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iPhone Remote does not work with Actiontec PK5000 router

I have DSL through Qwest. I have an iPhone 3G and a laptop with iTunes all on the same wireless network. My old router broke (don't remember the model) and since then I have not been able to use my iPhone Remote to control iTunes. The iPhone Remote works to control iTunes on the laptop when I'm connected to any other wireless network, so I'm pretty sure the problem lies in the new Actiontec PK5000 router that I got when the old one broke down.

Since it works on other networks, I'm sure that all necessary ports are open through the Windows Firewall on my laptop. As far as I can tell, there should be no packet filtering happening on the router between devices on the wireless network, but something has to be blocking it...

Has anyone had any success with this specific combination (iPhone 3G, fully updated, Laptop running windows 7 and an Actiontec PK5000 router)? Any suggestions what to look at to try and solve this?

Thanks,
Ryan

Custom

Posted on Dec 28, 2009 5:27 PM

57 replies

Sep 19, 2010 5:08 PM in response to deanwinchester

Um, no...iTunes 10 doesn't fix this problem. All the computers on my home network are all running iTunes 10 and we still can't connect to each other's libraries or use Remote to control iTunes.
Actiontec PK5000 doesn't have any firmware updates available according to Qwest.

lgibson

Level 1

0 points

Oct 9, 2010 9:37 AM in response to Ritualdevice

Just spent an hour with Qwest Tech Support. They finally said I could solve this problem with "advanced port forwarding." Now I have to find the LAN starting port and ending port. Where are these found? Will this work?

Oct 10, 2010 6:43 PM in response to deanwinchester

Just bought the new Apple TV only to find out that I can use the remote app on my iphone with it because of this annoying actiontec pk5000 problem. Looking forward to a solution. Anyone have any luck with this advanced port forwarding or anything else?

I was looking forward to airplay rollout for the new apple tv but now i wonder if i'll even be able to stream to apple tv if i can't use the remote app.

lgibson

Level 1

0 points

Oct 13, 2010 8:07 AM in response to Warren Anderson

OK Just heard back from Actiontec support. Port forwarding will not work, contrary to the Qwest Tech person's instruction. Actiontec says, "The issue is under review and Qwest plans a new firmware release to correct the issue. Qwest handles and controls the release of firmware, we have no idea when they plan on releasing firmware upgrades..."

Hmm.. Wonder if Qwest has a better modem available.

Nov 13, 2010 5:14 PM in response to lgibson

lgibson wrote:
Hmm.. Wonder if Qwest has a better modem available.

Friend, this is Qwest we're talking about.

Anyway, I'm having the same PK5000 / Bonjour problem. It sounds like turning off the wireless functions of the PK5000 and then connecting an Airport Extreme Base Station will do the trick?

Sean

lgibson

Level 1

0 points

Nov 24, 2010 9:00 AM in response to Sean Hayes1

Qwest tech support wrote back recently saying they "do not have an ETA at this time for the new firmware for the actiontec pk5000" and recommending "a zytel pk500z modem" which I assume is the ZyXEL pk5000z.

Is anyone using this successfully with Bonjour?

Sladen88

Level 1

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Dec 6, 2010 5:02 PM in response to worbly

Hi everyone. I struggled with this problem for almost two days before i finally figured out it was the PK500 that was causing the problem. As has been said, the culprit is the firmware. I did however come up with a solution. You can either wait for Qwest to update the firmware, or you can do what i did. If you have a router that you were using before the PK500 you can disable the router aspect of the 5000 and link your old router to it via one of the LAN ports. I did this and the problem was instantly fixed. Hope this helped someone.

Sladen88

Level 1

0 points

Dec 6, 2010 5:06 PM in response to worbly

I did see that some of you mentioned using an airport station as well. Not familiar with mac products but im assuming that it's a router as well

Sladen88

Level 1

0 points

Dec 6, 2010 9:51 PM in response to worbly

Since my last post I've looked into the Airport express and i must say, I am VERY impressed. Thinks I need me one!

Dec 6, 2010 9:55 PM in response to Sladen88

I added an Airport Express (actually a Time Capsule, which is basically AE with a hard drive attached) and am using it for wireless in the house. I gave up on the PK5000's wireless as a bad job and turned it off. I'm annoyed that the PK5000 wireless *****, since I bought it partly for that, but the Airport Expresss/Time Capsule rocks.

Sean

zugwang

Level 1

66 points

Dec 7, 2010 4:03 PM in response to worbly

Anyone find a solution to this Pk5000 problem?

lgibson

Level 1

0 points

Dec 18, 2010 5:51 AM in response to zugwang

After working on this issue since July 2010 when Qwest sent me the Actiontec, I believe I can say that it is presently impossible to make Actiontec's PH5000 work with Bonjour. Actiontec claims Qwest will do an update sometime in the future and Qwest says it must come from Actiontec, probably months away. Qwest was nice enough to exchange my Actiontec for their ZyXEL PK5000Z which works great! This is clearly a superior piece of hardware. As far as I'm concerned the case is closed.

Dec 27, 2010 7:11 PM in response to worbly

I have been having exactly the same problem (ActionTec Verizon FiOS router MI424-WR, firmware 4.0.16.1.56.0.10.12.3) and spent some time tonight enabling/disabling services on the router and generally experimenting to see if I could get Bonjour working reliably. The interesting discovery I made was that Bonjour services were showing up just fine when my MacBook was connected to the router via Ethernet. When I switched to wireless only, nothing worked.

So on a whim I disabled 802.11b wireless networking on the router and then -- poof! -- everything worked just fine. Whereas I couldn't VNC from my MBP to any other machine when on the wireless network, I now can. And whereas my iPhone couldn't connect to my iTunes library (except after the iTunes host being rebooted, and only then for a short while), it now works!

Hopefully this won't be a temporary fix, but it's looking good!

Dec 29, 2010 1:29 PM in response to worbly

The situation has not changed with my Actiontec M1000 modem and W1000 wireless module. I contacted Qwest and this is what they said:

Ive never heard of it having a problem before. The m1000 is a modem in use by a lot of companies out there.. there is no scheduled firmware update either. It should work fine for media streaming and itunes
you may have to configure some port forwards, but it should work fine
-I said I already tried that.
It does seem there is an issue with wireless file sharing
depending on how itunes handles its content, that could be an issue
according to this document i found, there will be an update, but no timeframes are given

A lot of help they are huh. Anyone have success without using a different modem or disabling the router?

jSpork

Level 1

0 points

Jan 1, 2011 12:31 PM in response to Plant-Daddy

I had the same problem and solved it with the "workaround" proposed by others. Qwest isn't doing anything about the firmware (someone reported it would be available in November, but no luck.)

I just disabled the wireless aspect of the Actiontec and plugged my old Linksys WRT45G into it. iPhone remotes, AppleTV, and MacBooks all play nice with each other now.

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iPhone Remote does not work with Actiontec PK5000 router