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    Constant disconnects

    Hi,

    ​I have 6 GH mini devices, 5 Chromecast audios, 1 Chromecast group, and 2 regular Chromecast HDMI dongles.

    The Google home devices are not enabled in the plugin.

    The Chromecast audio devices maintain their Network connection reliably.

    Unfortunately the Chromecast HDMI dongles (one a first version, one the circular version) disconnect from this plugin about every minute (root device status becomes disconnected). Despite this, the devices remain connected to the network with quick ping response times.

    I've tried resetting the devices, replacing the power adapters, and even using the Ethernet adapter.... No luck, same problem.

    I'm not sure what else to do. The problem came up on it's own recently with no configuration changes on my network. I had excellent reliability prior to this with v44 of the plugin.

    It looks like I'm not the only person suffering from this problem judging by recent posts here.

    I've followed others' suggestions including moving all my Chromecast devices to 2.4Ghz. no love.

    Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

    Thank you.

    #2
    P.S. I've attached my debug log that includes the disconnects (and automatic reconnects) - zipped to meet filesize requirements.

    It's very strange the log indicates no PONG response from device ... running ping from the SSH shell on my RPi where the homeseer/the plugin is running shows very fast ping responses ... between 2-20 ms.
    Attached Files

    Comment


      #3
      Have you tried the AK GoogleCast plugin? I have a bunch of the mini's and they work great. The only thing I can't vouch for are the dongles. Still worth a shot to see.

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by benrjunk View Post
        Hi,

        ​I have 6 GH mini devices, 5 Chromecast audios, 1 Chromecast group, and 2 regular Chromecast HDMI dongles.

        The Google home devices are not enabled in the plugin.

        The Chromecast audio devices maintain their Network connection reliably.

        Unfortunately the Chromecast HDMI dongles (one a first version, one the circular version) disconnect from this plugin about every minute (root device status becomes disconnected). Despite this, the devices remain connected to the network with quick ping response times.

        I've tried resetting the devices, replacing the power adapters, and even using the Ethernet adapter.... No luck, same problem.

        I'm not sure what else to do. The problem came up on it's own recently with no configuration changes on my network. I had excellent reliability prior to this with v44 of the plugin.

        It looks like I'm not the only person suffering from this problem judging by recent posts here.

        I've followed others' suggestions including moving all my Chromecast devices to 2.4Ghz. no love.

        Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

        Thank you.
        Are these in a VLAN?

        ---
        John

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by John245 View Post

          Are these in a VLAN?

          ---
          John
          No they are not.

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by cowinger View Post
            Have you tried the AK GoogleCast plugin? I have a bunch of the mini's and they work great. The only thing I can't vouch for are the dongles. Still worth a shot to see.
            Thanks for the suggestion. I've looked at that plugin also. Trouble is I've already paid for this one (and invested heavily in programs and events with it) so I'm hoping spud can with weigh in.

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by benrjunk View Post
              It's very strange the log indicates no PONG response from device ... running ping from the SSH shell on my RPi where the homeseer/the plugin is running shows very fast ping responses ... between 2-20 ms.
              It's not the same kind of ping that you run from ssh. It's a ping message sent at the Chromecast protocol level, the plugin sends a ping every 5 seconds to the chromecast, and if there is no pong answer after 30 seconds (= 6 ping fail in a raw) it disconnect and tries to reconnect after 30 seconds.

              I can see 2 exceptions in your logs:
              - one deserialization problem that I can fix but I doubt it is related to your problem
              - one OutOfMemory exception that seems to happen after one device sends a large chunk of data.

              Can you confirm you only have the disconnection problem with the Chromecast HDMI dongles? They seem to run some kind of photo slideshow or something, do you know what it is, and can you disable this app to test if that the source of the problem?




              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by spud View Post

                It's not the same kind of ping that you run from ssh. It's a ping message sent at the Chromecast protocol level, the plugin sends a ping every 5 seconds to the chromecast, and if there is no pong answer after 30 seconds (= 6 ping fail in a raw) it disconnect and tries to reconnect after 30 seconds.

                I can see 2 exceptions in your logs:
                - one deserialization problem that I can fix but I doubt it is related to your problem
                - one OutOfMemory exception that seems to happen after one device sends a large chunk of data.

                Can you confirm you only have the disconnection problem with the Chromecast HDMI dongles? They seem to run some kind of photo slideshow or something, do you know what it is, and can you disable this app to test if that the source of the problem?



                Hi

                Thanks for the response! Yes, this is only affecting the HDMI dongles.

                They do run a photo slideshow all the time when there's no media playing. The app is "backdrop", also known as ambient mode in Google Home app. I'm not sure how to disable that. I think it is forced on by Google. I changed settings so it changes the photo less often, every 10 minutes, and the same problem persisted.

                Strange the rpi is running out of memory. It's version 4 with 4gb ram. There's not much else running on it. I could move homeseer to an old rpi3 if you think that may help.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by benrjunk View Post

                  Hi

                  Thanks for the response! Yes, this is only affecting the HDMI dongles.

                  They do run a photo slideshow all the time when there's no media playing. The app is "backdrop", also known as ambient mode in Google Home app. I'm not sure how to disable that. I think it is forced on by Google. I changed settings so it changes the photo less often, every 10 minutes, and the same problem persisted.

                  Strange the rpi is running out of memory. It's version 4 with 4gb ram. There's not much else running on it. I could move homeseer to an old rpi3 if you think that may help.
                  What if you force the chromecast HDMI dongles to play a video, so that the backdrop app is not running. I'm trying to know if the problem comes from the backdrop app.
                  I don't have a chromecast HDMI dongle to test with, but I will try to reproduce on my chromecast enabled TV.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Could you also try to disable "Google Photos" in backdrop settings, and see if that change anything. Thanks

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Hi changed the photo selection from my own Google photos to the default art gallery. I also changed the slideshow speed to 10 minutes, and disabled all information display (screenshot of ambient mode settings attached). Since this changes were made, no disconnects and no out of memory errors in log.

                      If possible it would be nice to be able to display my own photos if you can figure out what's causing the problem. I'm happy to buy you a Chromecast dongle if you like.

                      ​​​​
                      Attached Files

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Will add that when I'm using the Chromecast audio devices (but not when idle), they appear to disconnect periodically also. I'm also finding the plugin is crashing on occasion, with all devices becoming disconnected, and a pi restart is needed. This happens with out of memory errors in the log.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Unfortunately on Android TV backdrop doesn't let you select Google Photos, so I can't reproduce this problem on my system

                          For the crash and disconnection problem, could you enable log to file at debug level, and send me the log file when it happens. Thanks

                          Also I have released beta version 3.0.0.46 in the updater that fixes one of the exception I saw in your logs, so please install this version for your tests.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Thank you.

                            I'll install the new version.

                            The entire plugin crashed last night with out of memory error.

                            ​​​​​I'll post debug logs

                            Thank you

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Hi,

                              Updated to v.46

                              A few observations:

                              1. When an app other than Backdrop is running, the disconnect issue goes away.
                              2. When Backdrop is set to minimal settings (as above) the disconnect issue goes away.
                              3. When Backdrop is set to Google Photos the disconnect problem returns
                              4. When using Tidal (but not other music services) to stream music to Chromecast audio devices I'm experiencing problems with disconnections.

                              I enabled debug logging for Chromecast PI and the Google Photos backdrop feature on my chromecast devices this morning. One HDMI dongle was running Netflix (Family Room TV), the other device idle (Basement TV). The basement TV started disconnecting right away. Log attached to this message.

                              Thank you.
                              Attached Files

                              Comment

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