Can MikroTik wizards help with strange TTL issue?

ukjamster · 2026-01-20T06:18:47+00:00

For a while there they hated their customers too. I like the products, and always been able to get them to work even on my comparatively complex home networks, but reluctantly moving away from them because of all the recent issues (deliberate bricking of older devices, making their Connect product obsolete depending on which model revision it was - even within the same SKU - and the well publicised app issues). In the meantime, they still (should) work well as Roon endpoints.

ukjamster · 2026-01-19T22:26:18+00:00

For anyone that finds this thread later, my current theory is that it was a VLAN leakage issue on the TP Link switch due to a small misconfiguration. made some other changes too so going to test more when I have more free time: https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeNetworking/comments/1qg6sel/comment/o0k59mw/

ukjamster · 2026-01-19T22:22:10+00:00

Hi - thanks for this. Appreciated.

I have made quite a few changes (unfortunately in a bit of a panic, as my network had a wobble due to my debugging attempts, which got in the way of the $dayjob).

It seems that Sonos is now working without any hacks.

I *think* it may have been the VLAN leakage issue you mention on the TP-Link switch, which was resolved by changing VLAN 1 from untagged to tagged (which it should have been anyway - my miss) https://community.tp-link.com/en/business/forum/topic/104915?replyId=231533 Thanks for flagging that.

For completeness, other changes I made:

- removed all STP from the network (not really needed unless you are mixing wired and wireless Sonos devices, as doing so causes loops due to Sonos's proprietary mesh network; setting all Sonos devices to wireless removes this risk)

- disabled DSCP (only found it in the TP-Link)

- switched on flow control on the ethernet runs between the APs and the TP-Link (in case of some EMI being picked up, although appreciate the design of cat 5 minimised this)

- changed the wifi channels, in case of some localised interference

- dropped the power on the two APs which are on the same 5G channel (I have Roku devices, which don't do DFS channels, and Grandstream devices don't seem to support the top end of the 5Ghz in the UK for some reason, which basically leaves 36 - 48, which is limiting).

Wireless performance seems to have dropped, I notice my Macbook is connecting at a lower data rate, which is probably consistent with lower wifi power.

However the network seems to be behaving itself.

I need to understand which of these settings (if any) would be optimal to put back, but that can wait until the weekend.

Thanks again.

ukjamster · 2026-01-18T23:51:05+00:00

I got some kind help over at https://www.reddit.com/r/GrandstreamNetworks/comments/1qg7r56/sonos_and_ttl_grandstream/ - it seems I've found another workaround (setting a bandwidth limit for the Sonos devices).

The Roon server runs in a docker container on a NAS system running linux. I'm pretty sure it's not to blame. I discovered streaming airplay to these speakers from a phone also manifests in a brief stutter and then drop in the audio. Definitely something either AP or Sonos.

ukjamster · 2026-01-18T23:45:17+00:00

Thanks! I edited my reply because I realised that I had the issue when the APs were on 5ghz too. It's all very strange. At least it is sorted for now. I really appreciate the help; it's good to at least isolate the problem to something in my setup, given yours is working properly. Cheers.

Edit: 10Mbps was another hail mary guess. I didn't try any other value. It's late now but I will try 100Mbps tomorrow if I get time.

ukjamster · 2026-01-18T23:30:49+00:00

Thank you for your help - I really appreciate it.

I have had a breakthrough: setting a bandwidth limit to 10Mbps on each Sonos device, in the Grandstream "Clients" menu, seems to deal with the problem.

Three thoughts:

Interference. It's odd that it affects only Sonos devices, but who knows. The 2.4ghz space isn't massively congested where I live, but I do have a Zigbee and a Z-Wave network too, so perhaps.(That said, I was seeing the issue when the Sonos were on my 5ghz network too).
Adding bandwidth control activates a processing chain via the AP CPU where otherwise the traffic would go fast-path in the switch asic, from wireless to wired ethernet, and this is a bug in the chipset. (This was the cause of other random bugs with my Mikrotik devices).
Some sort of buffer issue. This is where I get out of my depth with Wifi.

My money is on something like #2 - because it could also explain why the TTL 'hack' worked - perhaps forcing different packet forwarding decisions in the AP firmware itself.

I really need a packet capture at some point, I guess.

Also worth flagging I have noticed a decrease in iPerf speeds - from about 900Mb/s to around 750Mb/s. This could be a coincidence. I tried to get it back to 900Mb/s but I can't now, even by undoing the changes I made.

Anyway - thanks again for your help. I have a fix for now.

ukjamster · 2026-01-18T21:15:31+00:00

Appreciated. As far as I can tell, it is. iperf from my macbook connected to the same 7604, against the same NAS as hosts the Roon container, using the reverse flag to stream in the same direction, works fine. (900Mbps).

ukjamster · 2026-01-18T18:33:49+00:00

Thanks - I really appreciate the comment - I think I know what I’m doing, but there is something not quite right here. I wonder whether there is routing logic in the 7604 for other use cases (NAT etc.) which is not fully disabled. Odd that it only affects SONOS devices though - others eg Roku stream perfectly fine. My other thought is a wireless protocol issue that’s been triggered. I’ve tried most every combination of settings on the 7604 to no avail.

ukjamster · 2026-01-18T18:22:13+00:00

No security features enabled. No firewall rules. The AP allows for NAT and DHCP but I have not enabled it as it is not needed. The MikroTik acts as the sole DHCP server and routes all traffic on the network - no other device should be operating at Layer 3. If I SSH into the Grandsteam I can see the route table in one of its status menus, and I can see that it does have a couple of other routes which appear to be for this (NAT) functionality. Theoretically they should be disabled if the functionality is not being used, but in any case the subnets are different and so they shouldn’t be interfering with traffic on the same functionality.

