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About ScratchMonkey
since
04-17-2020
02-06-2021
ScratchMonkey
Contributor
30
Posts
1
Kudos
2
Solutions
02-03-2021
12:00 AM
Just a follow-up: I got a notification yesterday in the Prime app asking permission to enable greater integration between the Flex host OS and the Prime app, to allow the Flex UI to remember my choices from the Prime app. This sounds promising.
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01-10-2021
07:09 AM
I'll bet there's another interface that uses the -1 address, between the other two. Does your Flex support dual-band WiFi? Perhaps the other band gets the middle MAC address.
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12-30-2020
02:45 PM
Same issue with Amazon Prime and HBO Max. I suspect it's having bandwidth issues and the box crashes rather than pausing. The screen goes black for tens of seconds before going to the home screen. Sometimes it's fine and I can watch an hour-long show without interruption. This week it's been fragile and crashes every 10-15 minutes. I've turned down the quality to 720. Nothing else is using the network, it's 11 pm and I live alone. I wouldn't mind if it just paused the video until it caught up, but crashing is unacceptable. I do network admin at work and have developed some Ethernet devices for factory use so if the devs need any data to debug this, I'm happy to help. I can collect log files, for example.
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11-25-2020
01:07 PM
Does anyone know a way to audit Windows file sharing from the client side? I found articles on how to do it from a server for the files and folders being accessed, but I'm trying to figure out which misbehaving app on the client is using up the network and I don't know which of several remote servers is involved.
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11-25-2020
12:54 PM
I'm seeing intermittent spikes in usage and put a bandwidth monitor on my router. I'm using OpenWRT on a ZyXEL and installed the nlbwmon and luci-app-nlbwmon packages and narrowed down the source to a Win10 box connected to a corporate VPN. I think it's trying to read all the files on a remote share but I can't figure out what's causing it, whether it's a Windows bug or a bug in an app. I opened Resource Monitor and on the network tab it shows a lot of traffic for PID 4 on port 445, which means network share access. Alas, this is happening at the kernel level, and doesn't show me which application is responsible for it. https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1811032-high-network-utilization-system-process-pid-4 A secondary source of high usage is animated web ads in Chrome. I'm going to install uBlock Origin, which I use on other machines to drastically reduce ad traffic. Web sites nag me to whitelist them in my ad blocker. I'm not letting them use all my bandwidth if I leave their site open overnight.
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11-25-2020
12:40 PM
I'm trying to track down the source of excessive bandwidth consumption using the bandwidth meter on my own router and I needed to know the IP address of my Flex box to see where it was in the list of devices. I pulled up the Flex settings and couldn't find any place where it would tell me the IP address. I did find the MAC address printed on the bottom of the box, but it doesn't match the one in my DHCP log. It's off by one! Then I realized the MAC printed on the bottom is that of the WiFi, which I'm not using. The MAC of the wired interface is one less than the WiFi's MAC (in my case, 84 instead of 85). With that insight, I was able to look in my DHCP log and spot the address that the Flex was using. (I'm not using xFi because my modem is in bridge mode, because I want my LAN's DHCP server to assign addresses, not my Xfinity modem. Please add a feature to disable the IPv4 DHCP server on the modem.) For others seeking a bandwidth monitor, I'm using OpenWrt firmware on a ZyXEL router and have the nlbwmon and luci-app-nlbwmon packages installed. The first package collects the data and the second provides a nice display of it in the router's web interface.
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10-27-2020
03:08 PM
The IPv6 addresses are privately assigned but publicly addressable. If you publish your assignment of one of your addresses and open it in your firewall, I can reach it. That's one of the big features of IPv6. No more NAT complications that require the port forwarding hack. It does exactly the same thing as additional IPv4 addresses, except that you decide which ones to publish. How you assign your address block is up to your router. A default Comcast router setup will just hand them out randomly via DHCP. But you can use static assignments, too.
