Issue with Roon ARC connectivity and port forwarding setup on Fios router (ref#5NA6Q7)

[Eric_Mischel]

What’s happening?

· I'm having trouble with Roon ARC

What best describes your issue with ARC

· I can't log into ARC but I can log into Roon

Describe the issue

I have a NUC setup as my Roon Server. The ip address is xxx it is hardwired via Ethernet to a Ubiquiti Dream Machine Special Edition my isp is Verizon. I am not clear on how to set up the Port forwarding in Fios and the ARC setting to get ARC to be accessible from outside my home. My external up address on the fios router is xxxx.
Here’s the message I see in Roon:
{
"ipv4_connectivity": {"status":"NetworkError","status_code":504,"error":"error: Error: ETIMEDOUT, response code: undefined, body: undefined connected? undefined"},
"external_ip": {"actual_external_ip":"70.aaa.bbb.ccc","actual_external_ipv6":"null","router_external_ip":"null"},
"natpmp_autoconfig": {"status":"NotFound"},
"upnp_autoconfig": {"status":"NotFound"}
}

Here’s what I’ve set on the fios router port forwarding rule list
Application Roon ARC
Original port 55000
Protocol TCP
Fwd to Address xxxx
Fwd to port 55000
Schedule Always

Describe your network setup

Fios>Ubiquiti Dream Machine>ethernet>ubiquiti WiFi endpoint>split Ethernet to intel NUC (Roon Server)

[Wade_Oram]

Firstly, it is not considered a good idea to publish the WAN side ip address of your router on a public forum such as this one. You should edit the post above to remote it.

Now on to your issue:

You mention both a Fios router and a Ubiquiti Dream Machine Special Edition. Both of these devices are routers so you have to routers connected.

I am assuming that everything other than Roon ARC connectivity is working fine.

In this case, you have probalbly got a setup like

Fios Router: WAN port connected to your internet connection, 1 LAN port connected to the WAN port of your Ubiquity Dream Machine Special Edition (ideally no other lan port on your fios router will have anything else connected to it).

Ubiquity Dream Machine Special Edition: WAN port connected to a LAN port on the Fios router, Roon Server NUC connected to one of the LAN ports.

ie:

Internet → (WAN) Fios (LAN) → (WAN) Ubiquity Dream Machine (LAN) → Roon Server NUC.

If this is the case you have a double NAT situation which makes port forwarding more complicated.

To resolve this, in principle, there are three different solutions:

1. Put the Fios router in bridge mode so that it does not do routing or DHCP. This may or may not be possible depending upon the capabilities of the Fios router.
2. Put the the Ubiquity Dream Machine Special Edition into bridge mode. This may or may not be possible and, in any event, it kind of makes the use of the Ubiquity device pointless.
3. Set up double port forwarding rules to match the double NAT.

To set up double port forwarding you need to identify the WAN side ip address of the Ubiquity Dream Machine. From what I can find on the internet, the subnet created by default by the fios router is 192.168.1.0/24 which means that the WAN side ip address of the Ubiquity Dream Machine will start with 192.168.1.

So, on the Fios router, you need to set the port forwarding rule to forward to the Ubiquity Dream Machine WAN port (as identified in the paragraph above). i.e. forward TCP connections on port 55000 to the Ubiquity Dream Machine WAN side ip address on port 55000.

Then, on the Ubiquity Dream Machine, you need to set up another port forwarding rule to forward TCP connections on port 55000 to the Roon Server NUC ip address (192.168.0.53) on port 55000.

If I have misunderstood or you can’t get this to work post back and we can explore further possibilities.

[Eric_Mischel]

Thanks Wade! That all makes sense. Also thanks for the tip on the IP addresses I hadn’t realized this was going to be a public forum

[Wade_Oram]

Please post back to let us know how you get on.

[Eric_Mischel]

Hi Wade, mixed results. RoonARC Apps works but not when I try to test RoonARC from within the Roon App Settings from my iPhone with wifi on.

I’ve setup the Fios Router with Port forwarding as such:

Application: RoonARC
Original Port: 55000
Protocol: TCP
Fwd to Addr: 192.168.0.1
Fwd to Port: 55000
Schedule: Always

On the Ubiquiti Dream Machine under Security>Port Forwarding I have the following:
Name: Roon ARC
Forward Rule: toggled to On
Interface: Both (which is WAN and WAN2)
Destination IP: DHCP and DHCP (which corresponds to the WAN and WAN2 above)
From: Limited
Source: the external IP address of my Fios Router (not including here)
Prot: 55000
Forward IP: 192.168.0.53
Forward Port 55000
Protocol TCP

Unfortunately when I’m using my iPhone on wifi to test RoonARC I get this message:
{ “ipv4_connectivity”: {“status”:“NetworkError”,“status_code”:504,“error”:“error: Error: ETIMEDOUT, response code: undefined, body: undefined connected? undefined”}, “external_ip”: {“actual_external_ip”:“70.aaa.bbb.ccc”,“actual_external_ipv6”:“null”,“router_external_ip”:“null”}, “natpmp_autoconfig”: {“status”:“NotFound”}, “upnp_autoconfig”: {“status”:“NotFound”} }

If I turn off wifi on my iPhone I get a message “Uh oh, something’s not right. Make sure your Roon Server is turned on and that your connected to the same network”

But when I use Roon ARC it works perfectly Not sure why from the regular Roon app On or Off wifi when I go to setting for Roon ARC it can’t connect. The other thing I needed to adjust was specifying on the Ubiquiti Router setup was changing the From value from ‘Any’ to ‘Limited’ so that I could specify the external WAN of the Verizon Fios Router. Strange that ‘Any’ didn’t work. Thank you for all your help!!

[Wade_Oram]

OK.

When connecting to Roon ARC when you are connected to the same network as your Roon server, port forwarding is not involved and the port forwarding status is irrelevant. You would expect Roon ARC to work irrespective under these circumstances.

However, when you are using a mobile connection on ARC, then the port forwarding is important.

Looking at the above post, it appears that both of your routers are trying to manage the same subnet (192.168.0.0/24). This is not correct. You can see that something is not corect because both routers have a port forwarding rule forwarding to an ip address in the 192.168.0.x range.

To fix this, I would change the LAN address of the Fios router to something different. You could just change the 3rd digit - e.g. 192.168.1.1 but personally, I would choose something wildly different - say 10.0.0.1. (You are allowed to use non-routable ip addresses starting with 192.168., 172.x. [where x is 16 to 31 ] or 10.).

You could alternatively change the leave the Fios router LAN ip address alone and change the LAN ip address of the Ubiquiti Dream Machine - but that would mean that the ip addresses of all of the devices connected to the Ubiquiti would change.

I also have a question about what device provides WiFi. My understanding is that the Ubiquiti Dream Machine does not provide WiFi. Does that mean that you are using the Fios router to provide WiFi?

If the WiFi is provided by the Fios router, then, when you fix the subnet collision (both routers providing the 192.168.0.0/24 subnet), then you may find that your WiFi connected Roon Remotes become unable to connect to your Roon server because they will then be in a different subnet. Roon requires that endpoints and remotes must be in the same subnet.

[connor]

Hi @Eric_Mischel,

Please see @Wade_Oram’s thorough reply for the best course of action to take and specific steps.

Put simply, to reach ARC, RoonServer rely on a single internet connection through a single router. You’ll need to re-arrange the network such that only one router is providing the connection for your RoonServer machine.