DISHONLINE ISSUES

[barco13]

Does anybody have any other ideas for a work around? I have a 2wire modem/router, model # 3800HGV-B with ATT Uverse and I have a VIP722K. I am using the Netgear wireless adapter purchased from the dish store and the $99 sling adapter purchased dish as well. I was able to use DRA & DishOnline perfectly up until about 2 weeks or so ago. My router currenly says the below and gives a public IP. I get about 45 min to an hour of "up time" until I get the you must be connected to broadband message when accessing blockbuster movie pass or using DRA or dish online. Any other hints would be greatly appreciated I'm sure Dish is working on this, but this is a huge problem--I understand this may be 2wire related, but weird how blu-ray, wii, roku all work flawlessly and odd how vip722k worked fine until recently.

Device	Allowed Applications	Application Type	Protocol	Port Number(s)	Public IP
Dish	All	-	(all)	(all)

 

[TG2]

... but weird how blu-ray, wii, roku all work flawlessly and odd how vip722k worked fine until recently.

The difference between all of those others, and the Dish/Sling ... those others work from servers *outside* your network.

The Dish/Sling combo is a server *inside* your network.


You initiate the traffic to Netflix, with the bluray, the Wii, the Roku .. they all initiate a communication channel out through your firewall to the servers out there. Naturally the Firewall (2wire) is going to be listening for the response FROM those servers.. the firewall then matches it internally with the address of the device inside that initially sent the request out ...

In reverse.. your firewall needs to be listening for *anyone* from *anywhere* and attach them to the Sling port of the Dish Receiver. There is no "outbound" traffic for the firewall to match the incoming packet with .. and most firewalls consider that type of traffic (inbound traffic with no outbound "request" to match it with) as unsolicited traffic, and summarily drop or deny it.

Its for that reason options like Port Forwarding and UPnP are available for users... UPnP is supposed to enable things like dish receivers, xbox, even torrent applications.. to request specific port openings for themselves.. its for that reason 2wire doesn't include direct support for them .. they have a public post decrying UPnP as the security risk it is.. but its no less necessary for the average user that doesn't have a clue about firewalling and the like.

If you want to lay any culpability here.. its the notion that any non-computer person can plug and go with sling and anything else.. most of the time they can.. but when they can't... it sometimes takes a lot of work.

The oddity with your situation makes me wonder what changed 2 weeks ago.

 

[topcat5]

......
Its for that reason options like Port Forwarding and UPnP are available for users... UPnP is supposed to enable things like dish receivers, xbox, even torrent applications.. to request specific port openings for themselves.. its for that reason 2wire doesn't include direct support for them .. they have a public post decrying UPnP as the security risk it is.. but its no less necessary for the average user that doesn't have a clue about firewalling and the like........

The oddity with your situation makes me wonder what changed 2 weeks ago.

This is why devices needing this ability have NAT settings so the user doesn't have to setup port forwarding. Specifically the receiver should recognize that it's on a NAT connection and setup NAT keep alive. (IMO, it ought to be the default mode) NAT keep alive will cause the router to acknowledge incoming requests from Dish simply by sending a few bytes to Dish on a periodic basis. VoIP is a big user of this technique. Based on what I've seen on my router, Dish Receivers do periodically send very small amounts of data through the router which I assume is for this purpose. It's obscure but I bet this is what Dish does, or they would be having many many more complaints about it.

Unfortunately on the Dish receivers, there is no way to check for it or even to see or change the duration of NAT keep alive. Maybe it changed on the last software update. It's important that it be set to a duration that is less than the TCP keep alive setting on the router. I agree with you that requiring the user to setup port forwarding, etc. is problematic at best.

 

[barco13]

The difference between all of those others, and the Dish/Sling ... those others work from servers *outside* your network.

The Dish/Sling combo is a server *inside* your network.

You initiate the traffic to Netflix, with the bluray, the Wii, the Roku .. they all initiate a communication channel out through your firewall to the servers out there. Naturally the Firewall (2wire) is going to be listening for the response FROM those servers.. the firewall then matches it internally with the address of the device inside that initially sent the request out ...

In reverse.. your firewall needs to be listening for *anyone* from *anywhere* and attach them to the Sling port of the Dish Receiver. There is no "outbound" traffic for the firewall to match the incoming packet with .. and most firewalls consider that type of traffic (inbound traffic with no outbound "request" to match it with) as unsolicited traffic, and summarily drop or deny it.

Its for that reason options like Port Forwarding and UPnP are available for users... UPnP is supposed to enable things like dish receivers, xbox, even torrent applications.. to request specific port openings for themselves.. its for that reason 2wire doesn't include direct support for them .. they have a public post decrying UPnP as the security risk it is.. but its no less necessary for the average user that doesn't have a clue about firewalling and the like.

