Chromecast: casting from smartphone doesn't work with wired connection, whereas wireless does

SOLVED
Mafferik
Conversationalist

Chromecast: casting from smartphone doesn't work with wired connection, whereas wireless does

I'm using a MX67 that connects to a TV, if I connect through the MR33 casting works, if I use the wired connection I can see the Chromecast symbol in my streaming apps, e.g. YouTube, HBO, etc. but it says No Device Available. Ethernet and wireless connection (from the same Chromecast device) are on the same LAN/VLAN, it's a flat network, so is my smartphone. What I've done so far:

  1. Despite it being a flat network, I've enabled Bonjour forwarding and enabled a Layer 3 firewall rule that allows wireless clients accessing the LAN.
  2. I've also disabled the default multi-cast to uni-cast conversion which fixed issues with my Google Home but unfortunately didn't resolve my screen casting issues.

When I had the MR33 connected to a non-Cisco router everything worked fine, but since I replaced it with the MX67 this is the one thing that keeps bugging me. I hope someone can help.

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION
Mafferik
Conversationalist

I've figured out the root cause: the Chromecast TV adapter was connected over a power line adapter (Extollo), which created connection problems. Not sure what exactly inside the power line adapter caused the connection problems, but after I connected with an Ethernet wire to the MX67, it worked again. To be clear the power line adapter worked fine for streaming, but somehow interfered with the Chromecast protocol preventing it from showing up in my streaming Apps on my smartphone. Thanks for all the responses.

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8 REPLIES 8
PhilipDAth
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

Make sure your SSID on the MR33 is set to bridge mode, and the Wireless firewall rules is set to allow local LAN access.

https://documentation.meraki.com/MR/Firewall_and_Traffic_Shaping/'Deny_Local_LAN'_settings_in_Cisco_...

 

If you only have one VLAN then turn the bonjour forwarding back off.  It only works when no using VLAN1, so may be making the issue worse.

 

You should be able to set the MX67 ports to either all trunk ports (the default) or all access mode ports.

 

I have Google home and have never had to touch the mukti-cast to unicast setting.  I suspect this has nothing to do with the issue, but just changed the symptom.

 

 

If the above is all true try power cycling the Chrome reciever (probably the TV in this case).

Uberseehandel
Kind of a big deal

We have a number of wired (Sony) AV devices which are Chromecast capable.

 

  • We do not use LAN 1.
  • The Chromecast devices are on a VLAN for which there is a SSID.
  • Smartphones connect to the same SSID.

It just works

 

Robin St.Clair | Principal, Caithness Analytics | @uberseehandel
cta102
Building a reputation

Would agree with Philip's statement to confirm that you are permitting LAN access for Wi-Fi clients.

 

Also Chromecasts don't use Bonjour so enabling that is of no benefit for 'Googlecast ' devices.


@cta102 wrote:

Would agree with Philip's statement to confirm that you are permitting LAN access for Wi-Fi clients.

 

Also Chromecasts don't use Bonjour so enabling that is of no benefit for 'Googlecast ' devices.


But mDNS is used by both Bonjour and Chromecast, according to people who have both Apple and Chromecast devices

Robin St.Clair | Principal, Caithness Analytics | @uberseehandel

Thanks for the replies so far. I've disabled the Bonjour forwarding, but that didn't make a difference, Chromecast works over wireless, and doesn't over a wired connection. I've noticed some oddities:

  1. Chromecast over wireless shows "Source IP and/or VLAN mismatch" issues in the event log (security appliance), and shows: source_client_ip: 192.168.128.12, source_client_mac: [xx], source_client_assigned_vlan: 1
  2. Whereas, Chromecast over wired shows it either on VLAN 0 or untagged
  3. Other devices seem to be on VLAN 1

I didn't change any of the VLAN settings, but perhaps this gives a little more color on what's going on.

 

P.S. on the multi-cast to uni-cast conversion, I've left that disabled, it really impacted the Google Home and Audio streaming: out of sync audio, and unable to set volume levels across devices in the Google Home app.

cta102
Building a reputation

I always have a play about with re-enabling Bonjour (and rebooting whatever device I use to stream from) and it has never made any difference so it gets switched off again. Almost all that I have read about the whole Googlecast business to come to the same conclusion (these are articles and postings which seemed to improve my Chromecast experience.)

But then again that may be confirmation bias on my part (plus most networking experiences needs to be reappraised every once in a while.)

Well it didn't used to make any difference a couple of years ago and every time I did my toes back into it (still trying to make the TiVo behave across subnets reliably and some other stuff)

BTW My last play was with an XBox One a couple of months ago and still found the same behaviour, though the XBox is now on our regular client VLAN for reasons other than streaming.

However it doesn't rule out that I have once again landed myself with up with several edge cases at once.
cta102
Building a reputation

Mafferik

Re-enable the Bonjour and see if you get your volume levels and stuff back to normal as I may have been a little too sweeping regarding regarding it's benefit.
Mafferik
Conversationalist

I've figured out the root cause: the Chromecast TV adapter was connected over a power line adapter (Extollo), which created connection problems. Not sure what exactly inside the power line adapter caused the connection problems, but after I connected with an Ethernet wire to the MX67, it worked again. To be clear the power line adapter worked fine for streaming, but somehow interfered with the Chromecast protocol preventing it from showing up in my streaming Apps on my smartphone. Thanks for all the responses.

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