HDHomerun with Unifi setup and VLANs?

[virtualtinker 8]

I asked this question over at the ubnt forums but as I haven't had much luck, I figured I'd try here as well as I know some of you are running Unifi setups...

 

I am trying to get my HDHomerun Extend fully functional, but having problems with getting the HDHR Windows app to discover the tuner. My PCs and phones are all in an internal vlan, and my HDHR tuner is in an IOT VLAN. I run Unifi equipment end to end. Both the Internal and IOT VLAN are considered Corporate networks, with a firewall drop rule on new connections from the IOT network to my internal one. Using a broadcast-relay service that I installed on the USG, and a allow discovery firewall rule for UDP port 65001, my phone is able to discover the tuner and watch TV no problem. My Emby server, which is in my internal network as well, can also successfully discover the tuner and watch TV through the HDHR APIs. It is only the HDHR Windows app on my PC that seems to continually fail to discover the tuner. I've tried opening up the firewall with logging enabled to see if there was some hidden port I was missing, which turned up nothing. I've tried enabling the MDNS reflector and setup the repeater as well, with no luck. Adding port 1900 to my broadcast-relay for SSDP when I noticed that being sniffed via Wireshark didn't help. I had an igmp-proxy setup at one point which didn't help either and I've honestly gotten rid of it as the broadcast-relay seemed be more reliable. I've even tried setting up a port forward on port 65001 which I started fishing for something that might work. Putting both devices in the same L2 network doesn't help either as the Windows app doesn't seem to cache the IP address of the tuner, so as soon as I move everything back to different networks, the discovery breaks again.

 

At this point, I'm not really all that sure what else to check as these stupid fisher price multicast only setups are the bane of my existence. In any case, if any of you have any run into this prior and have some advice or any other suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it.  Thanks!

Edited February 14, 2019 by virtualtinker

[Guest asrequested]

This might help

 

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/62732-unifi-gear-network-segregation-via-vlan/

[virtualtinker 8]

This might help

 

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/62732-unifi-gear-network-segregation-via-vlan/

Unfortunately, nothing in that post helps me as I've had vlans setup and working for over a year now and all of my other multicast devices work as well across subnets (PS4, Sonos, Samsung soundbar). I've also already tried using the igmp-proxy that was mentioned by Swynol in case it somehow had better luck over my broadcast-relay, but that didn't work out. The HDHomerun currently works perfectly using their APIs with Emby and with my mobile phones. It is specifically only the Windows app on my desktop that is giving me trouble.

 

I appreciate your reaching out in any case.

[Guest asrequested]

Where did you download the app, from? The Microsoft store or Emby website?

[virtualtinker 8]

Where did you download the app, from? The Microsoft store or Emby website?

This is the official SiliconDust app from the Microsoft Store.  I realize also that considering I can get the HDHomerun to be discovered and stream properly through Emby, I can just use that on my Windows PC.  I am stubborn though and want my tech to work end to end as advertised, so I will put in the time and at least try and figure this out before I start settling.

[Guest asrequested]

Oh, so this isn't Emby related. My misunderstanding.

[virtualtinker 8]

Oh, so this isn't Emby related. My misunderstanding.

No worries. Looking back in retrospect, I could see where someone might think I meant Emby Theater instead of the actual HDHomerun Windows app, so I clarified in my original post to avoid any future confusion.  Thanks in any case!

[virtualtinker 8]

Just want to add for those in the future who might read this, it sounds like this is a current limitation of the Windows app.

 

https://forum.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=119&t=70434

 

Here's a post from a user on the SD forums who mentioned the same issue.  The SD employee who responded mentioned that it's currently not designed to run across subnets. I went ahead and posted to that thread to add my findings as well in the hopes maybe it can be addressed in a future release.

[Guest asrequested]

Ah, that's interesting. Good to know. So nothing to do with VLANs, directly, just different subnets. All of mine are on the same subnet. But I'll keep that in mind.

[Swynol 375]

@@virtualtinker there is a way around this. It sounds like its the same as sonos devices. Normally the controller and speakers need to be in the same subnet due to how multicast and unicast packets work. 

 

It's not straight forward but if you've messed with the CLI and json files before its easy enough to do. I wrote a blog post on it here - https://blog.awelswynol.co.uk/2017/11/unifi-sonos-and-vlans

 

 

the idea is to use igmp-proxy to forward the multicast packets from one subnet to another. so eth1 is my main internal subnet. eth1.80 (VLAN 80) is my IOT vlan. The IOT VLAN that your homerun is in needs to be set as downstream - you can specifiy the alt-subnet if you want i.e. "alt-subnet": "192.168.1.0/24" or if you use 0.0.0.0/0 it will work on what ever IP range eth1.80 is.

 

any change made in the CLI doesnt survive a reboot of the USG so you need to create a json file. If you need more help post here tagging me.

 

 

And then another post i did to boost security somewhat:

 

https://blog.awelswynol.co.uk/2018/04/sonos-unifi-vlan-and-firewalls

 

EDIT: should of read the thread fully before replying. - sorry i see you tried the above.

Edited February 16, 2019 by Swynol

[Swynol 375]

another option if you only wanted 1 desktop to access it is install a second network card, have that card in the same subnet as the Homerun. you could use some internal firewalling to block anything jumping from 1 subnet to another through your desktop pc

[virtualtinker 8]

another option if you only wanted 1 desktop to access it is install a second network card, have that card in the same subnet as the Homerun. you could use some internal firewalling to block anything jumping from 1 subnet to another through your desktop pc

No worries about not reading the post, and I appreciate your reaching out.  I literally spent months on and off trying to get the Sonos to work and even had problems when I was using the igmp proxy until one day I stumbled across the line to add to the up and downstream the alt subnets, which magically fixed everything.  Since then though, I've moved to using the bcast-relay instead.  I have to reinstall after upgrading the USG, but it doesn't need to be restarted the way I had to do with the igmp-proxy if ever the USG got rebooted, plus I have more control over which multicast ports are being relayed between my two networks.

 

About other ways to get the Windows app working, I thought about creative ways I could get around this if I really wanted, like setting up multiple interfaces on my Windows NIC, and using static routes and tagging the traffic with the appropriate vlan tag, then setting up the switch port my PC is plugged into to a trunk port, but that is waaay too much effort for something I don't technically need anyway since the tuner works perfectly fine in Emby. I made my piece and asked for the Windows 10 app to be addressed  in the forum post I linked to remove whatever multicast limitation is occurring and simply move on.

 

There are definitely some pieces I wish were added to the GUI, but all in all I've been pretty happy with my Unifi setup since getting my VLANs and everything setup like I want.  I always breathe a sigh of relief that I put this in a year and a half ago each time I read about routers being compromised, or the FBI asking everyone to reboot their gear, and all manner of nonsense.

Edited February 16, 2019 by virtualtinker