Sling adapter/ reciever reset

[B_Kranski]

Well, I am personally kinda getting tired of this sling adapter from Dish network. I am having alot of problems with the reciever not showing up on-line. My second reciever keeps showing up but that one doesnt have the sling adaper on it. I have a 722 as my primary reciever hooked up via homeplug, and then have the sling adapter on that one. Then I also just got a newer 722k for a 2nd reciever (had to sign a new 2 year contract) and that one shows as green on the screen but my 722 keeps showing yellow and tells me to reset my connection. Which in it self if a joke because if you are using a sling adapter then you are not at your reciever and if I could reset the reciever I wouldn't need the sling adapter. I am wondering is there a way to reset the reciever remotely? If not, this is the biggest overlook on how people use the recievers with the sling adapters. If anyone can help me out with this problem it would be greatly apreciated. Bill

System set-up
Charter internet (2meg upload)
Vip722 (primary reciever)
Vip722k (secondary)
Homeplug network adapter
Sling adapter (usb from dish nework)
Linksys router with 2 computers hard wired, and 2-3 wireless devices. (blu ray player and wii) Occasionally my phone as well.

 

[TheKrell]

Sympathies from a fellow Sling Adapter sufferer. This morning my Android client claimed it couldn't show me anything because my SLING device was rebooting. Huh.

Anyhow, you CAN reboot your whole receiver using Dish Remote Access. Preferences -- Receivers -- Sing Adapter connected receiver should show a Reboot button.

 

[fishman316]

how much is the total cost for the free sling adapter? do they charge for shipping, tax, etc. Also is the offer still good? thanks

 

[MaryB@SlingTV]

how much is the total cost for the free sling adapter? do they charge for shipping, tax, etc. Also is the offer still good? thanks

Only certain are get charged tax but no shipping on it. It is still current, just be sure to order through a CSR. It would be $99.00 and then the rebate is $99.00 on a Master Card.

 

[B_Kranski]

This is the message I recive when I try to go to the reciever settings. And I am guessing there is no way to fix that away from being at home which makes no sense since people use these away from home mostly. I did reset my reciever, when I got home, made sure it says it is connected to the internet which it was...I even tried using the usb wireless adapter that dish sent me to see if that would work and none of it is working. I think my wireless strength was 43-48 so I would think that would be good enough. Prior to that I had it going through a homelink adapter and that would work sometimes and sometimes not. Now the DVR doesnt show up at all with the USB wireless adapter. I have a new one coming to the doorstep tomorrow, will see if that reciever plays a little better. The odd thing is is that my secondary reciever was showing as on-line when I was going through the homeplug adapter but would not show my primary with the sling adapter on it. Maybe the 722k works better for on-line? If this doesnt work I do not know what to do. I actually bought the sling adapter for $100 and now feal jipped out because everyone else is getting it for free, and I have had nothing but problems from the get go. It maybe works one out of 3 times when away from home. And my laptop is more then fast enough to get the data and process it so it isnt that issue either...I7 proccesor, windows 7 64 bit with 4gb of ram. So I am just at a loss right now. Hoping new reciever will fix it. If not, I guess I wil have to eat the cost of the adapter and be just another unsatisfied custermer of dish.


Your receiver is currently offline. If you would like to reconnect to the Internet, please try the following steps:

1. Press Menu on the remote
2. Select System Setup (6), Installation (1) then Broadband Setup (9)
3. Select Network Setup (1), then Reset Connection

Once you have confirmed you are online, just refresh your browser and click on the Receiver Settings button.

If you continue to have issues with your network connectivity, please search the keyword "broadband" at www.dishnetwork.com/askdish for additional assistance.

 

[MattG@DISH]

A "yellow" connection on DRA/DO.com means that the receiver has been connected, but it can not find it at this time. 40 points on a wifi adapter is the minimum that is required for a solid connection. What happens when you reset the network connection on the receiver? Does your IP address show properly?

