Tips for improving network connectivity for Chromecasts

[devanb]

TLDR; Have IPv6 for all LAN side devices, allow MDNS to / from homeseer, allow mdns redirect across subnets, separate 5ghz and 2.4 ghz SSID, use only 2.4 network.

After literally one week of troubleshooting I have had uninterrupted connectivity to my chromecasts for the past day.

Initial setup had homeseer, 4 chromecasts, and 3 wireless access points (802.11ac) on the same LAN and subnet as my router. All firewalls were off on homeseer. I would have connectivity of the chromecasts for about an hour and then they would start dropping.

Pinging the chromecasts from the homeseer server would result in long pings but under 100ms. Then often they wouldn't respond at all. No other devices had issues on the network.

Digging deeply into the the multicast universe I ensured that all multicast packets were received. Avahi-browse found the chromecast devices.

Day 5 I found out that the new Google Nest Hub needs IPv6 on the LAN. WTF? But true.

Day 5 ASUS support telephone call informs my that all of my RP-AC56 Access points do not have IPv6 pass through capabilities. WFT?

Day 5 ASUS lets me know that my ancient router AC66U does have IPv6 capabilities.

Remove all access points, added ancient router and its working.

Set up VLANs later and it's not finding anything anymore

On PFsense router, added Avahi package and told it to Enable reflection "repeat mdns packets across subnets".

Now it works.

Lastly, here are my pertinent UFW rules on the homeseer server:

To Action From
-- ------ ----
80/tcp ALLOW Anywhere
22/tcp ALLOW Anywhere
5355/udp ALLOW Anywhere
224.0.0.0/4/igmp ALLOW Anywhere
80/tcp (v6) ALLOW Anywhere (v6)
22/tcp (v6) ALLOW Anywhere (v6)
5355/udp (v6) ALLOW Anywhere (v6)


If this helps anyone, please click like.

-Devan

[viroid]

Where are these rules applied? On the firewall? From Chromecast devices towards Homeseer?

Sent from my LGUS997 using Tapatalk

[devanb]

Two locations:
1. The UFW rules apply to the computer running the Homeseer server.

2. Since in my case the server is not in the same subnet as my Chromecast devices, My router has a firewall rule which allows communication between those subnets. It also has an Avahi / zeroconf package which allows multicast messages to be sent across subnets.

[viroid]

On the Homeseer server, are those inbound, or outbound rules?

Sent from my LGUS997 using Tapatalk

[devanb]

     To                         Action      From
     --                         ------      ----
[ 1] 80/tcp                     ALLOW IN    Anywhere
[ 2] 22/tcp                     ALLOW IN    Anywhere
[ 3] 5355/udp                   ALLOW IN    Anywhere
[ 4] 8443                       ALLOW IN    Anywhere
[ 5] 224.0.0.0/4/igmp           ALLOW IN    Anywhere
[ 6] 80/tcp (v6)                ALLOW IN    Anywhere (v6)
[ 7] 22/tcp (v6)                ALLOW IN    Anywhere (v6)
[ 8] 5355/udp (v6)              ALLOW IN    Anywhere (v6)
[ 9] 8443 (v6)                  ALLOW IN    Anywhere (v6)

[devanb]

One more tip, use only 2.4 ghz wifi. If you have a combination SSID 5 and 2.4 and share the same SSID, the devices become very unreliable.

[racerfern]

devanb I'm trying to follow this but I'm clueless as to what would be typed where. My HS server is Windows but I do have an RPI3B+ hanging around if need be.

I have a GH, 3 Goofle minis, 1 Nest mini all on 2.4. I can ping them at will and they respond quickly, however using my WNETWATCHER utility, when they drop, they disappear off the list. Unfortunately, my router is built into my Altice One cable box although this was not a problem until a month ago, more or less.

Could you publish the "Fixing Chromecast Drops for Dummies" version please.

[devanb]

If you place the raspberry pi on the same subnet as homeseer and the GH, can you run avahi-browse? Does it find the GHs?

Does the homeseer server have any firewall? Does it allow mdns or avahi? The problem is that windows has no good avahi browser so I resort to Linux.

[racerfern]

Understood, I will stumble through to get avahi installed on the RPI, do some research and get back to you.
Without resorting to the GUI, how would I find avahi on the CLI interface? I know how to do updates but wouldn't know how to search without using a web browser.

[devanb]

Install the package avahi-utils. Then you can use avahi-browse. From memory:

#: avahi-browse -a -v -t