Google Nest Hub Max not 'seeing' Chromecasts or Nest Hub

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GregM

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#2700488 1-May-2021 15:01

I'm having issues still with the chrome casts not being able to be connected to and from what I can tell, its to do with 5ghz, seems no issue on 2.4ghz so far.

ShinyChrome

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#2700539 1-May-2021 19:53

GregM: I'm having issues still with the chrome casts not being able to be connected to and from what I can tell, its to do with 5ghz, seems no issue on 2.4ghz so far.

How are your SSIDs setup; dual bands, multiple SSIDs? Can you see the Chromecasts actually connected on a 5ghz band?

GregM

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#2700544 1-May-2021 20:21

Just the one ssid, but have changed to prefer 2.4ghz. I can see on the clients tab when they were on 5ghz I was having issues, but worked fine when on 2.4ghz. I also read about issues with the higher 5ghz channels with chromecasts, so removed the higher channels. Still testing, but I feel I'm making progress.

ShinyChrome

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#2701556 4-May-2021 09:52

GregM: Just the one ssid, but have changed to prefer 2.4ghz. I can see on the clients tab when they were on 5ghz I was having issues, but worked fine when on 2.4ghz. I also read about issues with the higher 5ghz channels with chromecasts, so removed the higher channels. Still testing, but I feel I'm making progress.

I would try creating another SSID with a 2.4ghz channel only and connect your Chromecasts to that, then see if you can see them while connected to the original SSID. I would also try disabling Broadcast filtering on both SSIDs, since you are probably not worried about rogue devices at home.

This person found they had to disable both Broadcast filtering AND the AirGroup settings before they would work for them, so you could try that as well.

Also enable Multicast transmission optimization and Dynamic multicast optimization as well

GregM

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#2701807 4-May-2021 16:56

ShinyChrome:
GregM: Just the one ssid, but have changed to prefer 2.4ghz. I can see on the clients tab when they were on 5ghz I was having issues, but worked fine when on 2.4ghz. I also read about issues with the higher 5ghz channels with chromecasts, so removed the higher channels. Still testing, but I feel I'm making progress.

I would try creating another SSID with a 2.4ghz channel only and connect your Chromecasts to that, then see if you can see them while connected to the original SSID. I would also try disabling Broadcast filtering on both SSIDs, since you are probably not worried about rogue devices at home.

This person found they had to disable both Broadcast filtering AND the AirGroup settings before they would work for them, so you could try that as well.

Also enable Multicast transmission optimization and Dynamic multicast optimization as well

Thanks, will give it a try. YouTube seems fine now, but the tvnz app can't find anything to cast to.

ShinyChrome

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#2702501 5-May-2021 18:14

I actually re-read that link I shared before and realised I had it wrong; they were changing the Broadcast filtering from All to ARP (which is the current default setting) AND disabling the AirGroup settings, so I'm not sure what they accomplished there...

I did a bit of experimenting myself last night with a first gen Chromecast and I managed to get it reliably working across VLANs. I connected it to my 2.4ghz band only IoT SSID, which is in it's own VLAN, and I am able to cast to it via my phone from both the same SSID and another SSID in a different VLAN. I only have 'Enable Bonjour' enabled under AirGroups and the 'airplay', 'googlecast', 'DIAL' services ticked, as well as a custom group for Spotify Connect.

I also fixed a sort-of related issue where I couldn't connect to my Harmony hub (also on the IoT SSID) from the Android app, even from a device on the same SSID! When I tried setting Broadcast Filtering to 'Disabled' for that SSID only, it reappeared and now can be accessed from any VLAN, so I'm happy. It seems to use UDP for broadcasting, so I guess the Broadcast Filtering is quite aggressive it seems.

GregM

79 posts

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#2703093 6-May-2021 20:49

I've tried your suggestions and still issues with the tvnz app. It just won't cast, even though the app says it is eventually. No issues with my old unifi's.