If you want to lay any culpability here.. its the notion that any non-computer person can plug and go with sling and anything else.. most of the time they can.. but when they can't... it sometimes takes a lot of work.

The oddity with your situation makes me wonder what changed 2 weeks ago.

Looks like I'm connected this morning, which hasn't happened in awhile. This was after unplugging, reconnecting components. One thing to note is when my receiver came to, it gave a message about a title being ready to view I downloaded a few days ago so maybe it was stuck somehow.
I do understand the other devices I mentioned work differently, I guess what I should have said is it is odd other devices would choose different technology than sling, maybe for a reason. I certainly wouldn't expect a networking certification as a requirement for use of dish products, but after the blockbuster rollout and dishonline issues who knows. As always these forums are helpful.

 

[TG2]

This is why devices needing this ability have NAT settings so the user doesn't have to setup port forwarding. Specifically the receiver should recognize that it's on a NAT connection and setup NAT keep alive. (IMO, it ought to be the default mode) NAT keep alive will cause the router to acknowledge incoming requests from Dish simply by sending a few bytes to Dish on a periodic basis. VoIP is a big user of this technique. Based on what I've seen on my router, Dish Receivers do periodically send very small amounts of data through the router which I assume is for this purpose. It's obscure but I bet this is what Dish does, or they would be having many many more complaints about it.

I highlighted the key sentence and two very important words ... "from dish"

When you are at work .. you aren't Dish (unless by chance you work for them ).

How would the firewall at your office allow you to connect to your Sling Device? Your firewall at work allows outbound access, and allows inbound response .... it must match the inbound "response" with the source and destination that it logged for your *outbound* request.

Your firewall at home, is pinging DISH for that keep alive ... so your firewall at home is expecting *dish* to respond *not* your office firewall.

What your thinking, is the scheme that things like "Go To My PC" uses (gotomypc<.>com) .... your pc runs the agent app ... it pings ("alerts" GTMPC, not the literal "ping" command) GoToMyPC that you're there ... and can be connected to. You at your office mean while, go to the GoToMyPC website ... you log in, it redirects you to another sub-server that will host the connection, gotomypc *responds* to a previous packet (ie, that 5 mins or 15 mins ago keep alive your pc sent out) saying OK, connection is "here" ... and you and your pc RELAY through GoToMyPC.

http://tinyurl.com/gtmpc-how
that is a link to a google doc copy of the the GoToMyPC whitepaper ... physically numbered page two, the last two bullet points
.

• Broker: The broker is a matchmaker that listens for requests and maps them to registered computers.
  .
• Communication Server: The communication server is an intermediate system that relays
  .

If DISH did this... yes.. would work just fine 99% of the time ... however two things.. first it means *EVERY* sling adapter user would get relayed through them for *EVERY* sling session ... and second.. your sling ability everywhere including in house, would be limited to your upload speed. (in house I get near HD quality and run 8 to 10 megs ... my Comcast Cable connection is 6/1 ... if I had to relay through dish, the max quality I would have is 1meg! not the 8 to 10 I get now by connecting directly)

The first reason why dish would not want to do this.. is the length of time a user would be connected .... 30 mins for a half hour show ... 1 hour for an hour long show ... several hours for a movies etc..

Next the bandwidth cost ... an OC3 is about 155 megs of data ... if you attached 100 users that would be a stream of roughly 1.5 megs per user .... an OC3 costs about 10000 a month ... which would be $100 per user per month serviced.

Instead .... *most* of the connections are direct rather than relay .. so you at your office.. you connect directly to the sling in your house... the Administrivia goes between you and dish, and your sling and dish ... at its most, for a few seconds, there would be maybe 20k of data for the initial setup of the sling connection (authentication, endpoint mapping, etc) and then the amount of administrivia data drops to 200 bytes...

@200bytes ... 1-OC3 could support 775,000 administration channels.. even if its 2k of administrivia once the link is established; that would still mean servicing 77,500 users ... which equates to 12.9 cents per user per month ... either would be a real cost incentive for them to go this route..

to the best of my knowledge ... where an un-managed firewall is concerned ... there is no way to map end points different from the original source/destination headers.

On Dish's side ... prior to DishOnline ... no where was this more clear than Dish Remote Access ... you login with dish ... you get directed to a specific server dish16.sling.com ... dish36.sling.com ... etc.. and your subsequent connections are with that server...

so at GO time ... you authenticated to Dish Network .. dish looked up a server that can service you (metrics for numbers of users, last connection time, etc..) and sent that server advanced notice and a copy of the token you'll be connecting with.

