Troubleshooting Network Problems
If Beat Link Trigger reports that it can’t find any DJ Link devices when you try to take it online, this means there is a problem with your network. People often ask for a connection diagram, but there is really nothing to diagram. As long as you have your players and the computer running BLT on the same LAN, it will work.
That could be anything from plugging a single player directly into the LAN adapter of your computer (with a modern Ethernet adapter with Auto-MDI-X), to plugging everything into a fast hub, switch (which most things called “hubs” really are today), or router.
By far the most common problems involve configuration issues with the network adapter on the computer running Beat Link Trigger. So here is a list of things to think about and watch out for, from @brunchboy and @kevinnns.
If you are still stuck after following this advice, you can ask for help on the Gitter channel.
The best scenario is to have a completely separate switch for only your DJ gear, and a secondary network adapter on the computer running BLT. Connect all the DJ gear and that network adapter to that one switch. Make sure that switch isn’t connected to other switches/routers, this can make the Pro-DJ Link traffic go bananas.
If you still want to be able to access the Internet from the computer running Beat Link Trigger, you can do so by connecting its primary network adapter to another switch or router that is connected to the Internet. This way you can use the primary NIC on your BLT device to connect to do stuff that requires global connectivity, and the secondary one for BLT.
If your computer has only one network adapter, then it is best not to attempt Internet connectivity, and connect only to the DJ gear network while running shows.
The next major thing that needs to be correct for the players and Beat Link Trigger to be able to talk to each other is for them to have a shared understanding of what network they are on, and IP addresses and net masks that are mutually compatible.
In the simplest case, where there is no DHCP server on that network, the players will self-assign a Link-Local Address (further details in RFC-3927). This is an address of the form 169.254.x.y., and if you have left the network adapter settings at their default DHCP mode in macOS or Windows (or probably Linux), it will self-assign a compatible address in the same range. Windows calls this APIPA. You can verify this by looking at the list of networks that Beat Link Trigger displays when it is reporting it can’t find DJ Link devices. If the network adapter is not using an address that is in this range, then you’ll need to fix its configuration.
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If the adapter is configured to a hard-coded address, either change that address and net mask to match the Link-local network, or change it to use DHCP so that it will fall back to using link-local addressing when it finds no DHCP server.
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If it is already configured to use DHCP, tell it to try to renew its lease. (In Windows,
ipconfig /releasefollowed byipconfig /renew).
To be continued…
You need to be sure that there is no firewall or anti-virus software on the host computer blocking Beat Link Trigger from communicating on the network adapter. Either of those things can prevent it from joining the DJ Link network.
To be continued…
