everything (ROCK, one RPi device and a Windows 10 laptop) was plugged into the yellow LAN ports and not into the WAN port by mistake?

9

Yes, they’re in the right ports. Only the Intel i7 NUC ROCK can’t be accessed now. It was being accessed before the guy changed the DNS Server address to 8.8.8.8.

Is there some way for me to undo his change to a static IP address?

10

So he changed the IP address on the ROCK NUC from using DHCP to a static IP? So he must have used the ROCK web page to do this. If you know what the new, static, IP address is, then enter this into a browser to access the web page. There you can enter the DNS address used by the router. If you don’t know what the IP address is, you will have to attach a display to the NUC HDMI temporarily. That will tell you what the NUC’s IP address is.

It’s also possible that when setting up the static IP address on the NUC he has accidentally put it into a different subnet, which would be why you can now longer see it.

11

I’ve connected a screen. It reports that it can’t get an IP address. It doesn’t show up in any network scan. I’m not a networking expert, but I think that because he’s used an IP address for a non existent DNS server at a non existent IP address the device can’t get an IP address. Thus I can’t connect to it.

When it was working the screen would show the IP address assigned. But now it just says it can’t get an IP address.

What I need to know is how do I recover from this situation.

12

I’m sorry, but something doesn’t add up here. If the ROCK NUC is saying it can’t get a network address, then it must still be in DHCP mode. But you say that the network guy gave it a static IP address? How did he do this? Did he actually use the administration web page of the ROCK NUC?

That DNS Server address is the address of the Google DNS Server. It’s often used instead of the local ISP DNS Server, because it can be faster in some circumstances. I don’t think this is the root cause of your problem. Something else is going on.

13

The new Netgear V7610 modem on a different power point seemed to be more stable with the laptop and two RPi DACs running RoPieee staying connected to it. But the ROCK NUC would only stay connected for a couple of minutes and then disappear. We could access the ROCK via its admin wed page while it was connected.

The guy decided to change the ROCK to a static IP address. Saved the changes. Now the ROCK doesn’t get an IP address and I can’t access it at all.

The screen reports…
Searching for network address…
If this persists, please check your network connection.

The post Recovering from incorrect static Gateway/DNS Configuration? seems to have been a similar problem. It was solved but no details are given as to how when @eric asked.

14

Hello @Lloyd_Borrett,

Do you by any chance remember the exact IP address that the tech assigned the ROCK? If you have a screenshot or wrote down the exact IP assigned to it by the tech, it would be very useful in moving forward.

To get your ROCK back out of this state there are two options:

  1. You buy a USB to Ethernet adapter interface (such as this one) and connect it to one of the ROCK’s USB ports and connect it to the network that way and set the primary interface back to DHCP (A new interface will automatically be on DHCP).

  2. You setup a new router or change your router’s network range to match the same range as the static IP the tech gave it. Ex. If the tech set the ROCK’s IP to 192.168.50.124 then you will need to set your router’s DHCP address range to 192.168.50.1 - 192.168.50.254.

If the ROCK doesn’t show up on the network after doing one of the above steps, you may want to take a look at reinstalling the OS (https://kb.roonlabs.com/ROCK_Install_Guide) and then restoring your database from a backup (hopefully you have one saved somewhere safe).

Thanks,
Noris

15

I’m pretty sure he set it to 192.168.15.7

So if I add another Internet adapter to the NUC via this USB option, ROCK will ignore its current network settings, try to use the new adapter, get assigned a new IP address, and provide me with access to the web interface?

Unless the tech typed the static IP address in wrong, it should already be set to an IP address in the range of the modem 192.168.15.1 to 192.168.15.254, which is the same range that was used for the old modem.

I do daily backups to the external USB drive that the music files are stored on. So maybe I’m going to see how well the backups work. Is there a guide on how to restore a backup?

16

I’m late to this party and this has probably already been mentioned, but can’t you log on to your router software and find the address there?

To get to your router software type either 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1 into a browser on any network attached machine. From there you should be able to see what IP is being used for ROCK.

This whole problem sounds like it might be an IP ‘collision’ between what was specified in ROCK and what is specified in the router.

17

I don’t have a Netgear in front of me now, but this two potential scenarios popped to mind:

  1. Netgear doesn’t use 192.168.15.0 as a base subnet number in any of its products, so unless that was changed in the router chances are you’re on a different network. Easiest way to check is to see if the computer you’re trying to access ROCK with has a 192.168.15.??? address.

  2. Most routers setup their DHCP pool starting at aaa.bbb.ccc.2 and then either use the entire range for DHCP or a big chunk of it. 7 is a pretty low number and depending on how many devices you have on your network the router may have handed it out to another device (at which point you have a conflict and strange stuff starts happening.

Oh, and as an aside… if you find that your ROCK is on a different subnet you don’t need to re-configure your router. Change the IP of your computer (static) to be on the same subnet. So with the address mentioned about pick something like 192.168.1.253 (should be safe) and enter that as your IP. This will allow you to communicate with the other subnet enough to fix your ROCK. Once done switch your PC back to DHCP.

Also there is absolutely no reason for ROCK to need a static IP on most (or any) networks. Due to the way that Roon works it doesn’t matter what the core’s IP address is or how often it changes.

18

Whoa… bad advice. If a device is assigned a static IP then that IP cannot live within the range of DHCP addresses or bad things will happen. In the example above (static at 192.168.50.124) then the DHCP range would be 192.168.50.2 - 192.168.50.123. Most consumer routers don’t allow for a split range of DHCP addresses so you have to start after or end before the static address.

The netmask defines the network so with 255.255.255.0 the subnet would be 192.168.50.0 through 254 regardless of the DHCP range.

If for some reason you need static IPs then they should be reserved at one end of the subnet or the other (or both with DHCP filling in the range in between). Regardless you NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER want your static IPs to overlap with the DHCP range.

19

Sorry, unless I am misunderstanding what you said, I must disagree. I use static IPs for all my devices and I select them from the range of available IPs within the DHCP range. Without any problem.

Having said that, I know that pfSense (and probably others) doesn’t let one do that, for some reason or other.

Hmm, upon reflection you are talking about setting the static IP from within the device software? I set mine from within the router software. That’s probably the difference?

20

The problem is that the DHCP server has no way of knowing what addresses have been assigned statically nor does it do any checking before handing out an address.

If I have a DHCP range of 192.168.1.2 - 254 and I assign a device to 192.168.1.5 sooner or later (likely sooner given the numbering) the DHCP server is going to tell a client to use the same address. At that point arp breaks as two MAC addresses will answer when another device on the network goes looking for the hardware that corresponds for that IP address.

When this happens it’s typical to end up with a device that’s visible for a short time after it’s powered on, then it disappears and becomes unreachable.

There are also some really crappy IoT devices out there that don’t even implement DHCP correctly. They’ll get a lease but not renew it properly and at some point the server hands out that address again. Communication issues abound after that.

2 Likes
21

Ah… OK. That’s different. Technically that’s a DHCP reservation and not a static IP. In that case the DHCP server is never going to hand that address out except to the specific MAC address that the reservation is set for. This is the safe and clean way to do fixed IP addresses on a DHCP network.