Chromecast Audios ghosted

[diadeluz]

Hi,

Thanks for the awesome work. I can now air play off the cuff from my iPad to any chromecast in the house and that is priceless.

The only issue I’m facing is that after running aircast-win, the five Chromecast Audios (CCA) on my LAN cease to be discoverable by any casting app launched from any machine on the LAN. It takes rebooting the APs between the CCAs and the main router to restore the discoverability of the CCAs.

That does not happen with the regular Chromecasts.

Would you have any idea why the CCAs misbehave? :)

Best,

D.

[philippe44]

I have a few CCA and don't see that. Do they disappear while playing or after? My iIOS-Google Home and my Windows-Chrome still see my CCA while playing. I can stop/change volume

[stevenswall]

Similar issue, all devices work, though casting to any Chromecast Audio devices does not, whether using digital or analogue output from them.

Tried running from Windows as the administrator as well and the same thing happens: Casting to groups or individual Chromecast devices work. (Google Home Mini, Google Nest Hub, Nest Hub v2, Google Home Max)

All devices are on the same Ruckus R720 access point, and still show under Android devices, but not on an iPhone 12.

I should be able to test just about any device, let me know if there is a log file that helps and how to export it. Thanks for making this!

[philippe44]

If you stop AirCast, do they become discoverable again?

[stevenswall]

Restarting the application as administrator now shows Chromecast Audio devices and they work to cast to.

Casting to a group however only engages Google Nest Hub and Home Mini speakers, no Chromecast Audio devices.

Here is what happens in the Terminal on Windows 7 64 bit:

AirCast, Play to CCA success Play to group ignores CCA.txt

1. User casts to Family Room Stereo and it works.
2. User casts to Main Floor and it reaches a Home Max, Home Hub, and Home Mini, but doesn't play on the Kitchen Stereo or Family Room Stereo, both of which are Chromecast Audio devices. Kitchen Stereo is analogue output. Family Room Stereo is optical digital output.

[philippe44]

Not sure that was my question: if the players are not discoverable once they are controlled by AirCast, do they become discoverable again just (and only just) by closing AirCast?

[stevenswall]

Sorry, sounds like my issue is a separate issue. I read the original post too quickly about CCA devices misbehaving and added to it.

[diadeluz]

Hi, sorry about the tardiness of my reply.

Here is my test case on a LAN with 6 CCA, 1 CC, 6 GH mini (+ 1 main router and 3 wired APs which provide wifi connectivity with the same SSID, one for 2GHz, one for 5). I run this test on a wired Windows 10 PC:

Note: I use this scancc node.js snippet to list what CCs and GHs the PC can discover: var scanner = require('multicast-scanner'); scanner({ full_scan: true }, (err, devices) => { if(err) return console.log(err.message); devices.forEach(device => { console.log(device); }); });

1 - I run scancc which shows all of the above (so does the Chrome cast menu) 2 - I run .\aircast-win.exe which prints AddCastDevice lines for all of the above. 3 - I run scancc, which fails to show the CCAs. Chrome no longer shows the CCAs as possible renderers. 4 - I terminate the aircast-win.exe process 5 - I run scancc, which again fails to discover any of the CCAs. Same for Chrome. 6 - I reboot the three APs and when I run scancc, the CCAs show up again both with scancc and in chrome’s cast menu.

Since the CCAs pose no problem for your configuration, I gather mine’s at fault. And since the APs’ reboot make the CCAs discoverable again, the culprit could be some AP setting…

ps - The PC’s firewall was off for the test. And rebooting the PC didn’t cause the CCAs to be discoverable again. As I reboot the APs one at a time, scancc shows them again (as they each reconnect to the AP’s wifi they usually connect to).

ps 2 - The same test on a Ubuntu 20.04 PC on the same LAN using the aircast-x86-64 version (w/ no firewall) causes only one of the CCAs to become undiscoverable (always the same one) until I reboot the AP to which it usually connects with Wi-Fi.

[philippe44]

It feels like an IGMP snooping issue

[diadeluz]

OK, thanks. Will follow that lead and keep you posted.

[diadeluz]

Hi,

I found an unmanaged switch with igmp snooping capabilities that was on my LAN and replaced it with a dumber one.

Still no game, though: my CCAs keep vanishing when I run airconnect.

The main router has its igmp snooping option ticked off. The 3 APs that provide wifi access do not offer such an option in their config pages. Which could mean any one of them could potentially wreak havoc if they have igmp snooping enabled by default.

I’ll check their feature list, run some quick tests, and get back to you to close this issue should my investigation prove fruitful.

[philippe44]

Any update/success?

[diadeluz]

Sorry for my late answer. I have not been able to determine whether any of my APs were at fault as the tech specs do not mention igmp snooping and I just can’t make the time to set up traffic analysis tools to get to the bottom of this.

I would say the chances that rogue igmp snooping is the culprit are very high but I have no hard rock evidence. So I guess you can close this issue since it seems no one else among your users encountered it.

Unfortunately for me this means I have to stop using aircast with my LAN as it is.

Thanks again for all the good work.