IP address not recognised

[John Drysdale]

Just set up my Brennan again after 2 house moves in quick succession.

Having a real issue on the app and web UI not being able to find the IP address on the Brennan display.  Any ideas welcome.

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Try rebooting the house router first.

Then make sure that the app/web ui device is connected to the same router and that their IP address matches in the first 3 sets 

Ie eg 192.168.1.xxx.   The xxx will be different but the first 3 sets must be identicle.

Fred

[John Drysdale]

HI Fred,

Thanks for this I will try rebooting router.  We have a BT home hub system (perhaps should have mentioned) so not sure if this is impacting.

How can I check if app/web UI are on same router if I can't get them to recognise the Brennan.  Bit stuck with this.

John

[John Drysdale]

So the wifi settings show:

Router 192.168.171.1

IPv4 192.168.178.31. 

Which is different number to the Brennan display.

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Hi John,

OK, well there is a problem then

192.168.171.xxx

Is a completely separate Local Area Network (LAN)

to

192.168.178.xxx

Things on 178 will not be able to see things on 171 (but both will be able to see the internet)

You say BT home hub - but does it have the disk extenders or is it just the one Router unit?

Fred

[Peter Lowham]

Hi All,

A standard BT Home Hub router normally has an IP address of 192.168.1.254 and the usual subnet setting of 255.255.255.0.

@ John; it might be useful to get the BT router back to normal, perhaps a factory reset on the router?  Unless there are specific reasons for having these particular IP addresses.

Regards,

Peter.

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Hi John,

There are plenty of people using Brennans with BT routers. There should be no issue.

What is surprising us is the value assigned to the third (ccc) element in your IP address range - aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd

ddd will be different for all units attached to your router in your house.

but normally the ccc specification should be the SAME for all units attached to your router (also for aaa and bbb).

That you are seeing different ccc s is strange and leads us to think that perhaps you have some sort of "mesh" system 

The following link shows what the Router box itself should be doing

https://www.router-reset.com/default-ip-address-list/BT

From the information you have provided so afar if your laptop/hone/PC/Tablet is connected to WiFi on an IP number where the aaa.bbb.ccc. bit does not also match the IP number assigned to the B2, then they are never going to be able to see each other  (resulting in your problems).

For this reason we would like to know more about what exactly you have set up in your house.

Thanks

Fred

[Philip Davies]

Depending on the technology,  where you have a mesh network then where the IP address is like this ( as you use as an example )  aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd    you can only say that the aaa.bbb.ccc  need to be the same if you have the most common  netmask of 255.255.255.0  with mesh networks it is entirely possible that the netmask is wider so allowing ccc  to in fact be different or that the router is routing between different subnets it is creating.     I also think that your assumption of a default network address of 192.168.1.xxx  is now changing. very many systems are moving away from using that and using other numbers for your ccc   so for example my mi-fi box uses 192.168.128.xxx as a default   My ADSL router strangely uses 192.168.192.xxx.   

in all of these situations if ALL of the addresses are handed out by DHCP  ( which is the most common option for most non-techie wifi setups ) then it should be possible for the units to talk between themselves. 

In my experience the most common issue with home wifi these days is that many of the providers create a guest wifi by default. The idea is that you and your trusted friends/family connect to the router using the main connection and casual guests who turn up can use the guest access to get to the internet but they cant see your printer or media server etc.  ( personally I either trust people or dont let them connect but thats another view of the world )  The guest wifi usually has a very similar name to the non-guest one  and so the router actually has two wifi networks which are deliberately stopped from talking to each other.  if you connect the laptop to one and the brennan to the other   they can both see the internet but  they cant see each other.  It seems that this is quite easy to do on some systems.  SO when seeing different "ccc"  numbers this should be one of the things that you check for. 

the other ( slightly obvious ) thing to always check is that the phone running the app is actually connected to the house wifi. I know this seem obvious but  I frequently cant find the B2 and then notice that the phone has decided to use 4G for reasons only known to apple  if the phone is connecting to the internet via 4G then it can never see the B2. Whilst I know that this seems obvious it would be easy after a couple of house moves to find that the phone disconnects in a dead spot and then stays disconnected in a way it never used to do. 

[JFBUK]

Hi John

Where did you get these values from

So the wifi settings show:

Router 192.168.171.1

IPv4 192.168.178.31. 

These are not the usual ip addresses or range of addresses for a BT home hub.

Can you confirm  you are not using any network extenders or mesh network devices connected to your BT router ?

