Hello. I just changed my ISP to Vodafone. I had to reset my Fritzbox to do so. Now ARC is not working anymore. I read lots of old post from 2023 etc
I was wondering if there are any new developments? Do I have to call Vodafone to ask them to provide me with IPv4? Or is there any other solution? Thanks.
What does the error box in Roon Settings > Roon ARC say?
As for Vodafone Germany:
- First of all, if you have a mobile contract from Vodafone, too, uninstall the crappy SecureNet+ “security” app they install by default. And cancel the SecureNet+ option in your account on the website (where the first 3 months are free but it’s enabled by default and they will charge you). This thing is responsible for endless problems with phone data.
- Generally they use DS Lite in many regions, which means you can’t port forward by default. (And if you happen to have a 5G router (as opposed to a cable router, DSL, or fiber), port forwarding will never work).
- However, it depends. Some networks may still give you a proper IPv4 address by default that can be port forwarded.
- If you don’t have one, they usually can give you one if you ask, but you have to fight with some moron on the first-level support hotline to explain it to them and most likely they won’t understand you. (Don’t talk about Roon. Talk about your PlayStation that you want to use for online gaming, or your file server on the NAS that you want to access from the internet)
- They have small-business accounts that cost nearly the same (a few EUR more), and they come with a static IPv4 as part of the contract, to enable small business to run servers that can be reached from the internet. (Plus better support). That’s what I did. You do NOT actually need a small business for this contract.
- Do you have a Fritzbox rented from Vodafone or your own? I am asking because even after I had my small business contract, most ports were blocked. At the time I was using their Vodafone-branded standard router (which is crap). I called the small business support and the person didn’t understand what I was saying, anyway, but they immediately escalated to someone who was supposed to have a clue. (Yay for small business support). However, it took them two days to call me back, and in the meantime I had purchased my own Fritzbox, plugged it in, and it immediately worked. Something on their crap router must have blocked most ports.
If you can’t use port forwarding, you can now use Tailscale with ARC.
Hi @Coltrane,
Thank you for your post.
Did you also move or migrate your Roon Server between devices when you changed ISPs? This might require you to reinstall ARC, as it will have reset the ARC unique id associated with the original server’s machine ID.
If NAT traversal is the only question here, then generally, Vodafone will permit you to port forward depending on the particulars of your contract with them (business vs residential, etc). @Suedkiez has outlined things pretty thoroughly but we are here to answer any questions.
Tailscale is a reliable fallback for NAT traversal regardless of your ISP or router setup (and free!).
Thanks for your quick replies.
I don’t have a mobile account with VF, only DSL.
I have my own Fritzbox 7520 which I happily used with a different ISP before and ARC was working fine. I reset the Fritzbox to get it to work with Vodafone DSL and since then ARC has stopped working
I reinstalled ARC on my phone, but the problem persists.
{
“ipv6_connectivity”: {“status”:“NetworkError”,“status_code”:504,“error”:“error code: 504\n”},
“ipv4_connectivity”: {“status”:“NetworkError”,“status_code”:504,“error”:“error code: 504\n”},
“external_ip”: {“actual_external_ip”:“92.aaa.bbb.ccc”,“actual_external_ipv6”:“2a00:ddd:eee:fff:bbb:ggg:hhh:iii”,“router_external_ip”:“null”},
“natpmp_autoconfig”: {“status”:“NotFound”},
“upnp_autoconfig”: {“status”:“NotFound”},
“multinat_autoconfig”: {“status”:“Success”,“error”:“No Error”,“routers”:1,“routers_mapped”:1}
}
So I understand: I need port forwarding, and to do so I need a IP4v connection, right? DS light won’t work, only if I use Tailscale?
When I try to install Tailscale I am stuck at step 2. in the Roon OS web admin page I don’t see a Tailscale button. How do I proceed?
Correct, but the error you posted doesn’t indicate this as a problem (yet). It would say “MultipleNatFound” in this case.
