Mezzmo disappearing from servers list

**martyd** · 08-11-2017, 10:44 AM

Hi all,

Hope someone can help with this. I setup Mezzmo for a non-techy friend and after running fine for months there is now a problem where the Mezzmo server will disappear from the list of available servers on his TV. The simple fix I found was to go to the Mezzmo PC and Stop then Restart the Mezzmo Server. Back at the TV, Mezzmo is now visible and everything works fine for the rest of the evening. However, next evening the Mezzmo server is not visible and he has to do the Restart server process again.

My first thought was weak wifi signal, but that is not the case. I checked with a wifi analyser app on my tablet and the signal at the TV is strong enough. Also, even when Mezzmo is not visible at the TV, the WMP service on his laptop is always showing as available, so it's not due to wifi.

I uninstalled Mezzmo and removed all the Mezzmo rules from the firewall and then reinstalled Mezzmo. I went through the "FAQ: Cannot see Mezzmo on your DLNA device?" All the Firewall and network stuff looks right. In the router I turned off UPnP, even though it had been working fine for months with this enabled. I had turned off the router's inbuilt media server from the beginning. I could not find any place in the router to change IGMP, Jumbo Frames and Multicast settings as the FAQ suggests. There do not appear to have been any updates of the router firmware. In Mezzmo I have also reduced the Server Advertisement Interval to the minimum setting and tried a different port (still in the 50000s), but none of this has helped.

Ok, some hardware details: Win7 32bit PC (a very old Pentium D, 4GB RAM, SSD boot drive & 2TB HDD) running only uTorrent and Mezzmo (and Teamviewer to allow me to manage it from my home). As long as it doesn't have to transcode on the fly it's a solid box. From the PC it's ethernet to the router, a Telstra Technicolour 789. From there it's wifi to the main TV, a Sony W650C Android TV, running Mezzmo Android and VLC Player. There is also WD TV Live Gen3 left over from an earlier TV. In Mezzmo I setup the TV with the VLC profile and the WD with the TV Live SMP profile. The problem occurs on both the TV and the WD box. There is another Sony TV in the house (Bravia 2012 profile) and the problem also occurs on that one. The house also has a couple of Android devices and all devices have IP addresses fixed in the router.

As an aside, I have also noticed on my setup at home (all ethernet) that Mezzmo is always the last server to appear on the list, 1-2 seconds after the others. Could it be something to do with using such a high port number as 53168? Would using a lower port, say in the 30000s, make a difference? And would it help with my friends problem?

Any suggestions?

**Peter** · 08-11-2017, 11:06 AM

Hi Marty,
if Mezzmo is only being found when the server starts this means that the initial Notify messages sent out by the server when starting are being received but the Notify is not sent when an M-Search by the device is sent. Possibly the M-Search message is being blocked and Mezzmo is not receiving it in which case this explains why the Notify is not being sent. The high port value will not be a problem as the port is only specified in the URL contained in the Notify sent to the device. You can try disabling the firewall to see if this allows the device to find the server. If the TV is connected wirelessly you could try testing a wired connection, we had a user with a Samsung BDP that was connected wirelessly and it's M-Search messages were rejected by the router because they were malformed.

**martyd** · 08-11-2017, 11:20 AM

Thanks, Peter. I'll try disabling the firewall first as it's the easiest thing to do, and if that doesn't help, I'll try a wired connection.

Cheers,
Marty

**martyd** · 08-14-2017, 10:09 AM

Update: Disabling Windows Firewall has not helped. Later this week I'll visit my friends and setup a temporary wired connection for them and we'll see how that goes.

**BeFi** · 08-15-2017, 09:06 PM

Marty,

I had a similar problem with Mezzmo disappearing after a couple of sleep/resumes of its server pc. The remedy for me - suggested by Peter from Conceiva - has been to set a 'server advertisement interval' under Media Server Settings to something like 180 (3 mins).

Now - if Mezzmo is not visible at the beginning it will announce itself after latest 3 mins (in my case). This fix has now worked for me for many months without negative side effects.

**martyd** · 08-19-2017, 10:25 AM

Hi Befi,

I had tried that. I set the Server Advertisement Interval to the minimum (60 secs). Still no good.

I set up a wired connection for him yesterday, so we'll see how that goes over the next couple of days.

**BeFi** · 08-19-2017, 11:55 PM

Hi Marty,

This 'disappearance of the server' is definitely something that has not been understood yet. In my case the suggestion from Peter was a (completely) viable workaround that 'solves' the problem for me but its not a solution to the issue we both observe.

In my case also restarting the media server from the Mezzmo console helped but it was completely random as to when the server would vanish from being detested by my DLNA devices. I have app. 10 DLNA clients in daily use for music and video and all of them did not see Mezzmo when it had vanished. So this definitely isn't confined to certain clients or certain media formats. Also the vanishing appeared in Windows 8, 8.1, 10, 10R, 10C equally.

Anyway - let me know in case you find the real culprit.

Cheers
Bernhard

**martyd** · 08-28-2017, 08:15 AM

Update: A wired connection did not fix the problem. Mezzmo still disappears from the list of servers. It seems that after restarting Mezzmo server it remains available while we continue to stream shows to a device, so restart it once and watch shows all night, but if no streaming occurs for a period then Mezzmo disappears. I tried restarting the Mezzmo server at 10am, then not using it, and when I checked again at 2pm it had disappeared.

I'm certain that nothing has changed on the PC (apart from Windows updates, but if that was the cause many more people would be complaining). However, I do remember some time ago my friend had a problem with his Telstra account and in getting it sorted out Telstra switched on the Telstra Air service in his router. This caused a problem with streaming (I don't remember what or why) but after I switched off the Telstra Air service everything worked as it should. At the present time Telstra Air has not been reenabled and there don't seem to have been any changes in the router.

I have now reverted the setup back to Wifi connections as the ethernet cable running through the hallway and across the lounge room was a definite trip hazard. My friend says it's not a big issue having to restart the Mezzmo server each time he wants to use it, but I'm sure I would get tired of it quickly and it would be good to get to the bottom of it. Any suggestions for the next step?

**Peter** · 08-28-2017, 08:32 AM

When the Mezzmo server starts Notify messages are sent out to tell devices about the Mezzmo server, so this part appears to be working since the device can see the server after restarting. When using a shorter Advertisement Internal this should be similar to starting the server where the server will send out Notify messages to tell devices about the server. We will need to see some logs to get some more information, please enable diagnostic logging http://www.mezzmo.com/wiki/doku.php?id=using_logging&s[]=diagnostic then after restarting the Mezzmo media server try streaming a file then leave the device until the Mezzmo server is no longer listed then send us the logs so we can investigate.