Trouble connecting to Air Player

[wreck1463]

I purchased a copy of air player tonight, but can't get it to connect to Air Manager to activate. I should start by saying that I have Air manager on my second computer, which is connecting to Prepar3d on my first computer (set up correctly, and instruments on second computer display the correct info). I'm trying to connect to an instance of Air Player on the first computer. When I click on the air player icon, I get the message saying air player is running. It shows "searching for flight simulator" when I hover the mouse over the icon. This message shows weather Prepar3d is running or not. In Air Manager on computer 2, nothing ever shows up in the devices tab. I've tried disabling the firewall on both computers, but this doesn't help.
Thanks,
Mark

[Ralph]

You can check if Automatically connect to Air Player devices is on in the Air Manager settings tab, but normally it should connect right away.

This is most probably a network issue. Different sub network, router blocking the communication, firewall, virusscanner... Did you try adding it manually with the IP address? If that's still possible... I don't remember exactly.

[wreck1463]

"Automatically connect to Air Player" is checked. I've disabled web protection, virus scan, and firewall on both computers. They are both on the same ethernet hub, and subnet (checked with IPConfig). The connection is set to manual with the IP Address listed. In fact, Air manager (on computer 2) won't connect to P3D (on computer 1) unless I use manual connection mode with the local IP. Could this be part of the issue?

[Ralph]

Then there's still something that is blocking broadcast messages. Maybe your router is blocking broadcast messages, might be a setting... Depends on the router probably. Or are you really using a Hub?

[SimPassion]

"Automatically connect to Air Player" is checked. I've disabled web protection, virus scan, and firewall on both computers. They are both on the same ethernet hub, and subnet (checked with IPConfig). The connection is set to manual with the IP Address listed. In fact, Air manager (on computer 2) won't connect to P3D (on computer 1) unless I use manual connection mode with the local IP. Could this be part of the issue?

Have you installed last Air Manager Plugin ?

Gilles

[wreck1463]

Ralph, turns out I was NOT using a hub, but a switch. Swapped the switch for a hub, and everything is behaving as it should. Is there no way to use a switch though? the switch I have is faster than the hub.

[Ralph]

A switch should work as good as a hub, or better as you said. Maybe the switch is blocking broadcast messages, although it shouldn't do that. We have a switch here as well, and probably a lot of other people do, and that works fine. Do you have a different switch you can try?

[Sling]

It’s certainly possible to use a switch. I don’t think it’s so much as the switch functions but more likely if you are using a router that it’s the router functions. You can delve into the settings and hopefully unblock whatever is causing the issue, NAT, firewall, ip and MAC address settings etc etc you could also try resetting to factory default.

[SimPassion]

Ralph, turns out I was NOT using a hub, but a switch. Swapped the switch for a hub, and everything is behaving as it should. Is there no way to use a switch though? the switch I have is faster than the hub.

I concur to Ralph and Tony advices
Some "switches" are sometime rather Firewall or Routers and embed some management capability with Utilities or Web interface provided
Could you tell us the manufacturer and model to help on troubleshooting ?

Gilles

[wreck1463]

Thanks for the responses,
I had to go away on a couple trips, and have been very busy away from home for a couple weeks now. So the last thing I did after reading your responses was run long ethernet cords directly to my router instead of through a hub or switch. I rebooted a couple times, and voila it suddenly worked. I flew around for a few hours with air player working. Flash forward to yesterday, and no luck. Now air manager isn't connecting to prepared on the other computer unless I put the local IP address in the manual mode connection. I'm at a loss. the router is from AT&T, manufacturer Pace Plc, model 5268AC.
I've tried disabling the firewalls and virus protection on both computers, but that hasn't helped. I also tried putting each computer in "DMZ" mode, but that made it worse, as I couldn't even get air manager to connect to P3D in manual connection mode.
On a side note, I have a program called FSX flight that broadcasts to an iPad with foreflight over wifi (through the same router), and it is working. Not sure what the difference is here.
Thanks again,
Mark