Ifi Zen Streamer

Audio Gear Talk iFi
1

Hi,

Let me preface this by apologizing for the length of this and by confessing that I’m an idiot. I have the tech I have because I enjoy listening to music, not because i understand the first thing about it. So almost certainly, my problems are due to user error. Please be kind.

I’ve had an Ifi Zen Streamer for over a year. It’s worked brilliantly during that time: simple and good sounding. Last week it stopped working and I can’t get it back up and running.

Equipment. Roon Core running on a Nucleus + Connected through Ethernet to Ifi Zen Streamer. Connected through SPDIF to Cambridge DacMagic 200M. Connected through RCA cables to a not especially impressive Onkyo Receiver. That’ll change soon, but I don’t think that part of the chain is relevant. I’ve been using a MacBook Pro, an iPhone, or an iPad to control Roon, and when things were working I would hit “play,” the white light on the left (as I’m looking at it) on the streamer would turn green, and music would come out of the speakers.

The problem. At some point last week, that process simply stopped working. When I go to Roon>Settings>Audio, the profile for the streamer isn’t there. No music. There’s nothing more I can tell you about what went wrong because I don’t know. What had worked seamlessly for over a year just stopped working. I’m sure it’s relevant information, but I simply don’t have it.

My attempts to solve things. I unplugged the power strip and the Ethernet cable, made sure the dial was set to “AIO,” and followed the (entirely inadequate, but that’s the last I’ll say about that) Quick Start Guide. I plugged everything in, pressed the “power” button, and waited until the white light cycled from white to red to green (it takes much less than the two minutes the guide cautions you to wait, but I’ve tried moving on both immediately after the light turns green and after two minutes. Makes no difference), and then gone to my browser, typed in “http://ifi.local” or “192.168.211.1” And that’s where everything falls apart. Nothing happens. Safari will sometimes tell me that the server stopped working, but that pleasant-looking web page that allows “[c]onfirmation of the wired connection” as the guide puts it, never appears. Thinking that Safari might be the problem, I’ve also tried Chrome and Firefox but the results are the same. Needless to say, Roon doesn’t find the streamer and I haven’t been able to play anything.

And that’s it. I’m deeply frustrated by my inability to get what seems like a simple process to work, and while the guide could be clearer (okay, that’s an understatement) it’s clear enough. I don’t think I’m missing a step, and I’m a very good rule follower so I’m confident that I’ve done everything I’ve been told to do. I have to assume that I’m screwing something up, but – clearly – I don’t know what it is.

I’m throwing myself on your mercy. Can you help me? I’m sure this is frustrating, and that you’ve answered these questions before (I’m sure of that because I’ve seen one string. But that person (Glen?) was able to get the process to work after turning the dial from “Roon” to “AIO” and I’ve already done that to no avail), but your help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You.

Ian Gallacher

1 Like
2

Have you tried to do a factory reset, see #12 here?

3

Hi Fernando,

I haven’t tried that yet. I’ve been hoping that there would be some other obvious thing that I haven’t done, but if that’s what it takes I can do that.

Ian

4

Hi, it sound as if your ZS is not being recognized by your network. I’d unplug it and restart you network. Also, I’d post this message at Head-fi (https://www.head-fi.org/threads/ifi-zen-stream-setup-tips-tricks) where they tend to be very helpful.

btw, are you using the Stream-ifi App with Android? It seems there was a major update last week or so and what is strange in your case is the fact that you can’t access the App in AIO mode, so you can’t change the settings.

5

Let me correct my previous message. I see that you’re on Safari, so no Android. After unplugging everything and restarting your network, what colour do you see on the left (Red, Green, White)?

6

Hi Vitor,

It cycles through all three colors but ends up white.

7

Ah, I’ve certainly unplugged it several times but I haven’t tried restarting the network. I’ll give that a shot, Thanks!

8

if it’s white, your network signal is very good. Yet, you can’t access the ZS settings in the ifi App?

