Feature request: reboot chromecasts (and Google Home's), optionally as a group

[surlyhacker]

This is a feature request to be able to reboot a chromecast (or a Google Home) from the app.
Would be nice to be able to reboot either one or many (all) of them easily.

Often times I find that something is wrong with my chromecast "network" (one or more of the devices, grouped into several groups) and rebooting them seems to be the only fix at the moment. That issue has nothing to do with ChromeCast-Desktop-Audio-Streamer, but allowing a reboot would be a nice feature to help with the issue.

[FA-Bubba]

For what it's worth, I had a similar issue, with devices constantly dropping off-line, often bringing the whole group with it... Three things fixed this:

1: I gave every device a fixed IP address -- this ensured that DAS would always find each device where it last was.

2: Several versions ago, SamDel added the "Reset Settings" button to the "Options" Tab -- clicking this would force DAS to refresh the address of each device.

3: I added a 3rd Access Point to my Mesh Network...

I haven't had any dropouts since.

[surlyhacker]

Thanks. Actually as far as I can tell it's not because devices are offline. I can cast to them from my phone via an app just fine, but most recently my issue is that my Google Home Mini's (via a verbal assistant command) cannot trigger a cast (of audio) to them and nothing fixes it other than reboots.

So this difference in behavior between casting from an app and casting from an assistant command to the Home Mini is how I know they aren't offline. I suppose it could somehow be a wifi issue specific to the device attempting to initiate the cast but I don't think so.

[FA-Bubba]

I'm using DAS to Cast to 16 devices: a mix of Minis, Chromecast Audios and a Home Hub. They are assigned to three different Groups. I believe that DAS remembers the last known IP address of each device, even though your router's DHCP may have since assigned a new IP. In my case, this caused many devices to drop out, sometimes disrupting the entire Group.

When a Mini, for example, dropped-out, I could still use "Hey Google, What Time is it?" to get a response -- this confirmed connectivity to Google Home, but not to DAS. I believe this was because the device had a functioning IP address, but DAS didn't know what it was. After using the "Reset Settings" on the Options Tab, I could reselect the Groups, and DAS resumed casting to all devices. The Reset Settings restored DAS' table of IP Addresses.

It is a simple and quick test...
If you try this, be sure to note the Checkboxes on that Tab so you can restore them to your preferences.

[surlyhacker]

Ok thanks, that's good to know but my scenario:

1. Does not involve trying to do something with DAS
2. Only involves casting audio from two different test devices/methods (neither is DAS)
3. Seems to indicate that there is no device that has dropped off of the network because the devices are all reachable from one of the test methods, and all devices are also present in the Home app to initiate a reboot

If a device has changed IP (unlikely because my DHCP server defaults to reserving a given IP for a given MAC forever), both a casting device (phone) and a Google Home should be able to deal with this, but in my case one of them does not (DAS is not involved).

Thus, I just am requesting a feature in DAS to trigger a mass reboot of all devices, and the need for this feature does not arise from any issue in DAS. I just think DAS is a good app to have this feature because it's an easy to use GUI that allows quick access to multiple devices. I also think it would be advantageous to use DAS over a remote desktop to perform this task if my Google Home app/device is not currently on the same LAN as the Chromecasts when I want to do the reboot but the machine running DAS is. (Note that during the aforementioned casting issue, all devices are on the same LAN)

[SamDel]

It can be done with the /setup/reboot API. I have to think about the user interface before I implement it, and test how the application deals with a rebooting device. Not a lot of people will use it, I think.

[surlyhacker]

In researching that API recently, it seems that it now requires an authenticated request: rithvikvibhu/GHLocalApi#39 (comment)

Yes this would definitely be a seldom used feature, but a useful one when needed.