Cannot stream music over wi-fi

[pasquir79]

Hi all,

Newbie here, this looks to be a great forum, so I would like to start off with a request for help...

I have a Vaio XL201 running Vista Media Center (obtained through Sony's free upgrade programme). I am streaming my music to a Sony CZ1 which is plugged into my router (BT Homehub ). The Vaio and CZ1 can see and connect to each other.

When the CZ1 is playing, it frequently stops a track at a random point and flashes up "Cannot play", and skips to the next track. This appears to be a completely random occurrence, though frequent - every track I play produces this problem.

It appears to be some kind of network issue, as plugging the CZ1 into the Vaio alleviates the problem.

I've tried changing firewall, network settings etc, as well as tinkering with the Homehub - to no avail. The same is also true of the software - I previously ran Vaio Integrated Server to stream my music but am now running the latest version of M-Crew Server (which I couldn't run before as I found that it wouldn't work with my Symantec firewall, something I swapped out with the new Vista Onecare firewall. Not sure if that's a known issue.)

Anyway, it's puzzled Sony for over a year now, and the admittedly very helpful support guy explored every avenue but then threw in the towel (!!!) and referred me to the consumer audio helpline, which (a) doesn't feel very "One Sony" to me and (b) unfortunately hasn't resolved the issue.

It feels that there's a simple answer to this (not that I know what it is!) and although it's been a long, painful struggle, I'm determined to resolve it!

Has anyone experienced a similar issue or is able to provide further ideas as to how to resolve it?

Hugely grateful for anyone's advice/insight.

Paul

[ITTroll]

I had the same problem when I had my XL201 connected wirelessly.

XL201 (WiFi) -> Router -> PC (CAT5) = Track stalls
XL201 (WiFi) -> Router -> Radio (WiFi) = OK
XL201 (WiFi) -> Router -> IPAQ (WiFi) = OK

I now have the XL201 connected via cable and the problem has gone away.

XL201 (CAT5) -> Router -> PC (CAT5) = OK

I can only assume the issue was due to the lower bandwidth of the server connection vs the clients which caused it to timeout.

[pasquir79]

Hi there, thanks very much for that. I'll give that one a go, which may take some time (reconfiguration of lounge!!) but it is one of the options which I have yet to try, so will do so. Thanks again for the advice - greatly appreciated.

[shola01]

I have almost the same settings here and no problem, the only difference is i'm not using bt home hub, i'm on NTL broadband using philips wireless and it works fire, i can even watch TV programs recorded using media player. one susgestion is to try using without firewall between the pc and laptop on your network, only do this without the bt home hub connected to the internet and remember to turn firewall back on , this is just to test that the fault lies with the home hub, if you can borrow a wireless router, use that to verify the wireless is working ok and also make sure you are not using or have bluethooth turned on as they use the same frequency as your wireless

[ITTroll]

I should of mentioned that I am not using a BT Homehub. I have a Linksys WAG325N ADSL Wireless-N Gateway. Even so, I experienced similar behaviour.