What do your internet speeds (upload and download) at home show when you run the test on the link below?

Speedtest.net - The Global Broadband Speed Test

*EDIT* - Noticed you posted a 2 meg upload speed earlier.

 

[sperry85]

So when using the wifi adapter, you are using a USB hub to connect it and the sling at the same time? Don't think you can actually connect more than one thing to its USB port. Never actually tried myself though. But I think this is why you can't see it with the wifi adapter.

As far as your connection problem, it could be a faulty outlet, could be a knock in the electrical wiring to that outlet. I would recommend an ethernet cable to the router. Most technicians will do extra work if you're willing to pay. I would probably charge 25 per wall for a wall drop (through attic and inside wall), you purchase your own ethernet cable.

 

[TG2]

First the understanding of the technology ...

HomePlug is supposed to allow networking through your home's electrical wiring. The receivers have built in homeplug so they connect with the external home plug bridge to get back to your gateway router. Where the HomePlug bridge is, can determine how well connected you'll get. As you should already be aware you can't get HomePlug through GFI, and most power strips ... other devices in and along the power lines can create noise and cause problems.

For the Wireless adapter .... keep in mind that you can use an inexpensive USB2 extension cord 10 to 16 feet long, and that gives you room to move the wireless dongle closer to your wireless router, as well as up higher, or away from any other noise problem.

Last ... you already have an unstable network, are you using static DHCP so that you always assign the same IP to the respective receivers? Any instability is a kick in the teeth to the Dish/Sling servers, and with the problems they've had with caching what they see on receivers ... if the IP does change, it only aggravates the problem.

When you get the yellow maker for the receiver, are you able to log into your gateway router, and ping from there or see that the router does have the ports open (via UPnP)? or setup a connection to one of your workstations in house to ping from there and test/troubleshoot?

 

[B_Kranski]

Well, currently I have completely taken off the USB wifi dongle dish sent me because it wont show at all. Now as far as the router goes, everything pings just fine from there. The homeplug is direct wired to the wall for the primary and the one without a sling adapter is into a surge protector. I do live in an apartment, otherwise I would just buy a long ethernet cable and wire the house up, but not really practicle for this application. I am going to wait and see if the new reciever works otherwise I guess I will have to look into other options. Thanks for the help though. I have the slingbox attached to the back by the way and had the usb dongle attached to the front.

 

[TG2]

By did not see .. you mean the USB Dongle wasn't seen when you plugged it into the front USB Port by the receiver itself? or the wireless router in your place didn't see the dongle? If the receiver didn't see the dongle, you might want to try the rear USB port just for a test.. if seen in the rear but not the front, you have a problem there.. in that the front USB isn't working right

So at times when you can not see the receiver on line ... you are able to ping the IP address of the receiver from a workstation? are you able to use the receiver's Dish Cinema/platinum/on demand feature to download content during those times? (look for music videos or travel clips in the on-demand stuff, they are free and short duration so shouldn't take forever to DL/test)

One of the areas of your situation I'm headed, is the UPnP side of your gateway (the linksys). Many problems for users are the UPnP features aren't as good as they need to be. Personally I use replacement firmware on my home routers (DD-WRT) partly for that reason.. Most manufacturers aren't as good with details as alternate firmware are.. like I see in mine the port opened and to which ip's (I have 2 722k's & 2 sling adapters) where as many times, even on the status pages other routers only show UPnP enabled or not, not what ports have been opened using it.

Now, asside from that ... there is *ONE VERY* important detail that you've just let slip... you're in an apartment ... is this a major complex? Or is this like an apartment in a residential home? ... the reason is back to the technology of the homeplug ... they don't cross phases very well (if at all) and that can cause problems.

Major apartment complexes will usually run 3 phase electrical, and businesses get (or some do) discounts for being more balanced than being more of any one phase.. I shouldn't think that most individual apartments would be on more than one phase, but there's always a possibility. With that being an option, you'd loose the homelink on one receiver if it couldn't get there easily, and also being in an apartment complex, you also have the risk of interference.

