I'm having trouble getting my Empeg to connect at home AND at work without having to change my network settings at home each time I want to connect the player. When connecting at home I have to setup a fixed IP for my computer I want to connect to the Empeg. This makes it impossible to connect to my router or anything else on my home entwork while I'm accessing my Empeg. What I would like to be able to do is Just plug in my Empeg at home and connect to it from any computer on my home network or from Internet Explorer using the web interface. At work, I can already do this by just plugging my player into it's dock. Tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Are you using DHCP on both networks? It should Just Work.

You should not have to set a fixed IP address to connect to the empeg unless you don't have a DHCP server on your home LAN. But since you're talking about using a router on your home LAN, then I assume it's the DHCP server.

Make sure that the empeg is configured to be DHCP, and it should then work on both your networks.

If for some reason, one of your networks is fixed and one of your networks is DHCP, then one of the tricks listed here covers that situation.

Also, you can use the @home and @work macros in Hijack if you want to switch the player's network configuration between the locations.

I have a DHCP server at home but I don't think we use one at work? All of our computers at work have fixed IP's. I'll check into it I guess.

One more question though. If I have a DHCP server at home and setup the Empeg to use DHCP, then how would I connect to it using the web interface? Right now I just type my Empeg's IP address. How would I get it if my Empeg didn't have a fixed IP?

Right now I just type my Empeg's IP address. How would I get it if my Empeg didn't have a fixed IP?

- You can use the About screen on the front panel of the empeg to find its IP address.

- You can run Emplode or Jemplode and it will do a broadcast and show you the empeg's address as it connects.

- You can use the FindEmpeg utility, perhaps from within a batch file, to add the empeg's address by name to your local HOSTS file.



But you may not need to do any of that, there are other options. Let's start with a couple of assumptions...

- I assume your home LAN is goverened by your DSL router, which is the acting DHCP server on your home LAN.

- I assume your home router is doling out addresses in the 192.168.0.xxx range.

- I assume your work computers (which are fixed instead of DHCP like you said) are in a different range than your home LAN, perhaps they are in the range of 10.xxx.xxx.xxx instead.

- I assume that you set your empeg to be a fixed IP in the 10.xxx.xxx.xxx range to match your work LAN. Hence the reason it won't work on your home LAN.



If all of the above is correct, then you have the following options:

- Reprogram your home router to dole out addresses that are the same as your work LAN, then you can connect to the empeg's fixed IP address that matches your work LAN.

- Set the empeg to a fixed 192.168.0.xxx address so it works on your home LAN, then add an additional 192.168.0.xxx TCP entry to your work computer so that it communicates on both subnets (as described in the link in my previous post).

- Set the empeg to a fixed 10.xxx.xxx.xxx range so it works on your work LAN, then add an addtional 10.xxx.xxx.xxx TCP entry to your home computer so that it communicates on both subnets (as described in the link in my previous post).

- Use the @work and @home macros in Hijack to toggle configurations between the two locations as described in my previous post.

Thanks Tony for the layout of my options. I'm going to read-up on the link in your previous post first and then decide what arrangements to make based on the info you've given me. FWIW, my Empeg currently has a fixed IP of 192.168.0.45 and works fine at my office. My cable router at home doles out IP's that are 192.168.1.xxx so it doesn't see the Empeg. Anyway, maybe our LAN at work uses DHCP and I just have never tried it. I'll run through the info you've supplied and get'er sorted out. Thanks again!

my Empeg currently has a fixed IP of 192.168.0.45 and works fine at my office. My cable router at home doles out IP's that are 192.168.1.xxx so it doesn't see the Empeg.

So then reprogram your cable router to dole out that third octet as 0 instead of 1 and you're golden.

maybe our LAN at work uses DHCP and I just have never tried it.

That's quite likely, give it a shot.

Alright, I've reconfig'd the Empeg to use DHCP and tried it here at work and it still connects... good. However, it also is still using IP address 192.168.0.45. Is this a coinceidence? I have removed the info from the Empeg that had that IP so is there something burried in the player that would make it use that address if given the opportunity?

Also, give me some clue where to start when reprogramming my cable router to dole out IP's in the 192.168.0.xxx range. That seems like the way I'd rather go so that I can run a fixed IP on my Empeg.

I have removed the info from the Empeg that had that IP so is there something burried in the player that would make it use that address if given the opportunity?

Yes. The DHCP server, if there is one, would tend to try to give it the same address every time. So that might just be normal.

Of course, double check your config.ini to make sure it's actually getting changed. Maybe you make the change but it's not "taking". Sometimes bugs with the player can prevent config.ini from being editable.

Also, give me some clue where to start when reprogramming my cable router to dole out IP's in the 192.168.0.xxx range.

This should be covered in the dox for the router. Usually it's from a built-in web page on the router itself. For instance, if your router is at 192.168.1.1, then point your web browser there, it'll probably pop up a web page and ask you for your administration password. Surely you already did all that the first time you hooked it up?

Unless the router was installed by the cable company, in which case they've probably locked out the password and you're stuck. So you would want to go to a different method. But you might not need to do this if setting your player to DHCP works on both networks.

Surely you already did all that the first time you hooked it up?

All I did was plug it in and it worked. The cable guy hooked up the modem directly to one of my computers. After he left, I plugged the modem into the router and went out to the computers from that. All was good, never installed software or had to configure anything.

What's the brand and model of router?

It's made by Cisco, but I think it's called something else?

The reason I asked is because I was about to re-remind you that the stuff is in the router's manual and you should go look that up. But then I decided I could probably look it up myself and then tell you exactly how to do it, what the default password is, and everything. But I can't do that without a precise model number. So never mind.

In any case... If you rewind to the very very beginning of this thread, the first paragraph of my first reply, where I said "set your player to DHCP and it should Just Work"... try that first. If it works, then you don't need to do anything with the router, so don't worry about it unless that doesn't work.

Yeah, I've already set the player to DHCP and it seems to be operating properly here at work. When I get home I'll check it on my network and see if it works there too. If so, then all's well. I think the reason I originally set it up as fixed was because our server here at work required it. That was a while back, since then we've changed the server and the OS so my guess is that the fixed IP just isn't necessary anymore.

Back to this old subject... OK, now that DHCP is working at home and the office a new issue has come about. When I have 2 players plugged into the same LAN they both get assigned the same IP address from the router? Emplode will show them both but shows them with the same IP so when I try to open one or the other, the first one that Emplode found is the one that gets opened. Ideas here?

If DHCP is really working, they will never have the same IP.

But do note, that if you hardcode one player's IP address in "specific IP addr" (or whatever it's called) in JEmplode, and still leave "network broadcast" checked, then JEmplode will list the same (single) player TWICE in the selection box.. making it look like two of them.

Give them different names just to make sure..

That's not what's happening in my case. Emplode shows both players (I can tell because each player has a different name) but each has the same IP. This IP has to be coming from my router beacuse it's entirely different than the fixed IP both players USE TO share.

That shouldn't be happening. I would posit that your DHCP server's configuration is messed up. Perhaps it's only set to hand out a range of a few addresses or something.

I don't think DHCP is working. Ensure that your DHCP box (router, gateway, whatever) is using 255.255.255.0 as the netmask. And use the front-panel "about" menu on the empeg to examine the results.

-ml