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docsteer / sacnview

sACNView provides a tool for monitoring and sending the Streaming ACN lighting control protocol used for lighting control in theatres, TV studios and architectural systems
http://www.sacnview.org
Apache License 2.0
102 stars 24 forks source link

Feature Request: Enable/Disable IGMP #332

Open Mclovin88 opened 3 months ago

Mclovin88 commented 3 months ago

As I see it, sACNview subscribes to all Multicast Universe streams. This is great as you can see all universes that "should" be on the network from all senders.

It would be great to also have the ability to only see universes that are being sent to a port, that are already subscribed to via other devices and not requested by sACNview. Thus also not seeing universes that are not subscribed to. Basically I would like to not have sACNview subscribe to any universes, just reflect what universes may already be on that port that has been subscribed by something else.

For example. You are trying to figure out why a group of fixtures are not working via sACN. So you plug your laptop into the end of a stream (or the middle if using a network tap) and you want to see what that port already has in terms of sACN universes. I don't want to force all Universes to that port with sACNview open (thus triggering the fixtures to possibly start working) but I want to see that the switch port in fact is not sending out a specific stream. Or I want to see that it comes and goes for a specific stream, because another host is having issues.

Thus allowing me to learn that a certain host device is either not setup correctly, or is not properly handling IGMP/Multicast or has some other issue

I feel like this would prove immensely helpful, does anything else agree? Thoughts comments or concerns?

marcusbirkin commented 3 months ago

I've come across that exact use-case. As the goal is to see if sACN universe x is present or not (and at this point we don't actually care about the levels), then Wireshark already fits that bill. Especially as this type of diagnostics is for an experienced/suitably skilled user.

Having a button that disables IGMP would require major consideration as how this presented, as this would break sACNView for the casual/unexperienced user. You wouldn't want this to be a persistent setting, but there is the additional problem of existing IGMP responses that have been sent.... the user would need to verify that timeouts have occurred. For these reasons, I would simply stick with Wireshark for this level of diagnosis.

Mclovin88 commented 3 months ago

This is a fair assessment.

I still believe in the idea that (if presented correctly) that this would be a welcomed addition to this tool.

I agree that this tool is perfect for the casual user. But I see it getting used as the "gold standard" for sACN testing, and I think it is giving false hope in this specific scenario.

I think that Wireshark (while a tool that provides all this info) just overwhelms the average user.

Maybe this idea is part of a greater conversation for an industry specific all encompassing tool.