strange network problem

encephalopathy · 17 Feb 2012 at 18:13

odd frustrating problem with my network.

for some unknown reason my homeserver (called 'vail') intermittantly manages to lose its static ip address of 192.168.1.4 and reverts to an ip address of 169.x.x.x.

this means i can still view shares on the homeserver mapped as \\vail\documents or \\vail\tv but cant see then using \\192.168.1.4\tv

so what? well my popcornhour media player doesn't find the shares when the homeserver has changed ip address to the 169.x.x.x one so i cant watch my films/tv episodes (this is despite having the pch shares setup using 'vail' (and samba) rather than ip address. when rdp'd into the homeserver i can't access the internet via it either, unless its ipaddress is the usual 192.168.1.4

any ideas why this is happening or how i can force the homeserver network card to keep its 192.168.1.4 address? my router is a draytek vigor 2820n

cheers

bremen1874 · 17 Feb 2012 at 18:25

Loosing its static IP?

Are you sure it's static, and not just a DHCP reservation? Getting a 169.x.x.x address usually means that it's trying to get an IP via DHCP and can't.

encephalopathy · 17 Feb 2012 at 18:30

i've used bind ip to mac for it in the draytek router config pages so that it is given 192.168.1.4.

i've just found an option in the properties bit of the homeserver network adapter to give it a fixed ip address so i'll try that set as 192.168.1.4 and cross fingers.....

bremen1874 · 17 Feb 2012 at 18:34

encephalopathy said:
i've used bind ip to mac for it in the draytek router config pages so that it is given 192.168.1.4.

i've just found an option in the properties bit of the homeserver network adapter to give it a fixed ip address so i'll try that set as 192.168.1.4 and cross fingers.....

That should be a 100% fix, and would actually be a static IP. Just make sure your router excludes the address you choose from its DHCP range.

encephalopathy · 17 Feb 2012 at 18:36

will that matter if i have used the router 'bind ip to mac' for the homeserver network card already? or should i start afresh and allocate say 192.168.1.100 which is outside the router DHCP range?

bremen1874 · 17 Feb 2012 at 20:15

encephalopathy said:
will that matter if i have used the router 'bind ip to mac' for the homeserver network card already? or should i start afresh and allocate say 192.168.1.100 which is outside the router DHCP range?

The original binding won't matter. You just need to avoid the situation where your DHCP server issues an address that’s already in use as a static assignment.