I have set up my unit with an external USB-Ethernet adaptor. It is one of the supported ones, and it appears to be recognised by the unit. This setup is connected to an ASUS NAT router connected to ADSL broadband. On the LAN side, I can ping the unit at the static address I have assigned it: I get an ICMP response so it knows the way back to me.

I set it up so that it would automatically maintain the time from the Web NTP server pool, which it appears to do: proof of this is that it used to drift by about up to 4 minutes a month, and now it synchronises to the same time as the ASUS router, which is also pointing at the pool and with which it now matches the correct time.

My conclusion: the unit can see the web through the router, and it's IP connection is properly configured.

When I first set this up CDDB lookup to GraceNote worked fine. I had a lot of outstanding unnamed albums queued up, which it immediately found and named. As far as I can remember, this has been working OK until recently (about the last 2 months or so). I am pretty sure I have not changed settings, or set any filters on the router. I say, as far as I REMEMBER.....

So, here's the problem: whenever I insert a new CD for RIP, the screen first says "Reading CD" as usual, displays the "What do you want to do...?" dialogue, and when asked to Record, it starts the lookup by displaying "Performing internet lookup" and showing the Gracenote logo (I might not be remembering this 100%, so have patience with me!).

There is then a long pause (obviously a timeout), whereupon I get "Internet Lookup Failed", and the recording proceeds with Unamed Album, Unamed Artist (so there's nowt wrong with recording).

So, before I start ripping things to bits to diagnose this:

1) Has something changed at GraceNote?
2) As a consequence of 1), is anyone seeing the same problem at the moment, or am I on my own (TM)?
3) Any ideas about what I should look at first (port numbers in filters on the router, etc).

If GraceNote ever refused lookup permission on the unit, is it possible to point the unit to, say, FreeDB instead? Can this be configured in memory?

Any help/ideas appreciated,

The Helpless One.

Hi Rob,
I use my Central everyday, and I can tell you the CDDB database lookup is definitely working, as of 5 minutes ago when I recorded a new storebought CD.

One thing you don't mention is that a lookup is only needed on CDs newer than when the Central was made in early 2002. So if you recorded a classic CD, it should have the data without looking it up.

But as far as getting error message or Internet timeouts, that only happened to me when I had a physical cable problem on the USB adapter a few months ago. I finally found it and reseated the cable and all was well.

I'm not sure what your problem could be...Do you have a Rio receiver to connect to see if something like that could connect to it? That might give some clues....

Randy

Perhaps it has IP connectivity but no DNS? I can't remember whether the Jupiter disc image has "ping" on it or not, but if so, plug in a USB keyboard, get the shell up, and see whether you can ping 209.10.41.70. Then see whether you can ping ecddb.gracenote.com.

It accesses CDDB on port 8080: check that outbound connections to this port are allowed.

Peter

The last time I had a problem with the gracenote lookups was when I configured something funky on my local LAN that included multiple subnets. Once I simplified things back down to one subnet, the gracenote lookups started working again.

Also remember that the Central probably can't get to the internet unless it gets a DHCP address from your DSL router.

I think it's another one of those WTF? moments.

I am not joking, I touched NOTHING, and this morning I stuck in a new disk for it to RIP, and BINGO! It got all the outstanding albums except one, and started RIPping the new disc with the correct track details.

I give up - I feel sure that this BBS is magic. So thanks to Tony for resetting the Internet again, and Gracenote for resetting CDDB lookup

I really don't know what happened, and I have touched neither cabling nor settings - yet now it's working again. I give up.

Thanks for your patience, and - good suggestions in case it happens again in the future. Thanks, people!