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10-27-2020
02:49 PM
@EG For IPv6, there's no difference between LAN and WAN addresses, because there's no network address translation (NAT) as there is with IPv4. All your IPv6 addresses are public. That's why you need a good firewall when using IPv6. You can't depend on NAT to protect you from probes from the Internet. On the plus side, you no longer need hacks like port forwarding to expose games, telephony, video conferencing, or P2P services to the world. You just need to open those ports on the firewall.
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10-27-2020
01:58 PM
I'd love to see the meter broken down into days and even hours so we can better understand what might be causing the problem. It would also be useful to enable short-term logging (say for an hour) of traffic by port and address, but that can be expensive if done on the head-end router in Comcast's data center. I've used that on my personal router running OpenWRT to try to figure out which device and port is using my connection. I wish the Comcast router offered similar abilities.
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10-27-2020
01:45 PM
Please specify what equipment you're using. What's the model of the base station and what brand and model of Wi-Fi adapter are you using on your PC? How are you measuring the speed you're getting? (The speed test at DSL Reports is one of the best.)
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10-27-2020
01:42 PM
Why do you need a 2nd IP address for a non-commercial hookup? Do note that you get a vast number of IPv6 addresses (called a /64, which gives you 2^64 addresses). Only IPv4 addresses are in short supply.
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10-27-2020
01:35 PM
Solved. This turned out to be a configuration error on the mailing list. The mailing list admin fixed it. He was using a DNS CNAME for his mailing list server name, and mail server programs are allowed to replace the right-hand side of a destination address with the CNAME's real name. The list's "real" server was set up to accept only email for the list's server name, not the real server name. The rule is to never use a CNAME for your mail server. Only use an "A" record. More info here: https://cr.yp.to/im/cname.html
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10-27-2020
01:28 PM
When I send to mulberry-dev@lists.mulberrymail.com, the "lists." part is getting stripped before the receiving server sees it, so the mail can't be delivered, and I get a bounce. The copy of the message in the bounce has been mangled to change "lists.mulberrymail.com" in the To: field to just "mulberrymail.com" and the receiving server says "no such user". (It's a different virtual mail server, so that's expected!) I can see the correct recipient domain in the envelope address in my outbound mail server log when it connects to smtp.comcast.net. So it looks like the Comcast server is changing that and rendering the message undeliverable.
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09-04-2020
11:43 PM
Is this true for multiple shows? Could the show you're watching not have CC? That's the only case I could imagine where the button isn't enabled.
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09-03-2020
08:14 PM
Any idea what the 4 buttons in the corners around the arrows are for? There's no hint on-screen or on the website what they're for.
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09-03-2020
08:12 PM
I like watching my Amazon Prime shows on my Flex but I have to agree that both the Flex and Amazon UIs are extremely non-intuitive and undocumented, and there's no place to offer feedback. My beef right now is that it can't remember where I was. I stop watching mid-show (eg. "The Feed", episode 5, 50 minutes) and when I come back the next night, it thinks I'm still watching Hanna or Upload from weeks ago and offers to start the Prime Video app for those shows. When I do start the Prime app, I first have to tell it which family member and then hope it remembers where I was. If only this thing were as good as my Kindle or MoonReader eBook apps.
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09-03-2020
08:08 PM
Flex isn't compatible with an account that already has a TV box. You have to switch account types to get the Flex offer to work. It's a bug in the offer logic that makes it tell you that you can get one. Talk to an account rep to get your account type changed. You'll need to return your regular TV box.
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09-03-2020
08:03 PM
Did you try using the arrow keys on the remote to navigate to the CC button?
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09-03-2020
08:00 PM
My Flex has been working for several months. I'm connected to my TV through an HDMI switch. When I first power up the TV at night, it shows a message that it's trying to load configuration from the HDMI port and that goes on for a while and finally gives up. My solution is to briefly switch the HDMI switch to another channel and then back to the Flex. This seems to wake up the HDMI port on the Flex. I'm betting the Flex keeps its HDMI port in a power-saving mode and fails to negotiate a proper power startup with the TV or switch. I have a similar problem with my old video card in my PC and my LG TV I use for its display. I have to power up the TV first and then hit a key on my PC to get it to connect. Any other order and it fails. So the HDMI standard is having the same problems we saw with USB when it first came out.
