onderwerp Re: Mediabox XL weirdness in Archief

Mediabox XL weirdness

Demokrit — Fri, 24 May 2019 12:56:05 GMT

Hi Forum,

please allow me to write in English. I can read and understand Dutch pretty well, but my writing is still bad. Please don‘t hesitate to answer in Dutch if you want to help.

I moved over from KPN to Ziggo the day before yesterday, and I installed the Ziggo ConnectBox (Arris Router) within an hour via the splitter (no problems or issues). One Cat6 wire goes to my 8-Port Ethernet switch, and the telephone is connected as well. All Ethernet devices connected to the switch are working like charme, as well as Wifi connections and the phone.

The other port of the splitter goes to my Mediabox XL, which seems to be an anachronistic monster 🙂

I started it in ECO Mode without an Ethernet cable attached to my home network, and I can get all TV programmes. So far so good. Then I added a network cable from the Mediabox to a port of the Arris Router, and set the Mediabox to „Join the network“ - which it did. Next I wanted to access it via a web browser to switch off all internet related items, like Wifi and DHCP. On the ConnectBox I can see 20 local IP addresses, which are related to the Mediabox (no hostname – unknown device).

I‘ve tried all 20 addresses to access the web interface of the Mediabox. None of them works. No connection. Same with the recommended "gwlogin.net", which could never work since it's an Austrian domain name.

Next I tried to add the Ethernet cable from the Mediabox to my Ethernet switch (instead of the ConnectBox). This time one of the 20 IP addresses worked for the login to the Mediabox, but at the same time WAN/internet connectivity completly broke. No more internet.

So I reinstalled the Ethernet connection from the Mediabox to the Arris Router. After switching it off and on internet was fine again. But again no connection to the web interface of the Mediabox.

Strange thing is: Under the Mediabox are some stickers with 3 MAC-addresses. If I check the connection list on the Arris Router I can see 20 MAC addresses of the Mediabox, but none matches the MACs from the stickers.

Can anyone share a light how to access the Mediabox via a web client? I‘ve tried it with Firefox as well as Chromium.

Thanks for all help,

Cheers,
Thomas

Re: Mediabox XL weirdness

Steefb — Fri, 24 May 2019 13:01:57 GMT

I hope this helps.

https://community.ziggo.nl/deel-je-tip-91/thuisnetwerk-storing-of-werkt-niet-of-niet-te-installeren-op-mediabox-xl-20580

It basically says don't use this. it cause a lot of problems, and the box works fine without it.

Re: Mediabox XL weirdness

Demokrit — Fri, 24 May 2019 13:04:27 GMT

Wow - that was fast. Thanks for your help, Steefb. I will try it and report back.

Re: Mediabox XL weirdness

Demokrit — Fri, 24 May 2019 13:24:58 GMT

Well. I did what was recommended, and the Mediabox is in Gateway mode now. But now with everythink enabled (DHCD, Wifi) and in the wrong local address mode (192.168.2.xxx)

The ConnectBox uses 192.168.178.xxx

Re: Mediabox XL weirdness

Steefb — Fri, 24 May 2019 15:26:23 GMT

Don't connect via de mediabox xl, only use the connect box.

Re: Mediabox XL weirdness

Demokrit — Fri, 24 May 2019 17:12:25 GMT

Yes, I know what you mean - use both networks independently. This works, but it didn't give me access to the web interface.

I did contact Ziggo in the meantime, and they've told me, that in my Region (Z. Limburg) it's not possible to use the web interface of the MediaBox. Kind of unbelievable - a networking company selling products which just don't match. And they don't follow the documentation. How frustrating must this be for unskilled users?

But I succeeded in the end, not believing what Ziggo told me. I set the MediaBox into "Full Network Mode" after disconnecting the cable to the real router. Than I connected a long Ethernet cable from my Linux PC to the MediaBox and just logged in. It did not work via local IPs, but it worked on first run using the obscure "gwlogin.net" (Ziggo: it's really a bad practice to abuse a public, reserved domain).

Now I could switch off all unneeded networking parts. Doing so, the next issue occurred. The menu only showed a 5 GHz Wifi part, which is easy to disable. But there seems to be an additional 2.4 Ghz network, which is not accessible thru the menu.

The rest of the menu items is as frustrating as the design of the box. I expected a way to configure a (recording) path to my NAS and other functions one would expect from a media server. But no, nothing.

After this "cleaning up" I've set the box back to "Join an existing network" (just to force it to my local IP range, so I can use consistent firewall rules). I'll probably will never use it as a media server, since I have 3 Enigma based SAT-Receivers with real media player functions which play perfectly with my central Linux NAS.

Maybe it helps someone else.