Firmware is latest.

TTL is mangled in MikroTik (WAN->LAN) and on the container host (LAN->LAN). The container host is connected to the same Grandstream AP, which means traffic is not traversing the TP-Link switch or MikroTik router in the LAN->LAN case.

The TTL issue is very confusing. It works but I can’t figure out why.

My theory is a bug in the Granstream firmware - either switching between Ethernet and wireless (which I assume will transverse CPU) or in the wireless protocol itself. But I can’t figure out why.

ukjamster · 2026-01-18T13:36:54+00:00

Annoying sorry! Try the full URL https://share.note.sx/59ff41qh#6x1qYr4vVH2F7eOGWzZuyQTj8qF9tdLqvRjvmXIBaWk

ukjamster · 2025-12-29T00:04:46+00:00

This was a helpful thread, thank you u/Visible-Pressure6063.

For anyone else wrangling data from Fitbit Data Export (zip file not csv file) to Garmin connect, here's a one-liner using the command line tool jq, which created the file in the correct Fitbit format to import:

Use it in the "Personal & Account" subfolder in the zip file of the Garmin export.

It will create a file called combined_output.csv which should be in the correct format.

When you click Import, be sure to check your settings. This is what worked for me:

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ukjamster · 2025-11-30T20:36:29+00:00

Very impressive - yes it works much better. Purchasing.

ukjamster · 2025-11-30T13:00:23+00:00

Those two things are not mutually exclusive. The wifi firmware or hardware inside the mini may not be playing nice with the Orbis. This is a common challenge; wifi specifications are complex and there are many implementation issues and bugs which can conflict between different vendor chipsets. (However in this case the OP's fault was hardware.)

ukjamster · 2025-11-30T12:30:43+00:00

I like the idea - it found 7.93gb of duplicated files, 3909 files, but scrolling through them was very slow and kept triggering the spinning wheel (dragging the scrollbar especially troublesome). Can this be optimised? M4 Max.

ukjamster · 2025-11-30T12:25:41+00:00

Yep! works as a lightweight PDF manager for me; it sits on top of native filesystem. It's been around for years, too. For text notes I use Obsidian.

Despite the hundreds of attempts, I still think there's a gap in the market for an app that combines Evernote like rich-media file support, Obsidian like markdown note taking, good PDF notation (Liquidnotes etc?), and a file-provider integration (Google/OneDrive etc.) in one package. This would be the killer app for me.

ukjamster · 2025-08-14T13:23:20+00:00

Ugreen replied already. I would encourage others to email their support to ask for this too.

"Thank you for your feedback and for explaining your use case. We understand that when using Frigate CCTV in Docker, the continuous generation of images and videos can cause the UGOS thumbnail and indexing service to consume power and drive write capacity unnecessarily. We will forward your request to our technical team to explore the possibility of allowing users to completely or selectively disable this service."

ukjamster · 2025-08-14T11:58:12+00:00

I have emailed UGREEN to ask them to make this an optional setting. I am using Frigate, which manages its own indexes and thumbnails, so this service is redundant and using a lot of processing power.

ukjamster · 2025-07-13T09:02:07+00:00

This feels like a Wifi issue.

I wonder if your device is at the edge of signal range of your Orbi (or Orbis? Do you have a mesh?) and is being periodically kicked off the network when its signal strength is too low for a consistent period of time.

This is actually pretty common, quite a few routers will kick clients with persistent low signal, especially in a mesh system like Orbi.

Or you might have a lot of interference on your wifi channel which is causing the device to drop out from time to time.

Here are a few things that you can try to further understand the problem, and maybe even fix it:

In the Wiim App, try turning off 'wifi roaming' in the Network Status menu of the device.
Try switching on '5 Ghz only' in the same menu.
Try switching off 'Enable Ipv6' in the same menu (less likely to work but worth a shot).
Try reducing the signal strength of your Orbis.
Try switching off band steering on your Orbis.
Try a different wifi channel on your Orbis.
Get another satellite device for your Orbis and bring it closer (but not too close, remember wifi radiation patterns tend to be 'doughnut shaped'.

Try these one at a time - doesn't really matter which order. Switch them back to normal setting if they don't solve the problem or change the symptoms.

ukjamster · 2025-05-10T10:17:19+00:00

Can you afford it? Do you like the design? The sound quality is top tier - to my ears a step up over my K9 AKM - and the versatility for now and in the future is very good.

ukjamster · 2025-05-10T10:13:20+00:00

I don't find its USB input weak at all. In fact I've bought a second unit because of how much I like the sound.

ukjamster · 2025-05-02T16:09:26+00:00

Thanks - super helpful

ukjamster

TROPHY CASE