TMB Forum

Good Afternoon,

Excited to see the 1.4 software update; thanks for the hard work getting that out. I have a few network-related questions to see if there are thoughts on improving.

1. Can the tester communicate on a network operating igmp snooping? I know this has not worked in the past, and I wonder if there are any improvements on this front? Typically, if this is enabled, the tester has trouble seeing devices.

2. Why does the tester not see all devices on the network? Plugged into the house Netgear switch, which I believe was unmanaged (which I can not log into to verify settings, which is a common scenario), it can see the MA console, the MA onPC, and the MA NPU in the device list. It doesn't see the 4 active swisson nodes or the active Navigator server. If I ping the devices not in the Device list, it will show up after this successful ping, but otherwise, it does not show up. The whole point of a "Device List" is to list all network devices or only production devices? This is not changed using subnet mask 255.0.0.0 or 255.255.255.0.

3. @Logan, some time ago, we discussed using the ping function to verify a device's network speed. Any more thoughts on this? It would be ideal if we could create a way to see MBs speed to help verify network stability.

4. Why does it list only 1 sACN source, the Master MA console? The Nav Server is sending out sACN triggers to MA, but these do not show up as a source or active when they are happening.

5. @Logan "IQ Tester communicates through a switch to the endpoint device but doesn’t actually communicate with the switch itself. In order to find a switch IP address, you would need to force a switch to transmit a packet on the network. I will ask the team to look into this, it would be a good feature."
Any further thoughts on how to make this work? It would be great to have a way to see all devices for troubleshooting wrong or duplicate IP addresses.

6. @Logan "If I plug the tester straight into my laptop, the laptop does not see the connection in the ethernet connection settings and says the ethernet is unplugged. It is only working with a switch in line? Do you think this sounds correct to you? Can you explain, when you say “laptop does not see the connection” are you referring to Network and Sharing Center?"
Yes, the tester plugged into my laptop directly; Network Sharing shows the network cable is unplugged. The tester shows no ethernet activity like when I plug into a switch. The laptop does not appear in the device list even if MA software runs. It does not inherently see the laptop's IP address. If I ping the laptop IP from the tester, it times out and does not connect.

Thanks for the help, I look forward to talking more soon. I am excited for the potential to improve the ability of the tester in complex network environments and the consistency of interaction with different networks.

Hello!

For multicast traffic to be seen with filtering enabled, the IQ Tester must join specific groups via IGMP protocol. Currently IQ Tester joins only to sACN multicast groups when you open DMX Receiver (this is configured in DMX Receiver Config and enabled by default).

We are planning in the future to add multicast join for our other supported protocols, as we already know which groups to join. To join any other groups beyond the supported protocols, we would need to create an IGMP utility - currently there are no plans for that.

"Active devices" is a passive utility - it lists devices that an IQ Tester has seen sending data. Some devices don't send any data until asked to so they will remain "invisible". In this case requesting a ping forces device to send data thus revealing itself.

In small networks ping normally will be few mS, often even below 1mS. So anything above a few mS is an indication of an issue. There are other factors to consider so making a generic "network speed tester" using ping will not be possible with IQ Tester.

Re: Nav Server: What is the universe number used by Nav Server? tester by default joins sACN groups for universes 1-99 so if multicast filtering is enabled AND universe number is above 100 it might get filtered out. This can be adjusted in DMX Receiver Config window.