Meanwhile .. the firewall in front of those servers *allows* unsolicited traffic in to port 80 & port 443 (plus others) ... your SlingPlayer sends the request to *your* Sling Adapter with the token ... it sends that token to dish, gets redirected to the correct server, the correct server listens on 80/443 ... but replies with a port redirection for your administrivia ... the port redirection hits the sling, it then connects to the new port and administration is up, you're OK where ever you are.. etc..

And ... there could even be a script that runs pushing updates to the firewall in front of the dish/sling servers.. when you authenticated to Dish ... they got your IP .. they could flag that IP with the firewall as allowed for unsolicited attempts to other dish servers for the next 5 mins ... etc.. (way more complex then *that* needs to be but its possible)

Even if you manually typed in dish.sling.com .. you would get redirected to a specific server to service you via web ... an allowed port ... the administrivia would still be to different ports, and would still have to be an "allowed" condition. (didn't see you on port 80 first? firewall blocks you from attaching to dish's servers on other ports, etc)


And .... dish *does* do similar to Netflix, GoToMyPC etc.. when it comes to the DishOnline content that is *not* on your Sling ... hence why D.O. can still work without your receiver working and without your receiver "On Line".

The key is what the firewalls are trained for .. your office firewall is not concerned with allowing sling services ... your home firewall isn't either.. until you setup port forwarding or its done for you through UPnP.

All you need to do is google UPnP Xbox Live ... and you'll see this isn't just a problem for Dish ... any time you have high data use ... no one wants to pay to be the relay broker and relay communications server ... hence why GoToMyPC has a minimum monthly cost .... also know that GoToMyPC is using a compressed datastream, and the agent/client can send positional information, it doesn't have to re-draw the screen for your mouse, it just tracks were your mouse is on a static picture of your remote desktop...data magnitude far less than SD much less HD; video.

(sorry post is long ... not a simple subject)


Edit: the token and hand off may not be exactly as I've suggested ... but its basically in some way similar ... you don't have to authenticate to find a sling receiver, but to actually start getting the stream, there is a server that must authenticate you .. either by token, user/pass, etc. exactly what stage each is consulted, etc.. is a minor point ...

the key is still that the data for your connection is from endpoint to endpoint and *not* relayed through Dish, only the administrivia goes to dish while you are streaming.

 

[mrc54]

I am running the same equipment except for a ethernet cable. After reading this thread, I put my 2wire into DMZ mode to see if it would help my DRA android app. I was alway seeing the "not hooked up to the internet window". So far,every morning it still says no internet, but if I hit the live TV button and connect, the guide channels will then work. Since ATT sells Dish, you would think that they could figure out how to make all the equipment to work together. As for my Dish online account, I always stay logged in, and it works most of the time.

Does anybody have any other ideas for a work around? I have a 2wire modem/router, model # 3800HGV-B with ATT Uverse and I have a VIP722K. I am using the Netgear wireless adapter purchased from the dish store and the $99 sling adapter purchased dish as well. I was able to use DRA & DishOnline perfectly up until about 2 weeks or so ago. My router currenly says the below and gives a public IP. I get about 45 min to an hour of "up time" until I get the you must be connected to broadband message when accessing blockbuster movie pass or using DRA or dish online. Any other hints would be greatly appreciated I'm sure Dish is working on this, but this is a huge problem--I understand this may be 2wire related, but weird how blu-ray, wii, roku all work flawlessly and odd how vip722k worked fine until recently.

Device	Allowed Applications	Application Type	Protocol	Port Number(s)	Public IP
Dish	All	-	(all)	(all)

 

[TG2]

I am running the same equipment except for a ethernet cable. After reading this thread, I put my 2wire into DMZ mode to see if it would help my DRA android app.

DMZ or DMZ Plus mode?

Note: DMZplus is a special firewall mode that is used for hosting applications. When in
DMZplus mode, the designated computer shares your gateway’s IP address (Router
Address), appears as if it is directly connected to the Internet, has all of the unassigned TCP
and UDP ports opened and pointed to it, and can receive unsolicited network traffic from the
Internet. Because all filtered traffic is forwarded to the designated computer, DMZplus mode
should be used with caution. A computer in DMZplus mode is less secure because all
available ports are open and all incoming Internet traffic is directed to this computer.

note "computer" means any device you stick *into* the DMZ not your physical computer, unless you happen to stick the computer into the DMZ

That above section is qouted out of one of the 2wire manuals.. would need the model number of your specific unit to see if it has the same feature (it should).... etc..

 

[dan188]

I belive voip ie vonage work in a similar way as well

 

[mrc54]

DMZ plus mode with the 722K as host.

 

[TG2]

DMZ plus mode with the 722K as host.

and you're wireless or via home plug? confirmed high numbers for the wireless connection, especially when you loose connectivity, and next tried pinging when "off line" happens to see if there was a moment of network drop out..

If only they put some diags in there for people to use to eliminate these problems..

