Linksys extenders freeze when browsing Galaxy S4 gallery

[rabbit1543]

I recently replaced my old thunderbolt with a galaxy s4. I have noticed an odd behavior that can be easily reproduced. I have 3 2100s that will freeze whenever i open the gallery on the S4. If i keep the gallery open for about 30 secs they will lock up and only respond to the power button on the remote. Im assuming this is some sort of DLNA thing. I had no issues using my thunderbolt and was even able to display pictures over dlna with it. The ability to project items on the phone to the TV is more of a novelty to me. What i would like is the ability to browse the pictures on my phone without having to worry about killing and extender. Anyone else out there with and S4 and some linksys extenders seeing this problem or is there some sort of wierdness going on with my setup

[foxwood]

How do you open the Gallery on the S4 from an Extender?

There are 2 related but slightly different possibilities. It could be that the Extender is having problems processing the photos themselves. The simple test for that is to copy the photos over to the PC, and see if the Extender can handle them. If you see the same problem, there probably isn't any simple way to fix it (unless you want to keep a low res copy of the photos just for Extender use). The second possibility is that the network stack on the Extender is somehow being overwhelmed by something that the S4 is generating. I can't think of an easy way to isolate that, though.

[robsaraceno]

I just wanted to reply because I have been experiencing the same issue. I was ready to give up with Media Center since I couldn't figure out why both of my extenders started doing this suddenly.

I think I'm going to setup a second wireless router, keeping NAT enabled and using a different SSID for the phone. My guess is that it's using uPNP in a way that is breaking the extenders. This will prevent the uPNP traffic from touching those devices.

On the other hand, that uPNP traffic could actually be hanging one of the processes on the Media Center server. If using a second router isn't feasible, then you may want to try playing with the firewall.

[rabbit1543]

Thanks for the replies. It seems that im not the only one having this problem, unfortunately i have not found a remedy. If i stumble across a solution i'll be sure to post. Im wondering if there are any other phones that might be mucking up the extender experience and others just aren't aware of it because of its odd nature

[epdavidson]

My Daughter has a Galaxy S4 and we also have 3 DMA 2x00 extenders and have been recently experiencing freezes. I know nothing about the "gallery" on the S4. Could you please explain what that is and how you access it from the extenders. I wonder if our problems are similar. My 2x00s have been working nearly flawlessly for years.

epd

[epdavidson]

I just called my Daughter and had her test the hypothesis and INDEED the Gallery on her S4 is the culprit! Instant freeze of the extenders. I cant thank you enough for making this discovery!! This has been frustrating me for weeks.

epd

[foxwood]

What exactly was the hypothesis that your daughter tested? What did she do on her S4 that caused the Extenders to crash? Did she "target" an extender in some way, or did she just do something on the S4 that caused some sort of network broadcast that tripped up all the Extenders at the same time?

[epdavidson]

What exactly was the hypothesis that your daughter tested? What did she do on her S4 that caused the Extenders to crash? Did she "target" an extender in some way, or did she just do something on the S4 that caused some sort of network broadcast that tripped up all the Extenders at the same time?

The hypothesis was, accessing the Gallery on the Galaxy S4 (when it is on the wi-fi network) was causing the extenders to crash. When she accessed the gallery using her 4G connection there was no effect on the extenders. I have no idea HOW the Galaxy is causing the crash, but at least now I can figure a way to eliminate the problem... a second wireless router with a different SSID has been suggested, or on a different subnet? Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

[foxwood]

So she wasn't trying to deliberately talk to the Extenders, they were just taken out as a side effect of something that the S4 is doing?

That's interesting - I wonder how many other odd side effects the S4 is producing - given that the Linksys has been around for a while, and nothing else seems to has had this effect (or at least, nobody has even noticed a correlation before), I wonder if there aren't other network devices that are also being hammered by the S4?

Given that it must be some sort of broadcast causing the problem, I wonder if anyone with an S4 has used WireShark to see ehat's going on?

[staknhalo]

The Galaxy might be looking for DLNA devices when accessing the gallery on WiFi. Could have something to do with it.

Edit: I see you guys already assume that

Didn't read, lol

[epdavidson]

So she wasn't trying to deliberately talk to the Extenders, they were just taken out as a side effect of something that the S4 is doing?

That is exactly the case. All she did was access the gallery and all extenders crashed at the same time. I have added another router, to act as an access point just for her phone, on a separate subnet. This has eliminated the problem completely.

[copytec]

Just wanted to say that I am too getting the exact same problem. Noticed it happening a few weeks ago and fully tested the theory out this morning in front of my wife so that she did not think I was making it up.

[Jay]

Just wanted to say that I am too getting the exact same problem. Noticed it happening a few weeks ago and fully tested the theory out this morning in front of my wife so that she did not think I was making it up. :what the heck:

+1 that is having the same issue.

[cmgj]

I am having this issue as well with my Samsung Galaxy S3 with 4.3 OS.

Anyone find a fix for this yet...?

[cmgj]

I am having this issue as well with my Samsung Galaxy S3 with 4.3 OS.

Anyone find a fix for this yet...?

I did use TIBU to freeze gallery and that does seem to help. (Although this does require root)

[acraigl]

This thread saved my sanity. I had been experiencing freezing on 2 DMAs -- one newly installed at around the same time I upgraded my GS3 to 4.3, so that made the situation all the worse. Obviously this was not a problem under Android 4.2. I kept assuming a network collision, bad cables (I actually replaced a few) and even a switch failure before I stumbled across this discussion. I was also able to reproduce the issue... DMAs playing fine, launch gallery, Boom! Frozen. As others noted, it happens on the camera, and the native video player as well.

As a solution, I opted to modify the phone, rather than my entire network. Specifically, I:
- Turned Off, then force-stopped Gallery (this seemed to do the same to the video player as well)
- Substituted QuickPic for Gallery (and it's much better!)
- Substituted Camera Zoom FX for Camera (and it's much better!)
- Gallery seems to be required for some apps, like native messaging, so I substituted Handscent SMS for Messaging, which I also like better.

As far as I can tell, I have removed all possible access to the offending apps. Been running for a few weeks now without a single freeze on the DMAs. Crazy thing, this, but glad there are a few workarounds.

[Crash2009]

glad there are a few workarounds.

Would this be a workaround or a solution? http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... f=8&t=6973

[hokie21]

This is a work around. The solution to this would require a software update from Linksys for the DMA2200/2100 which ain't gonna happen. There shouldn't be any traffic on the LAN that should cause the units to freeze.

[barnabas1969]

If you use DD-WRT (and I assume Tomato would do this too), all you have to do is put the wireless network on a separate VLAN. Then, for internal services which you want your phone to still be able to access, (e.g. My Media Center), just port-forward that service from one VLAN to the other (Google it).

[blueiedgod]

Same is happening with Galaxy S3 running Android 4.3