DHCP in Lisa devices works as follows.

When a device is powered off, then it will try to get configurations from DHCP server with a timeout of 20 seconds.

If configuration from DHCP fails, then no retries are done. It will only broadcast a DHCP discovery again the next time it powers off.

Until the next attempt at power off, the device will use the old IP configuration. Such behavior can cause problem expecially during installation but also in general. There is a good chance that the old IP settings are not suitable for the network (e.g., when the device is placed in a new network).

One scenario which is sure to fail is if the device is powered before the network cable is connected. Connecting the cable 20 seconds later or even less (the device needs a few seconds to complete DHCP configuration, while the timeout is fixed at 20 sec) after the power will be a guaranteed failure to get an IP address from DHCP.

Recommendations:

• The best tip for installation is to always connect the network cable before the power
• It is unfortunately not possible to see whether DHCP succeeded (except from STP logs). It could help that after the device is installed and user has gone through the installation wizard, to always reset the device one time.

Normally the Lisa does not connect to the activation server after activation. However, there are a few reasons why it may still (try to) connect to the activation server:

• When the Lisa LCD is reset to the default settings using the service menu on the Lisa LCD, it will also start the activation process again.
• When the activation process is complete, the Lisa receives confirmation from the activation server. If this confirmation is not received or processed correctly, the Lisa will keep trying to activate until this confirmation is received and stored
• The Lisa Basic will not receive confirmation from the activation server that the activation is complete and therefore continue to connect to the activation server in order to complete the activation process.

Connecting and disconnecting the USB cable from a Lisa device will result in a reboot of the device. This has to do with a Windows function that scans for plug & play devices on each serial port during system power up and USB enumeration. This will toggle the reset line in the Lisa, resulting in a reboot of the system. Powering the PC off while the USB is connected will also result in a reboot.

When playing from card, the SIR and Lisa devices will send the complete audio file to the decoder, including the ID3 tags. These tags normally discarded by the audio decoder.

In case of ID3v2, the size of the tags could be quite large (upto 256MB). In case the tag is small (a few kilobytes) the decoder will not have any issues. For large tags however (think of high resolution images), the audio decoder will detect invalid audio data. This will cause the device to skip the specific entry and continue with the next in the playlist.

If you are experiencing “Invalid audio” issues while playing from card, then you should inspect your audio files for large ID3 tags. It is recommended that images are always removed. The file on the card is then replaced with the new one, without large ID3 tags.

Mp3tag (http://www.mp3tag.de/en/) is a small tool that can be used to inspect and update ID3 tags.

Lisa devices running software version 1.6 or higher will skip ID3 information  without causing the device to detect invalid audio.

A ‘playlist station’ or ‘online playlist’ refers to a preset with a URL that points to a playlist (of M3U, PLS or ASX standard) instead of the actual audio resource. This playlist contains the URLs of one of more audio streams. When playing such an online playlist, the player (lisa or SIR) will follow these rules:

1. The player will get the playlist, save all of the playlist entries (streams) and start playing the first entry in the playlist.
2. When the first entry is not available of will fail after some tim (e.g. server down), the player will continue with the second playlist entry (stream), third, fourth and so on.
3. When the end of the playlist is reached, the player will try to connect to the preset URL again and retrieve the playlist again.
4. When the player gets a playlist again, either the same or different than before, the player will start to play the first stream from the new playlist. When the player does get a playlist from the preset URL, then the player will start the fallback mechanism, switching to the SD card (when present). In the background the player will still try to make connection with the preset URL.

The playlist station is a very good solution to ensure that you have a fallback option to another streaming server in case one or more server(s) would crash. It is very important though that the playlist server is always reachable for the device.

Ports used by Lisa devices

For Streamit’s Lisa in-store audio players (Lisa, for short) to work correctly in networks with restricted incoming/outgoing traffic access (by a router or when firewalls are used), traffic must be allowed on a few ports. This article specifies which ports and which domain names are used by the Lisa for the different functions. In all cases the traffic is initiated by the Lisa (outbound) and uses TCP.

For Lisa devices registered on Claudio/Device portal before February 2, 2015, different ports may be in use, see the end of this article.

For Lisa devices using the ADP (Streamit Audio Distribution Platform), different ports are used, please contact support about this.

For audio streaming, the domain and port that is used, depends on the audio stream provider. You would have to look at the URL of the Lisa preset(s) to determine the domain and port that is used.

Lisa devices registered on Claudio/Device portal before February 2, 2015

When the Lisa is registered on Device portal before February 2, 2015, the domains and ports listed in the table below may be used. This depends on the so-called ‘Platform’ (General settings tab) that is selected. If this is ‘Device portal on port 9999 (old platform)’, then the following domains and ports are used:

For audio streaming, the domain and port that is used, depends on the audio stream provider. You would have to look at the URL of the Lisa preset(s) to determine the domain and port that is used.

The Streamit player (Lisa or SIR) has a buffer to handle problems that may occur in the connection with the streaming server.

This buffer, of course, needs to be filled. This happens for a short period before playing starts. However, in that short period the buffer is not completely filled. Filling continues during playback.
The internet connection may be interrupted when the buffer is not completely filled. If that happens, the player will be out of music to play (buffer empty) faster than if the buffer was completely filled. If the buffer runs out, an interruption will be audible.
It would be helpful to fill the buffer quickly before playback starts. This is possible by configuring a ‘burst’ on the streaming server. A streaming server for which ‘burst’ has been configured, will send more audio data at the start, to quickly fill the buffer of the player.
Note that the buffer on the streaming server itself needs to be sufficiently large to handle players that start lagging behind because of network connection issues.

Details on setting the burst and the server-side buffer on the streaming server can be found in the documentation of your streaming server, or consult your streaming service provider.

When the Streamit internet radio devices (Lisa or SIR) are used to stream audio from the internet, a reliable internet connection is required. A reliable connection ensures that the device can play constantly without audio drop.

Another important property of the connection is the download bandwidth, which is the maximum amount of data that can be transferred to the device over the internet connection.

How much bandwidth do you need for the proper operation of Streamit audio devices?

The bandwidth requirement is determined by the audio stream that the device will be playing (you also have to compensate for TCP overhead). Given that the Streamit players can stream up to 320 kbps, a connection with 512 kbps download speed should be enough to play all audio streams. This would be if the line was dedicated to the specific device.

If the device has to share the bandwidth with other network devices, you need to ensure that the SIR will have the minimum require bandwidth available at any time.