Raspberry Pi not getting IP address. ??

Question

Raspberry Pi not getting IP address. ??

I have just bought a Raspberry Pi. I have installed Volumio as its OS and coupled with a HiFiBerry Digi it is destined to be a high resolution network music player.

My problem is that when I boot the Pi it sometimes gets assigned an IP address and sometimes doesn't. I should be able to log into the Volumio GUI at http://volumio.local or http://10.0.0.xxx from my iMac and iDevices, but even when the Pi has an IP address I can't. The Pi can ping itself but cannot be pinged and it cannot ping the Sitecom router or AirPort Extreme. It's not actually a wireless issue, because the Pi is connect to the network like this:

Sitecom router - Ethernet cable - AirPort Extreme - Ethernet cable - Devolo Homeplug - mains wiring - Devolo Triple Homeplug - Ethernet cable - Raspberry Pi.

A Samsung smart TV and a Humax Freeview box both have full network capability working off the same Devolo Triple.

Can anyone offer any advice? I've got a couple of guys trying to help me on the www.whathifi.com forum, but they are both PC guys and it's possible people here will know some stuff that they don't.

Thanks in advance,

Ifor

Posted on Apr 22, 2014 2:07 PM

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Answer 1

Apr 22, 2014 2:35 PM in response to Ifor Phillips

what model extreme using what firmware??

Which device is the router? Is the sitecom doing routing and AE bridged or visa versa?

Are you using SMB compliant names?

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Answer 2

Apr 22, 2014 2:42 PM in response to LaPastenague

I'll have to answer some of your questions when I'm back home tomorrow.

I'm not sure what model AirPort Extreme it is, but it is a few years old and it's firmware is up to date. Also I'm not sure what model the Sitecom is. More tomorrow. The Airport Extreme is in Bridge mode. I'm don't know what you mean by SMB compliant names.

Thanks for your response.

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Answer 3

Apr 22, 2014 5:17 PM in response to Ifor Phillips

Downgrade firmware to 7.6.1 as the latest has several bugs.

Hold down the option key when you click version .. in this summary screen and you will see the older firmware listed.. pick 7.6.1 or even 7.5.2.

Factory reset after the downgrade.

Do a clean setup then.

SMB names are short.. have no spaces and no weird characters like apostrophe.

Apple names look like this.

Fred Blog's Airport Extreme wireless

It is far too long.. it has spaces and it has apostrophe.

Call it AE that is plenty or AEGen4 (or whatever Generation it is).

Wireless name AEwifi

Those names comply.

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Answer 4

Apr 23, 2014 12:16 AM in response to LaPastenague

Thank you for this advice. I will follow your suggestion's when I get home. Currently it is called Ifor's AirPort Extreme. How likely do you think it is that this is the problem?

Presumably I only need to worry about the AirPort Extreme and not about Macs and ATVs on the same network.

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Answer 5

Apr 23, 2014 1:16 PM in response to Ifor Phillips

How likely do you think it is that this is the problem?

Shrug.. I have no pi.. pies or anything like it.. but I do know what you assume is simple is not.

The network actual name of the AE is ifors-airport-extreme.local

If your pi is getting IP from another device in the network it could be on a different domain.. and yes, that can matter.

Apple names are actually converted to a more valid name.. the apostrophe is dropped off and the spaces are replaced.

Run netstat scan from network utilities in your Mac to discover real network names.

I am simply suggesting what I found to be helpful.. I really don't know if it will fix it.

But the actual name and the network name actually being the same tends to be a good thing.

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Answer 6

Apr 24, 2014 11:14 AM in response to LaPastenague

Hello again.

It is first or second generation AirPort Extreme, but I don't know how to tell them apart. I suspect it is second generation because previously I had an original generation model. How do I factory reset?

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Answer 7

Apr 24, 2014 5:04 PM in response to Ifor Phillips

Ifor Phillips wrote:

Hello again.

It is first or second generation AirPort Extreme, but I don't know how to tell them apart. I suspect it is second generation because previously I had an original generation model. How do I factory reset?