9

No. I can’t even get the ifs app to load. That leads me to think your suggestion about rebooting the network might be the solution. I’m unplugging everything now and I’ll let it all rest for a while before booting it back up with the streamer. I’ll report back!

10

Okay, I’m starting to get mad. Not at this community!!! But at the tech involved.

I restarted the streamer and the network. And voila, I was able to find the http://ifi.local site! Everything looked fine. I went to Roon, and in the settings>audio section it had found something it called “Streamer?” But it wasn’t connected to the Roon Core. I opened up the gear icon to go to device setup, but the Roon icon just indicated that it was perpetually busy without getting anywhere. When I got out of that, “Streamer?” had vanished from the list of available devices.

So I unplugged the streamer and restarted it. This time, I couldn’t find http://ifi.local on the network. But Roon refund “Streamer?” so I tried to play something just to see if Roon could do that. But “Streamer?” vanished again almost immediately.

This continues to suggest network issues to me, but then I don’t know anything. But it doesn’t seem to be a problem with the Nucleus: it’s connecting to the internet just fine and can do all the usual things you’d expect it to do (except play anything). The streamer is still getting the strong internet signal suggested by the white light. But if it’s a network problem, what can I do?

11

go into the ifi Streamer App and in Settings make sure you have Coax out selected (not USB), if this is what you’re using. If that doesn’t work, I suggest you try to use the ZS without Roon (Tidal Connect, Spoty
ify Connect, Mconnect, etc) to make sure it’s not a problem with Roon

12

I’ll certainly try to make sure that Coax out is selected, but in order to do that I have to be able to get onto the app and I can’t do that reliably. I’ll cycle;e the network again and maybe that will get me access again. I can’t try the streamer with those other services because I don’t subscribe to them. But however this works out, thanks for the help!

13

Hi Ian I am coming to this a bit late as I am on holiday in a place with no 4G etc

So I saw you confirmed that the Stream was in AIO mode and sometimes you are able to get to if.local and sometimes not.
In AIO Mode you should always be able to get there, so that might indicate an issue.

I didn’t see anything in your post about networking using either Ethernet or Wi-fi.
I have never reset my Stream and I bought it the day it came out, but I am aware others have had to in our very long Stream thread’s. What is your network connected via?

Have you also tried to use a command prompt (terminal) on the Mac and tried to type the following command (followed by Enter).

ping if.local
Or
ping 192.168.211.1

To see if you get a response, that will help see if the Stream has dropped off the network.

14

Thanks Michael. Please don’t interrupt you holiday for this!!!

I’m connecting via Ethernet. In desperation, I tried Wi-Fi just now, but I couldn’t get beyond the left hand (as it faces me) red light. I went back to Ethernet and had the same experience: everything finally worked and then the “Streamer?” Icon vanished from Roon. I wasn’t watching for the exact moment, but it seemed to drop out at the moment I switched the dac on. So maybe that’s something? But why would something that worked flawlessly for over a year suddenly stop working? Baffling. I’ll try typing your suggestion into the Mac and see what reveals. I’ll report back, and thanks for writing in while on holiday. I really appreciate it.

15

Okay. The Mac replied “cannot resolve if.local: unknown host”

Don’t know what it means but it doesn’t sound good.

16

Did you try to ping the IP address, which was the other option I put there assuming that is the correct IP address

Don’t worry about interrupting anything I am back in my holiday apartment now.

If you have Ethernet set up I would never use WiFi. Do you have another Ethernet cable you can try.

But given what you just wrote I would suggest trying to do the following.

Power off the Stream.
Power off the DAC
Power on the stream.
Wait for it to appear in Roon and confirm the IP address.
Put the IP address into Safari and see if you can get to.the web page

Hopefully a starter

17

I’d also try connecting the ZS to the DAC via USB instead of Coax. Just a guess

18

I do not know for sure how to help but here are my ideas (added to @Michael_Harris ).