That's why I'd rather go wired or wireless depending on the area ... with you being in an apartment, you especially have to worry about other wireless routers and clients, and you'd want to look and see what the area around you looks like, and it might even be to the point that you setup a wireless bridge with external antenna to allow you to tune (aim) an antenna toward your wireless router's base. The fact that you can look at what networks are in your area, is actually an advantage of wireless over the homelink ... you can change channels, and by using N networking devices, help steer clear of problems

 

[B_Kranski]

The reciever seen the dongle, and my router saw the dongle, but I was not able to see it on-line. Now as far as apartment size, it is just a 20 plex residential only. I believe all 1 phase electric. Originally I was trying to extend my routers range using a dd-wrt linksys router as a bridge, but it wouldnt connect to that because it kept trying to go the route of homeplug...so then I unplugged the homeplug reciever (close to the actual router) and then it still wouldnt connect via the wireless...so then I tried reconnecting via the homeplug and now nothing, but really doesn't matter because the 722 finished taking a dump today and is now completely dead. So tonight I will set-up my new reciever...and see how things go. Crossing fingers.

 

[TG2]

sorry.. I smile at the "taking a dump" one of my sayings with regards to the 922 series receiver ... because everyone makes such a rave about the "polished" User Interface ... is that you can spit shine a "turd" but its still a turd..

alright.. back to your issue specifically ..

k... Stability is one key .. I believe I mentioned that above.. the more stable things are there, the more likely to keep online at Dish/Sling/"AmAkie" ('splain that later) As to the Router with DD-WRT ... what build and package? (meaning build # and is it mini, vpn, std, max for the base code type) and what router did you put it on (name and model)

If you're not familiar enough .. DD-WRT is great .... in two ways.. expansion and frustration. DD-WRT gives you great capabilities to do things that normal firmware doesn't let you do (IP Tables is one of them) but at the same time, because they haven't released a "defined-as-stable" build in a long while.. every build is likely to have fixed some things and may have broken others. That's the one thing I've got to say I like least about DD-WRT is the lack of getting a good beta build together for users to hammer on, and then go into release.

The reason I'm concentrating on DD-WRT (asside from having it here to id screen and field locations) is that most of the time its UPnP support works without issue. But given the model & brand of router I'd dig in on that to find out if there are any *don'ts* listed, and at the same time... to have you go into DD-WRT set it up as your gateway, taking care to set up Static DHCP for all of your Dish Receivers ... and then see what happens in 24 hours.

That "stability" is really to give the Dish/Sling/AmAkie servers time to get a lock and cache going. AmAkie is my "toy" concatenation for the newest way that I've found Dish Online to be functioning, that is your authentication gets handled through the Amazon Cloud, and the Content coming through Akamai proxies. It takes time for them to come up to speed ... and even when they *look like* they know you and your DVR's ... in reality you'll find that its just their cache of information that you're seeing .. an example is to delete something at your DVR with the remote control .. and then check every 30 mins or so to see if the item disappears from your "View DVR" option at Dish Online and Dish Remote Access.

Once you have a well defined connection to the internet, UPnP is out of the way, and your receivers aren't having any chance of changing IP's (because you setup static DCHP) then its just a matter of hitting REFRESH at the respective web page for DRA or DO to have it reach out to your DVR and get the update..

So.. suggestion is to most likely try the DD-WRT router as your gateway router, assign IP's to your receivers (I recommend starting at 192.168.1.250 and coming down 192.168.1.250 / .249 / .248 ...for your first, second, third sling-able devices) and then test the internet from the receiver (free on-demand download like a music video) and then confirm in DD-WRT's NAT/QoS -> UPnP screen that 5101/5102/5103... have been grabbed and assigned your respective receivers ... also recommend giving simple names to the boxes .. I use the family member's name T for me, CJ for my sister, LR for living room so that you can easily see which is which.. etc..

and in RE 20 unit apartment complex.. I'd bet your on 3 phase. look for your incoming power poles .. if you see at least 3 big lines going down the pole to a pipe (or to the side of the building) you're more than likely on 3 phase.