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07-30-2020
10:14 AM
Is that the server that "can't be reached"? It looks like the traceroute was able to reach it.
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07-29-2020
09:57 PM
What kind of system are you using? PC, phone, Mac? What browser? You can try to traceroute to the server and see where your packets get lost. Right now I'm seeing some IPv4 traceroute issues with my packets disappearing past the be-12578-pe04.9greatoaks.ca.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.88.18) router, when trying to contact a server on ATT in San Francisco and a Linode server in Fremont. The first symptom was that I couldn't reach Wikipedia because its DNS server wouldn't resolve the name. Because I couldn't reach their DNS server. (I run my own DNS server so I'm not relying on Comcast's cache.)
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06-25-2020
10:57 AM
Ok, so I need to find Prime's app documentation somewhere.
The buttons I mentioned are the tiny dots between the up/down and left/right arrows.
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06-24-2020
08:49 AM
Aha! So the rewind button is a hold-to-activate and rewinds only when the button is held down?
Also, what are tiny "corner buttons" for, around the central arrow buttons? Do they do anything interesting?
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06-23-2020
09:50 AM
I just started using my new Flex to watch The Expanse on Amazon Prime. I'm up to S01E03 and thought I might want to switch away to watch something else. How do I get back again? Is there a way to save where I was?
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06-23-2020
09:47 AM
I started watching The Expanse from Amazon Prime on my new Flex box last night. I'm used to having an "instant playback" button on my TiVo and DirecTV remotes that jumps back a few seconds, for when I miss a line of dialog. Does the Flex remote have this? I don't see an obvious button for it.
Is there a guide online to reveal all the features of the remote? (I don't need a printed copy. A link is fine.)
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06-13-2020
01:49 AM
My problem turned out to be that I already had TV service and the wrong kind. @ComcastMartin was able to straighten that out and set me up.
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04-17-2020
03:22 AM
1 Kudo
I just got the email telling me I'm eligible to get Flex and I'd love to put a box on my family room TV. But I see no "Get Flex" option on the Flex web page. I can't use the xFi app to order it because I've got my router in bridge mode so I can use my own DHCP and DNS servers. I really don't want to to go the local Comcast store with the current shelter-in-place order if I can avoid it. (Even under normal circumstances I'd be waiting in line there for hours. I'd rather do things via a web form and have it delivered.)
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04-17-2020
03:19 AM
How do I disable the router's DHCP and DNS redirection and make it use my home server for that? Presently I've got it set to bridge mode and use my own router to accomplish that. But I'd love it if there was a less extreme way to accomplish this. Like providing me with a setting for the IPv4 and IPv6 addresses of my DNS servers, domain suffix list, and other DHCP configuration options to send to my devices.
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04-17-2020
03:04 AM
So Flex works with an Xfinity gateway in bridge mode? I have an Arris TG1682G in bridge mode because I need to run my own DNS and DHCP from my own server on my home LAN and I've seen no way to disable that on the Arris. It's also my understanding that the Arris doesn't address bufferbloat. So I run my Arris in bridge mode and use a ZyXEL running OpenWRT that provides the "cake" fair queuing algorithm to prevent lag and latency.
I'd love to take the Arris out of bridge mode. Just give me a way to disable DHCP and put cake on it.
I just got the email telling me my account is eligible to use Flex, so I've love to have a box for my family room TV to watch Amazon Prime. Is that going to work? How do I order the box?
More on cake here. (It's part of the standard Linux kernel and hence available in 3rd party router firmware. It's much better at sharing your connection than buying more bandwidth.)
https://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/codel/wiki/Cake/
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