[SOLVED] Pi/moOde non-responsive after inactivity - suggestions?

[robkyf]

I’m still relatively new to the Pi/moOde world so I think this might be a more general Pi device management question than a moOde specific one. 

I’ve been leaving my Pi Zero 2 W running moOde 9.0.4 switched on all the time, but am finding that when I try to use it after a few days of inactivity, moode.local is non-responsive and I have to do a hard reboot. 

My local network seems ok - I can access wifi on other devices. 

Any suggestions? Should I be turning off the Pi if I don’t plan to use it for awhile?

Many thanks!

[the_bertrum]

Is the wifi to the zero on the weak side? I find that the poor signal to my Pi3 inside an old radio can make the mDNS a bit hit and miss. I reserve the IP on my router, and address the player using that instead, which bypasses the mDNS and therefore the instability.

If you can access via IP in the non-responsive state, that could be your answer too.

[Nutul]

Couldn't it be also a router lease issue...?

[robkyf]

Many thanks @the_bertrum - very much appreciated!


That seems to have done the trick. The Pi is still non-responsive if I try to access it after a period of inactivity as moode.local. But after reserving the 192.xx IP address on my router and accessing the Pi using that direct address, it seems to work fine. Excellent!

But I’d be interested in any suggestions as to why the moode.local address no longer seems to work - it was fine for the first weeks after I started using the Pi/moOde and has only started playing up in the last few days. 

[the_bertrum]

I can only speculate as to the cause, and even then only from my devices and network. However, in my case it is only ever my Android phone that loses the ability to access moOde via mDNS, and even then it is clearly a DNS resolution failure, rather than any unresponsiveness. I can only conclude that some "event" occurs that makes the mDNS records on the phone forget the moOde address, and the the only thing that brings them back is either forcing a refresh my asking for the address when not connected, then asking again after reconnecting; or rebooting the moOde player. I these circumstances, the phone seems to get a fresh broadcast of the moOde address and it start working again.

Much simpler to reserve an IP and remove mDNS from the equation.

I know there are plenty of folk who never have these issues with mDNS, so it will be some secret combination of Android version, phone hardware, router features, wifi congestion, turpentine and egg white that triggers it.

[robkyf]

Thanks @the_bertrum.

Well, I suppose there’s some comfort in knowing it’s not just me that’s encountered this problem.

Hopefully this thread will be of help to others.

Many thanks again for your help!

[Tonewheelkev]

I reserve the IP on my router, and address the player using that instead, which bypasses the mDNS and therefore the instability.

I've reserved the IP address on my router page...
How do I then "address the player using that instead" please???

[robkyf]

Pointing to 192.xx rather than ‘moode.local’ on whatever device you’re using to control the Pi/moOde over wifi resolved the problem for me.

[Tonewheelkev]

Pointing to 192.xx rather than ‘moode.local’ on whatever device you’re using to control the Pi/moOde over wifi resolved the problem for me.

Aaaaggghhh....thanks!
That's what I do anyway as it happens. Suspect I was looking for something a little more complicated

[TheOldPresbyope]

You've got a working solution so this is just random information.

I have no DNS service running on my LAN so I resolve all my hosts by mDNS, e.g., with <bletch>.local names. There's more than a dozen hosts on the LAN, ranging from moOde players and Linux boxes, to my partner's Windows laptop and smart TV, etc.

I've noticed occasionally that I'll try, for example, to ping or ssh from one host to another only to have the process time out with a "Could not resolve..." message. If I immediately try again, the connection completes. I haven't bothered to figure out why this happens. Apart from it, communication on my LAN is robust.

Of course using the IP address works without fail, assuming my router is healthy. In the good old days before DNS we Unix-ers had to exchange lengthy /etc/hosts files relating IP addresses to hostnames so we could find each other easily.

Regards,
Kent