Gen 1 should come up in the airport utility and say Gen1..

Gen 2 should come up in the airport utility and say Gen2.

etc..

So this is of course hidden in airport utility 6 being the pretty picture version of a real utility.

Hold down the option key and double click on the icon of the Airport router .. the hidden full summary page will appear. It will list the version at the top.

Factory Reset.

The Factory Reset universal

Unplug your TC/AE. Hold in reset. and power the TC/AE back on.. all without releasing reset and keep holding in for about 10sec. The time is not important.. it is the front LED rapid flashing that indicates you are in factory mode.

Release reset.

If it doesn’t flash rapidly you have released reset at some point and try again.

Be Gentle! Feel the switch click on. It has a positive feel.. add no more pressure after that.

TC/AE will reboot after a couple of minutes with default factory settings and will wipe out previous configurations.

No files are deleted on the hard disk.. No reset of the TC deletes files.. to do that you use erase from the airport utility.

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Answer 8

Apr 25, 2014 4:36 AM in response to LaPastenague

Thanks for that. I can confirm it is a second generation Airport Extreme.

I have reset it and renamed it. After resetting the AE it took many attempts for it to reconnect to the internet, but I still can't access the Raspberry Pi. For a while I thought the AE had died on me.

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Answer 9

Apr 25, 2014 8:25 PM in response to Ifor Phillips

Then sadly they are just incompatible.. not everything is compatible.

I have no idea what chip the wifi used by the pi is but wifi is problematic at the best of times.

If you want to play some more..

1. I strongly suggest using a v5 utility as it has logs.. v6 utility.. no logs.

2. Set the wireless to G

Change the radio mode to manual.. and set it to b/g not N.

Use WPA/WPA2 Personal which is more compatible than wpa2 personal.

Actually for testing turn off wireless security .. if it works with no security turned on then try with it on... but if it fails with security off it is never going to work.

Also i would suggest you try channels 1, 6, 11.

Your gen2 AE is not dual band.. remember you MUST have it set to 2.4ghz not 5ghz. Otherwise there will be nothing.

The simpler method is go out and buy a $35 N lite TP-Link and use it as an AP. PC stuff works better because it is designed for the majority of protocols used and wireless chips used by everyone but apple.

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Answer 10

Apr 26, 2014 12:33 AM in response to LaPastenague

There's a misunderstanding here. It's not a wireless connection I've being trying to establish. It's wired as described in my original post. Anyway, the problem is solved, sort of. It seems to be a problem with the Volumio software. The problem isn't present when running Rasbian or Squeezeplug on the Pi.

Thanks for your guidance.

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Answer 11

Apr 26, 2014 1:15 AM in response to Ifor Phillips

Sorry.. getting old.. I jumped back to the first post and mistook the connection as wifi.

Lousy software if it cannot manage to get ethernet.

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Answer 12

May 4, 2014 2:28 AM in response to LaPastenague

This problem was solved. I have found it to a problem with Volumio 1.2beta, but not with 1.1beta and 1.3beta.

Now I have a new problem. I can't get the Pi to mount the music folder which is on a Drobo drive attached to my iMac.

In the Volumio UI I need to enter the path to the music folder on the HD. I have selected file share protocol as SMB/CIFS.

I have entered the iMac's IP address

I have entered the Remote Directory as Drobo/Rip where Drobo is the name of the HDD and Rip is the folder on Drobo with the music files.

I cannot get it to mount. Any suggestions? Where would be the best place to ask this?

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Answer 13

May 4, 2014 3:48 AM in response to Ifor Phillips

Sorry I am really unsure.. Neither the drobo or the mac seem to have anything to do with it.

Why not ask in the Volumio developers area.. they must have a forum for users of their beta firmware.

Did you test using the same paths on a Mac btw?? Just to make sure they do actually work.

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Answer 14

May 4, 2014 4:04 AM in response to LaPastenague

I have asked in both the Volumio and Rune fora. Traffic and responses are low unfortunately. Yes mac to mac I've successfully connected smb://10.x.x.xxx/Drobo/Rip

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