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Troubleshooting discovery, multicast, and SSDP

  • Updated

If you are struggling with getting your Airtame devices to automatically appear inside the Airtame app, this is highly likely because of a lack of configuration of the networks and VLANs involved. Auto-discovery of Airtame devices relies solely on the network that the Airtame devices are connected to and their configuration, which means that any issues with auto-discovery indicate a misconfiguration on the network.

Here are some suggested troubleshooting steps:

  • Assumptions

  1. Multicast is allowed and enabled on all networks/VLANs involving Airtame.

  2. The firewall doesn't have any configuration that would block multicast traffic.

  3. The Multicast ports 1900 + 1901 are open and communicating between VLANs.

  • Configuration on Aruba

Symptom: No Airtame devices show up in the app when using Aruba equipment.
Solution: Apply the steps to configure your Aruba network using this guide.

  • Sonicwall Routers/Firewall

Symptom: No Airtame devices show up in the app when the computer & Airtames are connected to different VLANs, despite Multicast being enabled.
Solution: Make sure the option "Require IGMP Membership report" is disabled.

 

  • Windows SSDP Discovery (+ Antivirus)

Symptom: Airtame devices show up on all other computers except Windows PCs.
Solution: Windows has the ability to run its own SSDP multicast group. When this service is running, all the received multicast traffic gets "swallowed" by the service.
To solve this, go to "Services>SSDP Discovery>Properties>[startup type]=disabled or Manual". After this, you will need to stop the service from running by right-clicking on the service "SSDP Discovery" and click "Stop"

Note: We have received feedback from users stating that this suggestion, combined with disabling Antivirus solved their discovery issues. We do not suggest disabling your Antivirus but working with it so that it stops blocking SSDP traffic to the Airtame app.

  • Natting multicast traffic

Symptom: The device is not showing up or is showing up but doesn't work.
Solution: SSDP traffic is sent to the multicast address (239.255.255.250) which cannot be natted. Change your Firewall rule not to NAT from any source to the multicast address. 

  • Multicast storm control

Symptoms: Discovery works and stops working in intervals.
Solution: Check to see if you have some kind of Storm control enabled. Sometimes the configuration of storm control is too strict and starts to dissolve multicast traffic.

  • QoS (Quality of Service) Configuration

Symptoms: Airtame devices don't show up on any platform.
Solution: A misconfiguration in the Quality of Service can cause discovery packets to be dropped in favor of other types of traffic. Make sure Multicast traffic is not on low priority. For more info on QoS, see this article: Prioritize Airtame's network traffic using QoS

 

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