thunderbolt port inactive and no mac adress

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oudwater75 Author

Level 1

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thunderbolt port inactive and no mac adress

goodevening,

i am new in this community so bare with me.

i have a MacBook Pro 13" retina.

i want to connect my macbook with rekordbox dj software to my dj set ( pioneer cdj 2000 nexus )

this had to be done via ethernethub. so i purchased a thunderbolt to ethernet adapter for this.

now i can't get a connection from the MAC to the dj set.

i see in my network application that the thunderbolt bridge is inactive and has no mac adress.

i tried to renew the DHCP but that doesn't help.

can anybody assist me how to get the thunderbolt connection active again?

i am not a computer wizzkid so when you try to explain me please keep it "simple" 🙂

thanks

regards

mario

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)

Posted on Feb 22, 2016 2:24 PM

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Answer 1

oudwater75 Author

Level 1

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Feb 23, 2016 7:32 AM in response to oudwater75

hello,

this afternoon i tried to connect again and it somehow connected for a moment. it worked for the moment. i disconnected everything and connected it again just to verify if everything was solved but from that point it's dead again.

i made a printscreen at the moment the system was running and the strange thing to me is that the thunderbolt port had access but was not green, it was yellow.

see printscreen

as you can see in the window, it has now created an IP address. but not anymore.

i have no idea what to do.

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Answer 2

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,684 points

Feb 23, 2016 10:31 AM in response to oudwater75

Your software probably communicates via IP networking, which requires a router. Routers assign IP addresses to MAC addresses & then the switch uses that to push data to the correct device.

Your 'yellow dot' status & the '169.' link local address is a clear sign that you have an incorrect setup, at least as far as OS X is concerned.

Internet connection does not work with an IP address space of 169.254.xxx.xxx from ISP, router, or manual configuration …

Can you connect the setup to a switch to test? As it currently stands 2 people here are suggesting you need to do that to get it to work. You have followed the manual & it doesn't work. The setup as covered there looks incorrect to us.

You can also test the Thunderbolt adaptor by going straight to an ethernet connection to a router. A working router will give you a green status with an IP address.

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Answer 3

oudwater75 Author

Level 1

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Feb 22, 2016 3:24 PM in response to Duane

i have this switch in between.

TP-Link TL-SF1005D 5-poorts Fast-Ethernet-Switch 100 MBit/s

my 2 cd players and my mixer are also connected to this switch and they are linked to each other. these 3 devices can communicate with each other and now i also want to link my macbook to it.

my feeling says it must be something with the thunderbolt "inactive" ( i guess )

regards

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Answer 4

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,684 points

Feb 22, 2016 4:46 PM in response to oudwater75

In the Network section of System Preferences, select the Thunderbolt port, click the gear button below it & select 'set service active'. See if that helps.

It is unclear to me how this system works, I'm not sure if it is using standard networking or some other system over ethernet. Is the USB connection not useful to you?

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Answer 5

oudwater75 Author

Level 1

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Feb 23, 2016 3:45 AM in response to Drew Reece

hello,

i have checked the active state at the gear button. it says it's active. ( for this purpose i can only use the thunderbolt to ethernet because on the cdj it is also ethernet )

today i discovered one thing. i have connected one cd player directly to the macbook. according to network the thunderbolt is not connected ( red dot ). but on the cdj i see the cdj number is led "white number " and that means that the cdj has got a link with.

also when i enter the about this mac and i go to the overview and to thunderbolt, it states that the thunderbolt to ethernet adapter is connected.

very strange

regards

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Answer 6

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,684 points

Feb 23, 2016 8:46 AM in response to oudwater75

Connect a network router & see if it gets an IP address.

Otherwise you will need to use fixed IP addresses - in which case the manual should state how to set that up.

A 169.x.x.x address is a sign that it is failing to get an address via DHCP - without a router there is nothing to give it an address.

Yellow indicators just mean the port has detected a cable & host of some form on the other end, it then fails to get an IP as you have no router. Take Duane's advice & connect a router & retest.

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Answer 7

Feb 23, 2016 10:21 AM in response to oudwater75

i see in my network application that the thunderbolt bridge is inactive and has no [IP] address.

without a Router, using DHCP can only give you a self-assigned IP address, like 169.254.xxx.yyy. This uniquely identifies your Mac, and can be used to communicate with devices with similar addresses, but is not good enough to get you on the Internet.

To talk to other device(s), their IP Address(es) must be the same in the first two octets (the 169.254. part) and the subnet mask must be 255.255.0.0

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