Concepts & signal flow
General networking help
The General networking questions live-event techs bring to Ask Roadie most (also called DHCP, IP address, network, subnet). Pick your symptom, or describe your own in plain words, and get the likeliest fix first, with the manual page when there is one.
Common General networking questions
What techs run into most, and what's usually behind it. The step-by-step fix for your exact topic is in Ask Roadie.
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A Dante/AV device came up with a 169.254.x.x address and cannot be seen
Short answer: A consistent addressing scheme (all DHCP, all link-local, or all static in one subnet) is required for devices to be in the same broadcast domain and discover each other; a lone static IP in a different subnet is invisible.
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Can I run show-critical audio/control over Wi-Fi?
Short answer: Wireless is a shared, contention-based, interference-prone medium with variable latency; show-critical AV needs the deterministic low-jitter delivery only wired links provide.
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Dante audio glitches under heavy network load / when video also on the link
Short answer: Without strict-priority QoS, clock (PTP) packets get queued behind bulk data under load, causing clock slips heard as periodic ticks and dropouts.
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Intermittent Dante audio dropouts / clicks / sync loss on a managed switch
Short answer: Dante relies on tight PTP clock synchronization; EEE introduces variable latency as ports sleep/wake, which shows up as clock slip and audible ticks or dropouts.
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Link came up at 100 Mbps instead of gigabit / not enough Dante channels
Short answer: Auto-negotiation must run on both ends to agree speed/duplex; a mismatch or a cable with only 2 pairs caps the link at 100Mbps half-duplex, throttling bandwidth-hungry AV traffic.
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Long cable run will not link or drops — how far can copper Ethernet go?
Short answer: The 100m limit is a physical Ethernet spec for signal integrity/timing on twisted pair; beyond it signals degrade and the PHY cannot maintain a reliable link.
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Managed vs unmanaged switch — which do I need for a show network?
Short answer: The features that keep AV traffic clean (multicast control, priority queuing, loop prevention, EEE off) exist only on managed switches; unmanaged gear cannot be configured and can silently flood or loop.
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PoE device (mic, cam, AP, panel) will not power up on the switch
Short answer: PoE delivery requires available budget >= the device class allocation and enough voltage at the far end; exceeding budget or under-powering via poor cable prevents a stable power-up.
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Turned on IGMP snooping and now multicast (Dante/sACN/NDI) disappeared
Short answer: Snooping prunes multicast to only subscribed ports based on IGMP membership queries/reports; with no querier there are no periodic queries, memberships time out, and the switch stops forwarding the multicast entirely.
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Whole network freezes / everything drops the moment a cable is patched
Short answer: Broadcast frames circulate forever around a loop with no STP to block a path, exponentially consuming bandwidth and CPU until the network is unusable; STP maintains a single loop-free active topology.
Not on the list? Describe it your way, or paste the error code off the display. Ask Roadie works the problem with you until it's fixed or you have a clear next move.
How Ask Roadie helps with General networking
- 1. Pick General networking. It's already in the list.
- 2. Describe what you're seeing. In your own words, or the error code off the screen.
- 3. Get the likeliest fix first. Steps in order, the manual page when there is one, and a note when other techs have confirmed it.
- 4. Still broken? Tap 👎 and it keeps going from where you left off.