Playing local media requires an external internet connection and a call home?

My ISP is digging up the road and had a severe malfunction of service when they cut there own cables and blew a gas main. We are now without internet (in my phone) for up to 3-5 days while they stop the gas leak/burning and re fit the cables and exchange.

So I thought, no worries. I’ll sit down and a watch a Movie I own that I paid for…

Well… It seems that this application will not allow me to watch any locally stored media (held in my DLNA/UPNP server) without an external internet connection and for the app to call home?

Is that really necessary?
Is it the case that this app will not allow paying users, to watch their legally obtained and owned movies, stored on their internal home media server… Without calling home first and requiring an external internet connection?

That “feature” needs to be removed right away as currently this app is useless, because my EXTERNAL net connection is down, but that should not impact my local network?

Any advice on a workaround?

I have no trouble playing media that is either store locally on my iPad, or streaming off my home LAN when there is no internet connection.

Not sure why you should be having a problem, but it is not due to simply not having an internet connection. Are you sure your home LAN is actually working at the moment - it could be that something is taking down your router?

Hi,

You might want to re-test that theory.

I can play items local to the iPad. However i have a UPNP server that sits on it’s own sharing media. Using this app (when my external internet connection is up) I can stream files from within my LAN without issue. If I then just disable or unplug my modem (which is not used as my router merely a gateway and had no impact on my LAN) this app fails to work, it can see the UPNP server but refuses to return any results. Plug internet back In … Works … Check logs… App is calling home!

Id like to hear an actual dev speak on this and clarify the situation.

I DID check by unplugging my modem and everything still worked fine. I could then play media local to my iPad, and media that was streamed from my media server.

Not saying you do not have an issue - just that there is some other factor at play than just the need for an internet connection.

Well it doesn’t work here, and is still like a reply from the devs as I can assure you my LAN is setup to strict standards.

I have my NAS/SAN setup in the same what I have been setting up networks for years. I’m a sys admin and while I respect your opinion, unfortunelty I know it to be inconsistent with my results.

I can assure you that the IOS app is indeed calling home, you can check this by monitoring your traffic from that device. When the app makes the call, all works well, if the call is restricted, the app is failing to complete it’s actions (being back results of shares located on networks)

I believe this could be related to licensing, perhaps they want to ensure all users who are streaming have a valid decoder licence or perhaps it’s to ensure something else.

As a further test I constructed a test bed specifically for this app within a VM.

Here are the results:
New 5g Wireless network - FCTest 1
New media server - FCTest
iOS devices connected to new wireless AP us of latest version of app.

Upnp xbmc media server (13.2)
Files shared without restriction

Upon connecting to the test wireless, the app successfully saw the UPNP server from XBMC. I was able to open, search media, navigate and play files stored on my VM.

At this point I closed the app.

Now I disabled external internet access from my machine (VM)
I relaunched the application.
It can still see the share, try to navigate and … Nothing but a loading screen…

I then close the app…

Now I reconnect the VM exterbal Internet connection and now chose to physically disable my ISP router (which has nothing to do with my network at all, is used solely as a gateway to my VPN/Internet.

I relaunched the application (but captured traffic on my internal router)

The produced interesting results as the app saw the share, but was again unable to list the results when opened! Howdver, as I tested this, I also captured the application making numerous attempts to connect to firecore. Now perhaps they want the app to call home for their own licensing reasons etc but the fact if the matter is.

1- the all IS calling home and I’m sure the devs will confirm this shortly when they reply.
2- The port and IP the call is going to is legit, but for what purpose?
3- when that call fails, this is stopping some functionality of the PRO version of the application such as UPNP sharing from xbmc 13.2

If it works for you, fine? But they configuration above is not working.

Nor is it working for my actual configuration (as the above was a test of a new network configuration)

I’m very interested to hear what the devs have to say? I’m glad it works for you and whatever you are using (please can you list your configuration so that I can create, test and build this as id be very interesting in posting a video of it working under those conditions, whilst refusing to function under others.

What UPNP shortwave see you using? How is it configured? WIFI/Hardwired/NAS/SAN/ OS version/ windows/Linux/ IOS decices and iOS versions etc

Cheers.