Work-around for 828es crashes when Android browser connects

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Discussion related to installation, configuration and use of MOTU hardware such as MIDI interfaces, audio interfaces, etc. with Windows
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recordingEnthusiast
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Feb 09, 2020 11:52 am
Primary DAW OS: Windows

Work-around for 828es crashes when Android browser connects

Post by recordingEnthusiast »

Since having the MOTU 828es on its own Wifi (an Apple Airport Extreme) would crash when my Samsung Galaxy S8 would connect, with either Firefox or Chrome browser--to be clear, the 828es was on it’s an isolated Wifi network, because the only physical network cable in the Airport Extreme was the MOTU 828es, not internet, no router; so I would change the wifi network on my smartphone, then access the 828es on the browser, and it kinda worked, until it didn't randomly. Not sure if having the 828es on its own wifi network was a problem, but regardless, the main outs would stop sending signal. i.e. a microphone would show signal (mic -> profire 2626 -> ADAT out -> 828es ADAT in), the signal showed level as an OPT (optical) input on LCD and the MOTU touch console would show input signal on the Thunderbolt connected PC, but as soon as smartphone connected via web browser, main out sound would stop--not every single time, but more often than is anywhere near acceptable. And, this happened on both USB 2.0 and Thunderbolt connection.

SOLUTION!!! (seems like this is a solution--but a work-around)

I have a new-ish Windows 10 2-in-1 Asus laptop, with a Thunderbolt connection. I’m not sure if this would work with Windows 10 Home--maybe it would, because the Windows firewall looked like it would allow ingress connections. But I just upgraded to Windows 10 Pro, because I found an article that said if you have a legit license key of Win 7 Pro/Ultimate, then you could upgrade Windows 10 from Home to Pro for free--and that did indeed work. I allowed incoming connections but things still were not working--nor was my new feature of Windows Remote Desktop working either...so the last hurdle was to find the Windows Network Profile--left click my Wifi icon, and on the wifi connection that I was on, there’s a “Properties” link, and the Network Profile is there; I think I originally clicked it as “Public” to block everything, as a paranoid IT guy. Odd though, I allowed RDP and “MOTU Discovery“ “MOTUProAudioHTTPServer“ “MOTUProAudioPort“ through the firewall for both Private/Public, but I digress … So, I changed the Network Profile of my home Wifi to “Private” and that did allow my Samsung Galaxy S8 to connect to the wifi IP of my laptop on tcp port 1280, so in a browser, it would be something like this (your subnet may be different) http://192.168.1.100:1280 --so the Windows 10 Pro laptop is now a web server, that passes the connection through to the 828es...however, in the firewall where you “Allow an app or feature through Windows Defender Firewall” I noticed that it kept adding additional/redundant MOTU items, specifically “MOTU Discovery“ “MOTUProAudioHTTPServer“ “MOTUProAudioPort“. Being a little tweaky about extra redundant crap, I decided to “Remove” all the extras, then I broke connectivity...a reboot did not fix. After checking the Windows firewall again, I noticed that the checkbox to the left of the MOTU items was not checked for some. I checked those, unchecked the Public boxes, and when I went back one last time, there was still one extra MOTU Discovery, but I removed that and I think I’m in business. So, in the end, I’m using my Windows 10 laptop, connected to 828es via Thunderbolt (yes, Thunderbolt on Windows [Asus]), with the Windows 10 laptop as the http server, and the Windows 10 firewall is passing the MOTU ProAudioPort (tcp/1280) through the laptop to the MOTU 828es, so I can connect on my Android Galaxy S8 smartphone via the web browser Touch Console, using the laptop IP (your subnet may be different) http://192.168.1.100:1280 ...and this seems to be stable, perhaps because all connections funnel through the laptop?
melesmelee
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Feb 19, 2020 3:19 pm
Primary DAW OS: Windows

Re: Work-around for 828es crashes when Android browser conne

Post by melesmelee »

Hi,

This sounds similar to an issue I've hit with my Motu 1248. Sometimes it will stop routing audio to outputs even though the inputs are still showing a signal. I can't reproduce it as reliably as you can, which is making debugging harder. I suspected it might be triggered by changes being made as it's only happened whilst I've been setting up recordings, but not during recordings.

One thing I found is that when the interface gets into that state I could reset it by changing the sample rate from the devices tab. Did you ever try that?
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