John

[PMB]

Hi Phil,

If the router has set up a 'Guest' network, wouldn't that have a different IP from the 'main' network?

Paul

Brennan Support.

[JFBUK]

Hi Paul,

Guest networks will have different SSIDs and passwords.

I have yet to come across a router used in a domestic or residential situation that has its guest networks enabled by default.

You have to explicitly enable them.

The router will have one DHCP server for connections to all the SSIDs it broadcast so they are typically on the same subnet.

The router manages whether traffic can be routed between SSIDs and again the default is that two devices on the same guest network 

will not be able to exchange network traffic, they will only see the public internet.

My view is that guest networks are very unlikely to be issue here.

John

[Jeff. M.]

John, BT routers have WiFi x and BT WiFi enabled by default, sometimes my phone doesn't work because its connected to one of those! 

[JFBUK]

Jeff,

are they not hotspot ways to connect  the BT mobile data network not guest local LAN networks ?

John

[Jeff. M.]

No, they're nothing to do with mobile, as I have a BT account I use next doors WiFi when I visit my father in law, just have to log in. 

[Jeff. M.]

I think every bt router allocates about 10 per cent of band width for this

[Jeff. M.]

[Jeff. M.]

Top 2 are from my router, so you could use it too! BT WiFi that is

[JFBUK]

Hi Jeff,

well I never knew that as part of your a BT broadband contract you appear to automatically became a BT Wi-Fi hotspot provider. I've learnt something new :)

Its a cheap way for them to expand their open public network !

Its not really a guest network though as guest network is controllable on the host router and the network traffic is still the responsibility of the owner of the host router.

The BT hotspot traffic is segregated so not their responsibility.

John

[Jeff. M.]

But his router might be trying to connect to it, I'll have a look later see if I can find the IP address. 

[John Drysdale]

Thanks everyone, a lot to digest here, so I will go through this week and see if I can work through the issues raised above,  Much appreciated.

[John Drysdale]

Thanks Fred, we have 3 routers dotted round the house.  This makes sense if they are different addresses.

[John Drysdale]

Thanks Peter, I think I will call BT and see if I can get sense from them.

[John Drysdale]

Thanks Phil, there is a Guest network (which I too find strange) but as far as I can see the Brennan is trying to connect to the main one.  I will have another look.  We have 3 of the BT units in different parts of the house (is that a 'mesh'?) so think problem could be there.  

On Thursday, April 7, 2022 at 3:02:28 PM UTC+1 phil...@gmail.com wrote:

[John Drysdale]

Thank you, yes these re from going into settings/wifi/tcp-ip.  There are 3 of the BT devices scattered round the house, I think this is the issue.

On Thursday, April 7, 2022 at 7:17:32 PM UTC+1 JFBUK wrote:

[John Drysdale]

Thanks Jeff, it's definitely something to do with the BT setup, didn't have this issue before.

On Friday, April 8, 2022 at 11:44:17 AM UTC+1 Jeff. M. wrote:

[JFBUK]

John,

I would do the following to reset everything ,clearing down your network connections

1. Save and power down your B2

2. Power down all your BT Whole Home Discs and your BT router/hub
3. Power up the B2 and reset wifi

From the B2 menu

>SETTINGS>MAINTENANCE>Reset Wi-Fi

3. Power up the BT router/hub

4. Power up the BT Whole Home discs

5. Check the connection of the device you normally run the Web UI on and confirm it can access your home network, access the internet etc.

6. Check the IP address of the device and the network name (SSID) you are connected to

7. On the B2 setup Wi-Fi making sure you use the same network name /SSID

8. Assuming the B2 connects OK check the IP address on the B2 against the IP address of your Web UI device 

They should both have the same first three IP octets 

e.g. 192.168.1

9. Check the Wi-Fi strength of the network connection on the B2

>SETTINGS>MAINTENANCE>Wi-Fi Strength

10. Test Web UI connection and functionality

11. Post the results and any success here

Thanks

John

[John Drysdale]

Thanks all, success of sorts.  Tried all the above without success.  Decided to try moving Brennan to where our broadband comes in and next to the first BT disc. Success in connecting. Connected UI to that IP address and appears to be working.  Not sure how this affects performance of Brennan for other features like radio and you tube etc.  But its allowed me to connect to the UI and I think, deal with the other problem I was having regarding distortion (disabled graphic eq). 

Anyway, a solution for now hopefully.

Many thanks

John

[PMB]

Hi John,

YouTube and Radio should work as expected now you have connected to the main hub.

Paul

Brennan Support.