Dish Sling Adapter connection failure

[jaredbo]

I received my new sling adapter approx 2.5 weeks ago, worked great when I first received it. I am having issues connecting from my iphone's Dish Remote Access to my sling adapter when I am not connected to my home's network that began in the last 3-4 days.

Here is the background. I recently updated by iphone to iOS 4.2.1 and I know the Dish Remote Access app was just updated. I have a VIP722k that has a sling adapter connected. The 722k is connected to a Linksys Cisco E2100L that is acting as a wireless repeater. My internet service is provided by Frontier Communications which provides me with a Westell 7500 modem/router that serves as my primary router. Anyway, the sling adapter works great if my iphone is connected to my home network. I am able to watch live TV, DVR'd events, etc. As soon as I connect to a 3G cellular network or connect to a different wifi network, I get the error message of "Slingbox connection lost" or "Slingbox connection failed". Does anyone know how to correct this?? I have seen suggestions that talk about port forwarding, changing IP addresses, etc but nothing specific to the sling adapter. Please help.

 

[TG2]

First.. did you ever try dish remote access from a PC?
Try it if you haven't... see if it works.. that way you could narrow the problem to just Iphone ..
Try the Dish Connectivity Test Tool http://dishconnectivity.sling.com/
From your own network also test your internet bandwidth to another site like: Speakeasy - Speed Test

Post results (munge your IP address info) so folks can see.

1 thought .. is that you're able to get local connectivity because your local network (ie, in your house) is fast enough, but perhaps the DSL isn't

another thought is perhaps something on the westell 7500 doesn't like the outbound traffic.

The initial sling connectivity must go out to a site, and setup access rights, etc.. but the actual data flows from your sling to your device (PC) so the initial connectivity may go through, but if the access router doesn't like the traffic stream it might consider it some odd attack and be dumping it.

"baby steps" ... sure there will be others that can help along the line..
-R

 

[jaredbo]

I found out that the connection to my sling adapter is only on certain wi-fi connections, some that I was able to watch via my iPhone and on a PC before the connectivity problems. To answer your question about PC and iPhone, the wi-fi connections that I am having issues with will not allow me to connect to the sling adapter via iPhone or a PC. Does this help??

 

[TG2]

I found out that the connection to my sling adapter is only on certain wi-fi connections, some that I was able to watch via my iPhone and on a PC before the connectivity problems. To answer your question about PC and iPhone, the wi-fi connections that I am having issues with will not allow me to connect to the sling adapter via iPhone or a PC. Does this help??

I re-read your original post ... and I think I see where the problem might be, but I'm not positive.

The thing that doesn't make sense, is that you *are* able to get the sling adapter to work when you are on your own home wireless network.

Say you're home, on your wireless network, even though the computer/iphone, and the 722k are on the same network, the 722k must always be able to reach Dish & Sling web sites/servers. 99% of the data for audio/video goes only between the two devices (722k sling -> to PC / Iphone & back) but there is still the requirement that the SlingAdapter/722k reach the dish/sling website for registration, and awareness.

So the puzzling thing when you try from outside your home network ... do you get a connection and *then* it fails? Like maybe it was able to ID the slingadapter is there, but then when it tries to open connection ports.. it that's when it fails..

or does it fail to even see that you have a slingadapter when you attempt to connect from outside your home?

Note too.. that you can't travel from network to network and have it follow you ... if you move from wifi to 3g, or from one wifi network to another wifi network, then at the very least you'll have to reconnect over the website (maybe a refresh from the iphone / web app) to "reconnect" to the session.

 

[jaredbo]

I get an error message that says "slingbox connection failed" or "slingbox connection lost" if I attempt to connect to the Sling Adapter outside of my home network. I am not moving from one network to another, continously connected to a wi-fi network or the 3G network. The Sling Adapter goes through the process where it says "Activating Slingbox", then changes to "Connecting to Slingbox" where it sits for approx 30 secs before I get the error messages stated above. I have no idea what the problem is!

 

[TG2]

Ok.. so then what my thinking is ... something in your home network is blocking, or dropping the traffic, or the traffic is being blocked/dropped on the 7500 Modem/Router.