 

[B_Kranski]

well after getting it all on-line earlier today...now that i am away from home...now it doesnt want to connect...my guess is either like you said it is switching ip addresses..or the sling box itself is going bad...i will see about setting up a static ip when i get home...right now i am back on the homeplug unit...if this dont work I am giving dish a call and either they can send me a replacement...or give me my money back so I can try and get something that does work. This is becoming way to much crap for something that should just work.

 

[TG2]

The "not connecting" could be one of a couple of things.. The connection from you to your home if firewalled could be a problem. From the home's perspective the biggest problem ever, seems to be UPnP not working, or port forwarding not getting picked up properly at Dish's side.

The "picked up" can be tough because usually you would expect that if you manually log in .. manually log out .. then log back in again, hitting refresh in the "My DVR" or "View DVR" parts of the respective sites usually clears port forwarding ... if UPnP is the culprit, no amount of refresh would fix it, its simply the router not correctly auto-forwarding.

Did you try putting the DD-WRT router into the gateway position?

Also did it work locally before you left for the office? You should be able to sling locally if the forwarding is working correctly.

 

[B_Kranski]

Just to make sure I have everything all set as far as the static ip address, and everything is showing red light on sling payer, and the reciever says connected, now what ports are supposed to be open. Just to make sure? I still cannot connect on-line at home even though everything is showing up in network magic, and also on my routers set-up page. And also now showing yellow on dish's website, so I can see my reciever but not my dvr events.

 

[B_Kranski]

Got off phone supprt with Dish network and they said they are having issues right now with there dish online and remote viewing, so looks like any more testing will have to be done later. She said that she could see the reciever and everything is working good, just a matter of there site working now. (hopefully withen 24 hours) Thanks for all the help by the way.

 

[TG2]

its getting to be like this every nite.. and supposedly dish knows that between 3pm and 7pm they have these problems because of capacity.

As to ports ... first Sling Adapter gets 5101, second would get 5102 ... etc..

And lastly.. try using Dish Remote Access ... log in through DISH Remote Access Login
Use the email address that you have associated with your Dish Network account.
I can get in there just fine and see my DVR events, and have just tested I can get an event to stream... and it started really quickly ..

but with Dish Online .. it was slow to logon, it didn't show any of my DVR events, again... a useless piece of sh*t website unless you really wanted everything BUT your DVR.

 

[B_Kranski]

Well, Had an up and down day today with this problem...I have the wireless bridge continuing to work...and I unplugged the homeplug adapter and now is just going thorugh the ethernet port of the wireless bridge (ww-drt) router. I have it showing on-line consistantly...and was even able to get the video to start...then after the video started it showed yellow and told me to reset my connection (the message I am so getting tired of) and I was even streaming at 2000kbps which is a good connection. and stayed right around that the whole time. Then when I went to change channels it would let me. So I am starting to wonder if most of this is on dishes side (the web part) Here is an image to show you all what I am talking about. Only thing I did with this picture is remove the reciever number. Very odd.

 

[TG2]

What about putting your DD-WRT router as your gateway rather than the e4200. The point would be to eliminate any possible problems with UPnP

Alternatively statically forwarding port 5101 to the IP of your Receiver, and did you set your receiver up for Static DHCP?

Also, need to get with MattG (PM him using his account's PM Link above on this page) requesting he get your info cleared off the respective Dish server (dish14.sling.com)

There was one case where DishXX.sling.com would hold onto invalid information in its cache ... and Matt knows a guy that can clear the account off that server .. the next time you login and get to a server via Dish Remote Access ... the dish14.sling.com should be something else.. that's when you'll know your account was wiped from that respective server.

Anyway.. see if Matt's clearing on Dish's side does anything, if not, then trying DD-WRT as your gateway router rather than the one you have now..