Hi folks.

I recently got a WNCE2001 to try and connect a Linux-based sat receiver to my home network. I've used these devices in past for similar setups.

Setup worked fine.. it found and connected to my router. The client receiver got its DHCP and DNS, gateway details.. this was easy to verify as you can login to the receiver and check /etc/resolve.conf, ifconfig etc.

I can telnet into the receiver from anywhere in my LAN, I can stream video from the receiver and access its web server.. great.. except all was not well. It failed to access samba share from another network host.

When I investigated in detail, I found the receiver could ping some hosts on my lan but not all and also it got no ping responses from my router. Equally, any ping or external connection it tried to the Internet failed.

The setup is as follows:

receiver -> WNCE2001 -> upstairs Linksys router -> CAT5 LAN -> downstairs router -> cable modem

The upstairs router has its DHCP server disabled and it LAN-connected (not WAN) to a LAN port on the downstairs routers. This is a common trick used to have multiple routers, SSIDs etc but have just one LAN of clients. Makes for more simplified communication between everything. But just to clarify that this setup works perfectly for everything I do. I've been doing this kind of stuff for years.

Because of this setup, I was able to run wireshark trace on the upstairs LAN cable and sniff the ping and connection attempts from the receiver. The pings go out and the ACKs come back.. they just never get back to the receiver via the WNCE2001.

It gets better however.. connected the device to my laptops.. a macbook pro running OSX Mountain Lion.. works perfectly.. nothing lost. Connect it to an older macbook running OSX Lion.. exact same issue as sat receiver.. can ping some hosts only and no external Internet access. Simply put some clients work fine, others don't... and bear in mind this is without making any changes to the device or moving it etc.

So it's pretty clear to me at this stage that the issues with this device are not yet resolved. Some of the earlier firmware updates explicitly addressed issues like this with smart TVs. I managed to locate 2 older versions of the firmware and tried a manual downgrade.. same issue. I even switched to the US version from EU version.. same issue.

So alas.. it goes back this morning to the shop for an alternative.. probably the WNCE3001 as I doubt they have alternatives in stock.

I just wanted to share my experiences and analysis from sniffing the activity.

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WNCE2001 issues