Need to know a little more on how the 722k connects to your network.

Need the IP, Netmask, and Gateway as your 722k shows it.
From the 7500, need the *lan* Ip address. If the lan IP address of your 7500 does not match the Gateway of the 722k then that is a likely cause.

Your ip addresses *inside* your network are most likely in the 192.168.x.x block, or possibly 172.16.x.x, or 10.x.x.x. If the IP addresses you get are not in one of those ranges, then only give out the first two sets of numbers .. this will help protect you from getting unwanted traffic to your "door".

Also, you'll want to see if you have access to any logging features on the 7500. If you do, and you have the IP of the 722k, you can try to use your phone (turn off the wifi) in 3g mode, to acceess the Sling, and then look in the 7500's logs to see if you see the 722's ip address. If you see it there, its possible the 7500 is dropping the traffic. You can check on line for the manual (if you don't have it) and start looking through the logged message and see if you can find a way to allow the traffic to pass.

Use caution when in the 7500 ... you don't want to setup an option that blocks all your traffic or locks you out of it. Also your ISP may have some settings they can manage from the DSL side, or even help you reconfigure (if needed) to allow the type of traffic to pass.


(Note: I'll be out most of the day so probably wont get to see any more on this till after 4pm eastern)

 

[tigershere]

I'm wanting to get the Adapter but not sure how well it will work for me
I passed the network test but the other results were PC needed a upgrade. It could just be the test is not 'perfect' especially since I run AMD

I have a CPU that's a 4400 plus running at 2.21 duel core so I really don't see how that's not good enough. I can play games on the PC but I can't stream HD ?
I have 2 gig of ram which in it's day was 'awesome' but what's great one day is out of date the next

anyways work a shot of giving me decent HD streaming on my PC on the home network ?

The old Sling AV I have streams near 5Mbs often and works fine. It's just SD and it's meh on quality.
I also love the software the older sling uses vs web based. I really hate the web based ;/

and do they take returns if it just fails to work for me ? Hate to throw away 100 bucks ya know

 

[TG2]

I'm running an AMD 4200+, 2.21GHz, 2Gigs of ram, an Nvidea based 8500GT video card and I don't really have problems streaming up to 8 / 9 megs on the home network (its a segregated wireless network) This 8 ~ 9 megs is the "better" setting of the web or stand alone players and my Sling Adapter through a 722k when on an HD channel (ie. HBO HD through sling adapter on the "Better" setting yields 7 to 9 megs of traffic with very good results .... if I were to do an SD only channel, I would see 4 to 6 megs of traffic)

I've tried doing the HD setting in the web and stand alone players ... and the picture looks amazing, sound is good, for all of 10 or 20 seconds, again this is attempting the HD (highest setting), and after that 20 seconds, the video and audio get disjointed.. hear something from speakers, 5 to 10 seconds later the screen is showing them talking..

If I had it to do all over again .. perhaps I would go for a SlingBOX HD .... having the additional inputs could make the difference.. even if you used two inputs on the SlingBox for TV1 and TV2 from the receiver, you'd be one step above the SlingAdpater which only runs from TV2's output ... so also if you have your timers defaulting to TV 2 tuner, you'll be stuch watching what is recording or cancel the recording.

 

[tigershere]

Great information for me. I have a 7800 GTX and it's overclocked a little as it's a BFG

I like picture in picture so i use my receivers in single mode. So I'm not sure if this is good or bad as it's late and I'm not thinking straight, lol

whatever I will sort it out but mainly I want to be able to get a good picture to this PC.

I have Slingplayer 2.0.4.521 now with the Sling AV but I just assumed that would not work with the Sling Adapter, uh, will it ?

If so, awesome! I was thinking I would have to disable the sling AV on the 622 or just unplug it but it sounds like it would detect two slings and have me pick the one to login to but that's a guess at this point.

Anyways, thanks for the information on your system. I have it ordered now and will sort out the player and mode settings once i get everything up and running

 

[jimdandyvi]

If the Sling Adapter works like the Sling Box you need to set up fort forwarding on your router. The Sling Box will work fine on your internal network without setting up port forwarding.

