Dlive Surface network issues

[Rob]

we have an S5000 connected to a DM48 via GigaAce. Both the DM48 and S500 are also connected to the house network independently with static IPs. everything works, but our network engineer noticed that after the S5000 starts up, it floods the network with broadcast traffic and immediately trips the port of the managed switch it is connected to. if we take protection off the port, it kills the entire network (bad idea 10 min before show). Should we not have both S5000 and DM48 connected to the network?

thanks

Rob Turner

[SteffenR]

it depends what you need…
one side should be enough to connect

[Senny]

S5000 & DM64 on latest firmware here.
Both connected to network (same switch) and no issues.

Maybe try re-flashing your firmware?

[Nicola A&H]

Hi Rob,
The gigaACE connection is already bridging the control network from the MixRack to the Surface, so connecting both to the same house network is not a good idea as you would create a loop. As long as one is physically connected to your house network, you should be able to see the other too thanks to gigaACE.

[Anonymous]

@Senny, I would venture to guess that your switch has STP enabled then which would prevent a bridge loop. The behaviour I witnessed when I did so (on a switch with STP disabled) was a packet storm that even caused the CDM rack and C surface to lose connectivity to each other.

@Nicola, is this documented anywhere? I’ve come across the same behaviour in the last few shows and suspected that this was the situation – as control was fine until I tried plugging in both the rack and surface to the control network. I couldn’t find it mentioned in the dLive firmware guide or the few network-specific white papers I found on the site.

Out of curiosity, is this internal interface bridging also a “feature” with the I/O card slots? I have a Dante 64×64 card in switched mode in the rack – had the same thing happen when connecting the control port on the I/O card to the network.

[Nicola A&H]

@Spazz
Yes, most of our I/O Port cards can be made to bridge the control network by either:
– A physical patch link to the dLive Network port
– Setting the ‘Control Network Bridge’ switch to the ‘On’ position on gigaACE, fibreACE or new Dante cards
– Enabling the software ‘Control Network Bridge’ option (SQ mixers)

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the information on the I/O cards. But is the fact that the (giga)ACE link bridges the control network ports on both ends documented? I could not confirm that behaviour using the equipment and software manuals without coming to the forum and relying upon either (1) someone already having posed the question or (2) waiting for an asynchronous reply to my own inquiry.

If some publicly available document exists, I’d be interested to know of its location. If it doesn’t exist, perhaps it should?

The way the dLive hardware looks and feels, it’s quite understandable that most users are going to assume that the components, from a networking perspective, are endpoint devices, not bridged via their backhaul link. So, if they’re like me and don’t bother deploying STP on a straight-line topology, or don’t know differently, they could put themselves in a quandary without sufficient knowledge of the source of their self-induced problems.

[volounteer]

@Spazz

I think you answered that question in another post.

Too much stuff is simply not documented, or is lacking to make it fully clear and usable.

Thanking, in advance, those who will post gratuitous insults for my caring.
Do not expect a reply.

[Anonymous]

UPDATE! I found said document.

https://www.allen-heath.com/media/AH-dLive-for-IT-managers.pdf

BUT (you knew it was coming) I have criticism:

1.) It’s titled …for IT Managers not audio guys, system techs, band engineers, console operators, screeches, so forth.
2.) It’s buried in the Resources area of the site, which searches only by tags it seems.
3.) The only tag attributed to this document is ‘White Papers’ – not dLive as many others are.
4.) Searching the Resources area for ‘network*’ turned up with nothing since no document in the repository is tagged as such.

Look, all (especially A&H product management), I’m not here to be inflammatory. This is my first exposure to anything digital from A&H. Seriously – the last A&H I was on was an ML4K or 5K. I’ve genuinely enjoyed my experiences with the dLive platform over the last few short months. I do, however, see opportunities for better dissemination of relevant operational information (e.g. network topology and bridging behaviours, show file locations in Director…) that will make new users of the family immediately successful rather than having to pop in here on the forum looking for tribal knowledge. That’s probably the only reason I created an account – because I couldn’t find things documented and ended up here thanks to the almighty oracle of the internet.

Front-line guys aren’t going to read a paper that says it’s for IT geeks. Shoot, I’m one by my second trade, and it took too much persistence even to find the blasted paper! Do your users a favor – especially your new ones! After all, they are the most important. The fanboys will usually keep being fanboys – it’s the brand-new, have-never-touched-one-before users you have to convince — you want them feeling comfortable and secure their first time behind it or they won’t get behind YOU. That’s all I have for now. Thanks for reading. And here’s to the next new dLive user!

[volounteer]

@Spazz

A stray PDF is not the same a the full complete printed documenation.

We should not have to hunt down every PDF to piece together a proper manual.
Especially when we have to guess what magic keyword it is hidden under.

And we should never have to waste time trying to find utoob videos to see how to do something.
I can read it far faster and understand it much better when it is in writing and that also makes it easier to reread quickly if needed. Most utoob videos have terrible audio, many have useless video too.
Videos are just a waste of time in 99.99999% of cases.

[Author]

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