 

[mrc54]

ethernet wire.

and you're wireless or via home plug? confirmed high numbers for the wireless connection, especially when you loose connectivity, and next tried pinging when "off line" happens to see if there was a moment of network drop out..

If only they put some diags in there for people to use to eliminate these problems..

 

[TG2]

ethernet wire.

Sorry.. missed that in your other post..

Ok... think I also realized you're just talking about the DRA App and not Dish Online or Dish Remote Access (both via web browser).

The Android App ... open it ... give it a minute.. then manually log out (have to go into the options / more options menus) Then Log back in ... and see if it connects...

It seems the "refresh" on the DRA APP doesn't work well ... DishOnline's refresh button similarly doesn't work so hot for many (myself included) and find that any time I manually log out ... and then log back in ... that the proper sync up has happened.

DMZ Plus mode is get your receiver "On Line" and stay on-line with respect to the Dish Online and Dish Remote Access web sites will show it. Rather than non-dmz plus mode .. where you must always power cycle or unplug the ethernet (your case) or wireless dongle (other people) ... for the receiver to re-attempt sync with the Dish/Sling servers and for them to recognize the receiver is there ...

 

[elmafu69]

I put my receiver on dmz and it seems to be working more now. Lets hope I dont jinx it.

 

[MikeD-C05]

My dish online doesn't work any more either. I'm about to use a real live sling pro hd unit ,when it gets here and I'll most likely lose the adapter entirely. It doesn't ever work well anyway. I can then use the sling website itself and then it may actually work like dish remote access used to.

 

[TG2]

My dish online doesn't work any more either. I'm about to use a real live sling pro hd unit ,when it gets here and I'll most likely lose the adapter entirely. It doesn't ever work well anyway. I can then use the sling website itself and then it may actually work like dish remote access used to.

do you also have an AV receiver? ... wondering if that would work to allow you to switch between multiple devices, and use codes for those devices too... ie. bounce the IR signal for turning on an Onkyo AV receiver... setting it to Bluray then using bluray's ir commands.. switch to DVB, and send Dish IR commands.. etc.. I know that they had a multiple input Box ... wonder if they went away from that.. etc.. (want a more practical example rather than the hype most of those companies put out.. you see what we got with Dish & the sling adapter O )

 

[mrc54]

Since changing to DMZ plus mode, I have found that I can reset my android DRA by hitting live tv, letting it connect, then going back to the guide, then it will connect.

 

[MikeD-C05]

do you also have an AV receiver? ... wondering if that would work to allow you to switch between multiple devices, and use codes for those devices too... ie. bounce the IR signal for turning on an Onkyo AV receiver... setting it to Bluray then using bluray's ir commands.. switch to DVB, and send Dish IR commands.. etc.. I know that they had a multiple input Box ... wonder if they went away from that.. etc.. (want a more practical example rather than the hype most of those companies put out.. you see what we got with Dish & the sling adapter O )

My 722k is hooked up to a google revue unit on the top right side of my tv cabinet. The a/v receiver is on the left top shelf of the cabinet.

 

[topcat5]

(sorry post is long ... not a simple subject)


the key is still that the data for your connection is from endpoint to endpoint and *not* relayed through Dish, only the administrivia goes to dish while you are streaming.

On the first point that is because you diverged off onto topics that I was not responding to such as the ability to get through a corporate firewall. On the second issue, of course as I never suggested otherwise. As you point out, there are numerous methods that Dish could employ which preclude people having to make modifications to their firewall. Obviously they have done this since it works for some.

 

[TG2]

On the first point that is because you diverged off onto topics that I was not responding to such as the ability to get through a corporate firewall. On the second issue, of course as I never suggested otherwise. As you point out, there are numerous methods that Dish could employ which preclude people having to make modifications to their firewall. Obviously they have done this since it works for some.

However you DID by implying NAT keep alive .. which is precisely why I highlighted FROM DISH ...

NAT Keepalive only works to keep the connection open from your dish receiver *TO DISH* ... you want to connect from your phone, you want to connect from your friends house, you want to connect when you are at work.. NAT KEEP ALIVE WILL NOT WORK unless you then relay *EVERYTHING* through dish ...

Imagine what dish would have to charge PER USER Per hour of access to your home DVR if they relayed everything? ... no ... I'd rather they did it this way.

 

[TheKrell]

NAT KEEP ALIVE WILL NOT WORK unless you then relay *EVERYTHING* through dish ...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the way this worked for VoIP is the NAT keepalive is going on all the time between your VoIP adapter and your phone service's servers. Then when somebody wants to call you, they first go to your phone service's servers which tell your VoIP adapter where to connect for the data stream (your caller's equipment). Then a direct connection is made without need for UPnP or router pinging or relaying the data stream through your phone service's servers. The same could have been done for Sling tech.