You will need to go into your router's set up (usually the Gaming section ) and forward ports 5000 - 5001 to the IP assigned by your network to the Sling Adapter.

Even then I have found viewing using my Iphone takes a several attempts and failed connections to set up while viewing using a laptop, even tethered to my Iphone works much smoother.

Jim

 

[TG2]

Great information for me. I have a 7800 GTX and it's overclocked a little as it's a BFG
I like picture in picture so i use my receivers in single mode. So I'm not sure if this is good or bad as it's late and I'm not thinking straight, lol
whatever I will sort it out but mainly I want to be able to get a good picture to this PC.
I have Slingplayer 2.0.4.521 now with the Sling AV but I just assumed that would not work with the Sling Adapter, uh, will it ?
If so, awesome! I was thinking I would have to disable the sling AV on the 622 or just unplug it but it sounds like it would detect two slings and have me pick the one to login to but that's a guess at this point.
Anyways, thanks for the information on your system. I have it ordered now and will sort out the player and mode settings once i get everything up and running

First ... I highly recommend *naming* the devices.. you can do that through preferences in Dish Remote Access. In my case one is named for me Dish-R, the other for my sister Dish-C ... that way you look at the top of the web pages (if doing through web) and can see before going any further which one. When using the stand-alone player, the different "sling" devices will show up under the "directory" and are selectable (note my concern about 2.0.4.x stand alone players)

And that "naming" thing also brings up a gripe about Dish ... single login. Thus my sister accessing the sling on her receiver has to do so through my account user/pass ... which then sets-up sharing user/pass information (she may be family, but she isn't me ... and she's more likely to be in places or on connections that would sniff or watch over her shoulder when typing info in, and thus my account is vulnerable)

And with that single user/login ... when she logs in from phone or web, changes to her sling adapter... the next time I login, web or phone, I'm connected to her sling by default, because it was the last one chosen when she'd logged off... rather than setting a user cookie, or giving us AT LEAST TWO F!!KING LOGINS.. !!! Sorry... makes me madder than hell they didn't think of nor account for multiple users in a house hold and access rights that should or should not be given to children of *any* age.

ANYWAY .. next ... The SlingAdapter forces Dual Tuner mode when you make the connection. And to date, I've not seen my 722k go back to Single Mode automatically when I disconnect from the adapter.. which means I have to manually set it back in single tuner mode.

3rd - SlingPlayer stand alone ... when I attempted to install 2.0.4.x I was denied access to my sling Adapter .. then I installed version 1.5 ... and got access.. then installed version 2.0.3.x and was able to keep access ... I've not tried going back up to 2.0.4 yet in the off chance that I'd have to uninstall and go back through the whole thing again.. It seems Dish & Sling's deliberately intentional action to block users from accessing their Sling Adapters, from the Sling Player stand alone... which if true, is just assinine of them ... its bad enough they can disable our remote viewing ability, worse that it relies too heavily on administrivia back to sling all the while denying culpability when problems go wrong..

that last part is in relation to trying to get things worked out, when generic errors occur, leaving the user with a non-functional connection, and no one inside dish qualified (or at the very least not reachable) to do advanced trouble shooting... until recently most techs didn't even have a list of error codes, and even more information is available on the web than available *inside* dish ... but that's my negative neddy coming out again to pour lemon juice and salt over the paper cut that is "Dishs' disjointed online initiatives".

 

[tigershere]

Is the old 1.5 software still around the net or at sling ?
I will want to go ahead and I can't remember if I had a install CD as I sure can't find it
I have CDs for software 15 years old but so far I can't find any sling stuff from when i got this thing

thanks for all the info as best to be prepared for the worst.

edit

Looked on my hard drive where i download all software and found it. The 1.5 and the SlingPlayer-2.0.0465-Setup-US.exe
So worst case is I have some stuff to work with but I might need to find that .03 version.

I HATE duel tuner mode, hate hate HATE it but if it's all I can do I guess I'll have to adjust when I want to use the sling.
I love just hitting swap when i want to see what's going on with the other tuner.
I do that xx times a day.

