HD300 WOL (Wake On LAN) stopped working

[timg11]

This capability has worked perfectly for years since bought the HD300. I used to be able to turn on the HD300, and it would wake the SageTV host computer (server) with WOL. I recently added a Roku V3 and upgraded the Denon receiver, but everything else is the same. The host computer is sleeping properly and wakes immediately when I press its power button.

I verified that WOL is still enabled in the host computer's Ethernet card driver settings.

How can I debug WOL?

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by timg11

This capability has worked perfectly for years since bought the HD300. I used to be able to turn on the HD300, and it would wake the SageTV host computer (server) with WOL. I recently added a Roku V3 and upgraded the Denon receiver, but everything else is the same. The host computer is sleeping properly and wakes immediately when I press its power button.

I verified that WOL is still enabled in the host computer's Ethernet card driver settings.

How can I debug WOL?

You can start trouble shooting by running THIS WOL monitor on the SageTV server to check whether the NIC's magic packet feature is enabled also on the same website you can download a convenient app to send the magic packet to the server, this way you can easily determine whether the HD300 is failing to send or the SageTV server is failing to receive.

Hope it helps

Eddy

[timg11]

routerunner, thanks for the pointer on the very useful tool.
When I use WOLCMD.EXE to send a magic packet from another computer, the WOL packet is received in WOL Monitor on the SageTV server computer. Of course the computer has to be awake to run the WOLmonitor. I set the port to 8900 (I'm not sure where I got that port number, but it has been working for several years).

wolcmd.exe  001D7D0B3E06 192.168.1.110 255.255.255.0 8900
        Sageserver MAC  SageServer IP   Netmask      Port

If the computer is sleeping, it does not wake from the WOL command from another computer.

When I turn on the HD300 with WOLmonitor running, WOLmonitor does not report anything being received. Again, the server is already awake, and I don't know if the HD300 is configured to check for the server first, and send WOL only if not found.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by timg11

routerunner, thanks for the pointer on the very useful tool.
When I use WOLCMD.EXE to send a magic packet from another computer, the WOL packet is received in WOL Monitor on the SageTV server computer. Of course the computer has to be awake to run the WOLmonitor. I set the port to 8900 (I'm not sure where I got that port number, but it has been working for several years).

wolcmd.exe  001D7D0B3E06 192.168.1.110 255.255.255.0 8900
        Sageserver MAC  SageServer IP   Netmask      Port

If the computer is sleeping, it does not wake from the WOL command from another computer.

When I turn on the HD300 with WOLmonitor running, WOLmonitor does not report anything being received. Again, the server is already awake, and I don't know if the HD300 is configured to check for the server first, and send WOL only if not found.

In order to have the WOL working you need two settings, the first is working (the WOL Monitor is showing that) the second isn't and is related to the NIC power management which looks like has changed.

Regarding the HD300 the behavior is that the WOL is sent after a failure to connect to the server, in fact you should see a message on your TV cleary stating that.

Eddy

[timg11]

Is the NIC power management set anywhere other than the NIC's advanced properties? For my NIC (Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller) I have these settings related to WOL:

Wake on Magic Packet: Enabled
Wake on Pattern Match: Enabled
WOL and Shutdown Link Speed: 10 Mbps


On the NIC's Power Management dialog, I have check marks on:

• Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power
• Allow this device to wake the computer
• Only allow a magic packet to wake the computer

These settings are still the same as when I first configured the computer to enable WOL (which worked fine for years). Are there any other settings in Windows 7 that can affect NIC Power Management that might have been changed by updates or otherwise?

[KryptoNyte]

You might want to uncheck this:

Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power

and try it again. Make sure you get a full power down reboot in there, too.

I recall that I was never able to get that same onboard NIC to WOL properly. This same device is also bridged for my Ceton PCIe tuner, and after some reading, that was causing issue.

I ended up purchasing an Intel NIC, installed it, and configured it for WOL.

Additionally, I have some wireless repeaters/bridges in my home, and I found that the extra hop through that device wouldn't allow the WOL packet through, so I also have an android app "Wake on Lan - with Widget" that can fire up the Sage Server using the home screen widget on my phone.

[KryptoNyte]

Is it possible that there was a coincidental Windows Update [driver update] for that device, returning it's settings to an earlier default?

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

You might want to uncheck this:

Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power

and try it again. Make sure you get a full power down reboot in there, too.

Yes, this is another very good point, you must ensure to do a complete power cycle without removing the power cord, thus in order to work the motherboard must always receive the +5v from the Power supply when the PC is off this is important for the NIC to preserve its internal state.

Eddy

[timg11]

KryptoNyte, I'll try unchecking the "turn of device" setting and see if that makes a difference.

The computer's NIC is a PCI-Express "plug-in" card. The on-board NIC on the Gigabyte motherboard would not reliably maintain a connection, so I disabled it and replaced it.

The system does get a full reboot every other day as a scheduled task (for reliable operation of SageTV and HD-PVR). I do not usually fully power down to the system (unplugging the cord or turning off the switch on the PS).

Eddy, are you saying I should or should not do a deep power down and restart by disconnecting the AC while powered down?

[KryptoNyte]

Here is a webpage with a few things to check, most notably, to check if WOL is enabled in the BIOS:

http://windows7-issues.blogspot.com/...made-easy.html

I do not use the "Simple TCP/IP Services," so I ignored those steps.

Every now and then if my computer has a forced shutdown, it will occasionally reset all BIOS to defaults.

[timg11]

I have continued to investigate this problem. The WOLCMD.EXE can send a magic packet from another computer and wake the SageTV server.

According to WireShark, the magic packet from WOLCMD.EXE is address to broadcast: FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF

Wireshark also captures the magic packet from the HD300 but it is addressed to 00:CC:20:00:48:DC.

That is interesting because it is not a broadcast address. It is also interesting because the MAC address of the SageTV server is 14:CC:20:00:46:DC.
Only different in the first byte.

I was wondering why the HD300 was choosing that address. The HD300 connects and runs fine as long as the server is already turned on, so it should have been able to "learn" the correct MAC address of the Sage server.

Since I don't know how to fix the HD300, I used the advanced properties of the network adapter on the SageTV server computer to change the address to 00:CC:20:00:48:DC

That solves the problem. The HD300 will now wake the computer again. I have no idea why the HD300 would "forget" how to send the correct MAC address, since I haven't updated anything in SageTV for years. Likewise the hardware in the computer has been stable for years. Maybe a Windows Update or driver update changed the Magic Packet address matching? Previously, a bug had caused it to not compare the first byte, and now it does compare it?

No idea, but I hope this helps someone else.

[KryptoNyte]

Just out of curiosity, when you fire up a command prompt and:

ipconfig /all

I wonder if you would have seen that mac address on a virtual device.

[timg11]

I did save some IPCONFIG /ALL output to file as I was debugging.

The only non-physical adapters are Teredo Tunnel adapters, and they have a MAC address of 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0

I double checked the network server's ARP tables and the DHCP leases and didn't see the 00-CC-20-00-46-DC anywhere else.

[KryptoNyte]

... and the HD300 is hard wired through a single switch and router?

[timg11]

Yes, the server and HD300 are connected to ports on the same Gig Ethernet switch.