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ShinyChrome

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#2703140 7-May-2021 07:48

GregM: I've tried your suggestions and still issues with the tvnz app. It just won't cast, even though the app says it is eventually. No issues with my old unifi's.

Strange... I even downloaded the TVNZ app and tested this, as well as every other casting app I had on my phone, but all have been working perfectly for me.

What does the Aruba controller show the signal strength to the CC is like? Also, what settings do you have enabled on your SSIDs/AirGroup?

GregM

79 posts

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#2703455 7-May-2021 15:53

ShinyChrome:

GregM: I've tried your suggestions and still issues with the tvnz app. It just won't cast, even though the app says it is eventually. No issues with my old unifi's.

Strange... I even downloaded the TVNZ app and tested this, as well as every other casting app I had on my phone, but all have been working perfectly for me.

What does the Aruba controller show the signal strength to the CC is like? Also, what settings do you have enabled on your SSIDs/AirGroup?

Got it working for now, I didn't have all the services turned off.

GregM

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#2703635 8-May-2021 11:03

And now this morning its not working. I'm about ready to give up.............

richms

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#2703653 8-May-2021 12:03

I have come to the conclusion that casting is just fundamentally broken since it has never worked right for me. Things are seen ok but sometimes control drops out, and then the app will just start playing on the PC even tho the chromecast is still playing. It only seems to work right for me with youtube to the gameconsoles. Everything else is unreliable and lags and often stops.

Richard rich.ms

GregM

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#2703751 8-May-2021 19:23

I've swapped back to my unifi ap as it just works. I'm guttered I couldn't get the Aruba's working. I'll likely sell the 2 I have and buy another unifi lr.

jonathan18

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#2709944 20-May-2021 05:51

Would you #@$*&#$ believe it?!

Home sick yesterday so it was a good chance to try to sort this.

Switched off everything in AirGroup and rebooted the APs; following this, and unlike all previous times, all casting devices were visible from my phone (eg, could see and select all in Spotify etc). What was even stranger is that all casting devices - including the previously missing CC Audios and CC Ultra - were visible from the Nest Max, and could be selected. Playback to any of the devices was fairly choppy, and control/viewing on the Hub Max was a bit hit-and-miss, but they were there!

Following this, I re-enabled what I understand to be the bare necessity for Google casting (AirGroup: DLNA; Settings: googlecast; DIAL; DLNA Media), following which playback across all devices is now fine and Hub Max media control of Spotify (selecting devices; viewing what's playing on other devices) is fairly stable. Also, the list of castable devices no longer ebbs and flows (one device at a time would show up but then they'd disappear and then reappear, making it difficult to select specific devices.)

Bloody awesome! (touch wood...)

Am I likely to run into any problems having disabled all other services (eg, wireless printing)? I haven't re-enabled the Spotify service as most of my devices aren't using Spotify Connect (seems like a real dog to get CCs to use this vs Googlecast).

Thanks for all the advice and tips; as usual, really appreciated.

sbiddle

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#2709965 20-May-2021 08:07

Until I got these Aruba's it's not a brand I've done a lot with in recent years. I've been more of a Ruckus fanboi in recent years when it came to enterprise hardware.

The reality is that in a typical enterprise or large scale WiFi deployment there is a lot more thought that needs to go into a network than a 1-2 AP install at home. Broadcast and multicast traffic on a network can be a huge problem because it simply can kill the performance of a network, hence the reasons companies include such granular filtering capabilities.

One of the single biggest issues is that broadcast and multicast traffic along with all management frames (beacon requests etc) are sent at the minimum supported rate - so if you have a scenario where you have say 100 devices on a network with zero filtering and have basic rate configured at (the near default for most vendors) 1Mbps you're instantly draining all your airtime resources as every management frame and broadcast/multicast packet is sent at 1Mbps even if your devices are connected at much higher PHY rate.

The solutions are to manage this traffic by filtering, but also to increase this rate but then you have to ensure coverage is perfect.

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