Say for instance i am recording two shows and turn on the sling. Will it just display tuner 2 or kills the recordings too?

well, guess I'll find out soon enough :/

Hate it when they make things harder and not easier for me. Now off to look for that other installer

 

[TG2]

Is the old 1.5 software still around the net or at sling ?
I will want to go ahead and I can't remember if I had a install CD as I sure can't find it

I had to search old sites for it.. and was just as likely to download infected versions ... one such place was this: http://slingplayer-desktop.gooofull.com/

And then the 2.0.3 I think I got from this site: http://slingplayer-desktop.en.softonic.com/

but can't be 100% sure.. I did make sure I opened each file with my archive extractor ... rather than just run the app... ie.. WinRAR has an option that works with some EXE's ... allows you to "Extract here" rather than running the encapsulated setup program.. and with that I was able to pull the files out into a real directory and then scan them again just to make sure they wouldn't trigger virus/malware problems..

 

[tigershere]

Found 2.0.3 too so i have three installers.
Actually i found that one you showed me but it brings up a third party installer, safe I assume ?

Then I found the full installer but it's this version SlingPlayer-2.0.3508-Setup-US.exe

So it might be too old yet it might be find.

I renamed my unit and reset the password as i forgot what it was, lol.

My laptop will probably not work well with the sling adapter or at least won't in HD. It's a slow sucker and has no chance of doing HD, zero!

But since I am not losing my 622 where the Sling AV is connected I will just connect to it so it all should work fine once I get this all sorted out and what hoops I need to jump to keep the stand alone player working.

thanks for all of the help!

 

[tigershere]

found this just in case i have firmware issues and it has older installers

Place Shifting Enthusiasts » How to Roll back SlingBox Firmware

plugged my ehd back in and feel real dumb now not knowing the record to EXT was there. Last time I used the thing I think you had to move things there and could play them back or move them back to watch.

(tested recording to EXT and it just deletes or X's out the timer. So it does not work for me or I am confused Ok it's for DVD or a VCR not to EHD, meh)

and i just tried the duel mode and being the only person in this house it's horrid to have to use another remote which i keep in the back room to change stuff. I'd be killing a sibling if we shared the DISH DVR

Hitting swap or pip from either remote in either room is the only way I will use this thing if given a choice. Seems I won't have that choice with the sling but I'll get used to it I suppose!

 

[tigershere]

got my stuff today and TG I got your method to work but when i loaded 1.5 and selected the 722 it rejected it and deleted it from the lan so then I could not add it back. But I just restored the PC to right before the install and this time I installed 2.03 right away
Loaded it up selected the 722 and ignored the upgrade notice and worked like a charm

Only thing is this PC will not work via browser yet the laptop does, odd as it has crappy ass vista on it and this is XP 100% up to date.

But since i have the player working I will be content.

 

[TG2]

Sorry to be out to lunch on the thread.. missed some alert... LOL ...

Anyway.. yeah.. I had it disappear on me too with the 1.5 and then after a reset it came back ... and as long as I didn't try to do too much rewind/fast forward stuff it seemed somewhat stable..

The 2.0.3.xxx also has a "command mode" but on my pc this made things choppy .. the purpose of command mode was to make the app and the "box" more responsive to the remote.. so if you put it in "Command Mode" you press pause.. it happens in half the time it normally takes. but again.. playing russian roulette with causing sling adapter to belly up and push up daisys for a reboot..

Still bothers me that the PC won't work.. and wonder where to further troubleshoot it.. though I did find where the SlingPlayer software logs itself on the pc.. and have seen the errors appear there for others when problems happen.

If you want to work on it some more.. I'm available on Aol, Yahoo, & MSN ... would need to trade IM names (only comms are from those on the buddy lists) Let me know if you're up for it. (you can PM me your IM id etc..)

 

[tigershere]

We can try tomorrow afternoon or night maybe
It's really weird how one way works and the other fails. If anything i'd expect a wireless windows vista to goof up not a wired XP system ;/

I have the repairman coming sat it seems as now i have issues with this 722. I assume it's the hardware but it worked fine with the 522 and the 622 is working fine too
it's that or i got a bad unit