Cambridge Audio Stream Magic 6 Ethernet broken

[northernlights62]

Hi all. This is my first post on this forum so I hope this is appropriate. I just wanted to ask any owners of the CA Stream Magic if they have noticed any strange behaviour recently. I stream high res audio files over wired network from a QNAP TS-112 to my BT homehub and then on via wired connection to Stream Magic. I bought all this kit about 2 months ago and all going well until recently. Suddenly at random all my albums stopped playing a few tracks in. I was strongly suspecting the QNAP with Twonky, but yesterday after a day wrestling with updates and downgrades found out by examining my home hub setup that the Stream Magic was using the wrieless hifi without me connecting the antenna. I confirmed this by disconnecting the ethernet acable and it still played - my router is right next to the player. It slotted into place - after the most recent CA firmware update I was asked for my wifi password and I did think this strange but forgot about it. The wried ethernet has been disabled on the Stream Magic by the update - the option to fix it is gone from the netwrok settings menu. I've raised the issue with CA and hopefully they can fix this. Is it just my machine or anyone else the same?

 

[Petherick]

Hi and welcome.
Is it possible to set the Network Configuration to 'AUTO'? This should make it try to find a wired connection first.
I've no personal experience, just thought this may help.

 

[CambridgeAudioCare]

Hi Northenlights62, sorry to hear this.

We don't think this is a software issue but it is possible that the ethernet connection has a problem. I've been looking over recent inquiries on the support site and I'm not sure I can see anything that matches your description but in this instance it would be best to have the unit checked by your dealer.

Regards

Ed Selley

Cambridge Audio

 

[northernlights62]

Thanks for the tip Petherick but I did check this and it is set to auto. Basically just as it was when I first set it up when the ethernet was working. I see a reply from CA themselves to have it checked so looks like that's the option I need to pursue. Pity - my first experience of playing high res downloads after much careful research into what to buy and both my network music player and my QNAP NAS have simultaneously developed problems a month or so after buying! Thanks for taking the trouble to reply. Much appreciated.

 

[northernlights62]

Thanks for getting back Ed. Looks like my only option is to have it checked then. I'll contact Richer Souns where I bought it. What's strange though if it's hardware is that the manual quite clearly states that there should be a menu item in the network settings menu to force either wired or wireless connection (just after wireless region) but this is missing on my machine and I'm sure it was there at the beginning when I set it up. This was making me think my software had been altered/corrupted somehow. Does it only show if wired is available?

 

[eltee00]

Want to bring this thread back up as I'm experiencing the same problem.

@Northernlights62: Did it require you to take it back to the shop for hardware fix? Or was that something you were able to fix on your own.

 

[northernlights62]

Hi eltee00

Just by sheer luck found your post to my original problem. I was just hunting around again for more info on this as I never solved it. I did not take back my SM6 to the retailer because once I had disabled Twonky on my QNAP TS112 and given up on the whole issue, a few days later when switching on my SM6 the wired ethernet connection just connected again spontaneously and the wired option was back in the SM6 network menu.

I left well alone for a while just playing my music via usb audio from my netbook connected directly to the SM6. But the desire to be able to stream from the NAS got the better of me due to the convenience factor so I enabled Twonky again. A few days later the ethernet to SM6 went down again and disappeared from the network menu. Once again it had connected via wireless without the antenna. So I disabled Twonky again and a few days later ethernet was back. That was some time ago now and I thought with time and various upgrades to both pieces of kit it might have been solved but a recent attempt to try again resulted in the same thing.

I have tried various versions of Twonky on the NAS but all do the same. Neither Cambridge Audio nor QNAP support could help so I have disconnected the SM6 completely from ethernet and I put the wireless antenna on the SM6 and Twonky seems to work fine without my playback halting. I waited a few days again first though to make sure the problem had cleared before disconnecting the ethernet as it would likely have stopped playback on wireless if I hadn't.

Disappointing, but the only way I can stream from my NAS is to avoid ethernet connection from the router to the SM6. Here's hoping this new info might get people looking into a solution to this. :?