  1. As @Vitor_Goncalves says I would try to connect the 200M using USB to see if same happens. (also I would connect the 200M to the Mac just to make sure the problem it is not wit the dac)

  2. I would watch for the zen in the router settings. Depending on the router it would look different but there should be a list with devices, you can see in the device is online and or offline. For me looks like this:

Screenshot 2023-07-13 at 23.24.14
Screenshot 2023-07-13 at 23.24.14879×305 67.7 KB

Screenshot 2023-07-13 at 23.33.52

  1. I stopped using AIO and now my Zen is in NAA but there is this sequence for it: power on and boot the DAC, power on and boot the Zen… (I did not like the 200M as it had auto standby so I had to redo the sequence)
    Still is strange to change its behaviour all the sudden.
1 Like
19

I agree with both, but just wanted to see where it crashes to get an idea of where the problem might be.

I would generally recommended USB if it is available.
But at this point something seems quite broken

1 Like
20

“Something seems quite broken.” My spirits? My will? My tech? All of the above?

So. In order to get the streamer to show up anywhere, even for a short time, I have to unplug the streamer, unplug the modem and router, and then plug the modem and router back online, and finally plug the streamer back in. If I don’t do that, the streamer doesn’t show up at all. When I did that an hour ago, the network didn’t come back at all. Twice. I finally changed out its Ethernet cable and disconnected the cable as well, and then put everything back together. Network came back.

Then. I disconnected the dac and the streamer and then, with the dac still disconnected, plugged the streamer back in. It was findable on Roon, with an IP address of 192.168,1.217. I got a notebook and wrote that down. By the time I’d stopped writing, the streamer icon was gone and Roon can’t find it. So the streamer is vanishing out without any dac involvement; it is as inert and disconnected as a piece of metal and plastic can be.

I would try to connect the dac to anything using usb, but it has a usb connection the shape of which I’ve never seen before. I have no usb cable that will fit it, and I checked the box and there’s no cable still in there that will fit. So that’s not possible, at least until I can find one. Any suggestions for what I should call it?

As far as I can tell, all the other suggestions (and thank you again for them all. I hate to repeat this but truly, any frustration you might sense is directed towards the equipment and not you. You’ve all been very helpful) require the streamer to be identifiable on the network and I can’t get that to happen reliably for longer than about a minute. There was a tv show once where a character could touch a corpse and it would come back to life until he touched it again. I know how he felt.

So this is where I think I am. Everything worked, without hesitation, for more than a year. Then it stopped. At first I thought the problem was with the Nucleus, but it can still access other audio outputs — my MacBook Pro, for example — and play through them. The next step in the chain is the streamer, and it appears to have some serious problems. It can be seen by the Nucleus, but only after a great deal of system manipulation and even then, only for about a minute. I thought that accessing the dac caused the problem, but it recurred when the dac was disconnected. So it seems the problem is with the streamer.

Oh. I thought that maybe I’d have better luck with the Wi-Fi protocol as described on the obverse of the Zen Streamer Quick Start Guide. So I went through the whole unplug/replug process, but didn’t attach the Ethernet cable. Nope. The streamer never progressed past the red light in the boot-up. That, even though the Wi-Fi signal on the home network is strong and (relatively) fast.

The only thing I haven’t tried is a factory reboot, and that’s what I’ll try next. If that doesn’t fix whatever this is, I’m at a loss. I shouldn’t complain too much, I guess. Roon sent the streamer as a freebie when I bought the Nucleus. So I’ve had a year of free streamer use, followed by a few days of gut-wrenching tech hell. I would rather not buy a new streamer (really, really would rather not) but the music stored on the Nucleus is too important to me to be a hostage to tech for much longer,

But I’ll try the factory reboot tomorrow. I can’t face another reversal this evening. Sorry for the long email. It helps to vent, apparently! Thanks again, and if you have any additional thoughts on any of this, I’d love to hear them.