Your error simply says that it couldn’t find UPnP on the router for automatic configuration:
You can either set up UPnP or a manual port forwarding rule. Note that UPnP works differently (better) on Fritzboxes than the common approach. Fritzbox enables UPnP per device instead of generally. So you can allow only your Roon Server (and not the whole LAN) to open a port
Before we go further on the port forwarding issue, we need to know exactly how your Fritzbox is configured in this regard. Screenshots help
From the start page I linked:
Tailscale on RoonOS is only available with RoonOS 2.1, and this version is only available with Nucleus One, Titan, and ROCK installations that were created in UEFI mode.
Older Nucleus and ROCK installations in Legacy BIOS mode don’t update beyond RoonOS 1.0 and thus don’t have Tailscale.
You can either reinstall RoonOS in UEFI mode or use a separate little machine (like a Raspberry Pi) or any other computer you have, to configure a Tailscale Subnet:
Would I be able to reinstall Rock in UEFI mode on a NUC 8i3 BEH?
Thanks so much for your time and help!!
If it configured itself like this based on auto-configuration info that Vodafone sent to the Fritzbox, it probably means that it has to use DS Lite for IPv4, and in this case port forwarding won’t work.
But as mentioned, it may be possible to convince Vodafone to give you a real IPv4 address instead.
I think this is a different use of UPnP where the Fritzbox uses UPnP to provide info about its own state
This looks OK - the important part is the checkbox for “Selbständige Portfreigaben … erlauben”, meaning that this device is allowed to use UPnP to configure port forwarding for itself.
The corresponding setting in Internet > Permit Access is this (from my Fritzbox), saying that Independent Port Sharing (“Selbständige Portfreigaben” in German) is allowed for the device. I.e., like above, that the Fritzbox allows this specific device to configure its port forwarding by UPnP automatically:
But it won’t work with IPv4-over-DS-Lite.
Yes, basically all computers have supported UEFI for 10+ years. It’s just that unfortunately RoonOS has supported UEFI mode only since RoonOS 1.0 build 254 in November 2022,
and only ROCK installs that were created since then in UEFI mode received further updates to RoonOS 2.1 with Tailscale:
Thanks for your help. I read online that VF won’t give out IP4 addresses anymore, but I will try.
Then I guess my only way is to reinstall Rock with UEFI boot and then use Tailscale.
There is still the small-business (Selbständige) option that provides a guaranteed IPv4. It’s 5 EUR per month in the smaller account version, but I think included in the larger one:
Otherwise, yes, you’ll have to go Tailscale.
You could try to force a native IP v4 connection instead of a native ip v6 or remove the ds-lite checkbox for IP v4 with native IP v6.
In both cases check on “Internet/Verdindungsdetails” whether you get IP v4 and v6 adresses assigned after reconnection and of course check if you can still access the internet.
If it doesn’t work, you can always change the settings back to IPv6 with ds-lite.
Both works fine for me on vodafone Cable with a Fritzbox 6660. But maybe this is because i have an old contract migrated from KabelDeutschland years ago when it became vodafone. Back then, you were automatically allowed native IP v4 when using your own router instead of the one porived by the ISP.
I think these are different.
I also had some older Vodafone contract with an IPv4, and at some point around 2015 or so they sent me a letter to tell me that they would take it away unless I object. I didn’t need it at the time and didn’t think I would need it again, so I let it lapse (silly me).
Trying to get it back for ARC was a nightmare on the support hotline, and eventually I gave up and switched to the small-business (Selbständige) account.
At some later time I mentioned this to another, more knowledgeable, Vodafone support person. They told me that it shouldn’t have been necessary to switch to the business account and asking should have been enough. But from what I read on the Vodafone user forums, it seems to depend on the network segment you are on, possibly the age of the contract, etc. (and obviously on how stupid the support person is that you happen to talk to)
I tried that and the internet connection was broken. So not that easy. I will try to get a hold a support person tomorrow again. No luck today. Other wise will look into other options for on the go…
So i’m lucky then regarding IP v4 connection. Let’s hope there’s no vodafone employee reading along and takes it away 
Making the switch to UEFI install of RoonOS is recommendeable in any case IMHO, not only for tailscale support. RoonOS 3.0 is in early access and looks promising, but is UEFI only as well.