Wi-Fi Connection to HD/HDR-FOX

Why not, presumably its preferred address is in the same subnet as the rest of your network. As long as the address was in the DHCP range and then fixed to that address on your router ...
I'm not sure about your router but on the netgear and linksys you can fix a MAC address to any IP address anywhere in the DHCP range.

Obviously you may have to adjust your routers DHCP range to encompass said address.

Don't read me wrong, I'm not trying to convince you to change your approach, I'd just like to understand what the limitation is. I agree, if it ain't bust don't fix it, but it does sound as if it's dodgy, so could be worth exploring.
 
The point is that the wired devices which I might want to address directly have addresses allocated outside the DHCP pool, in a numbering scheme that is easy to remember: .1x = HDR-FOX, .2x = HD-FOX, etc, then .11 = HDR1 etc.

It's not at all dodgy - the awkward thing is the way HDR3 (on WiFi) has to be fiddled with any time the router is reset (or it loses the settings on its own account), combined with the router's inability to be configured to my requirement.

Even if I extended the DHCP pool to include .13, there is no guarantee .13 would be allocated on request - and it can't be preset (just whatever gets allocated can be frozen and handed out each time). This is a limitation of the settings available in the router control panel for WiFi-connected devices and this particular router - not a limitation of all routers necessarily. I also don't know whether that MAC address corresponds with the WiFi dongle or the HDR - I suspect that if the dongle were moved elsewhere it would still be regarded as "HDR3" whichever USB socket it was sitting in.

The router limitations could (possibly) be overcome by running custom firmware on it (I believe there is a hacker community for routers just as there is for our beloved 'FOXes). There's not a lot of mileage in just getting a different router - we have already seen examples of routers which have even more restrictions in their control panels!
 
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Black Hole said:
I also don't know whether that MAC address corresponds with the WiFi dongle or the HDR - I suspect that if the dongle were moved elsewhere it would still be regarded as "HDR3" whichever USB socket it was sitting in.
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It would. The HDR doesn't have a MAC address - the wired ethernet adapter on the HDR has the address. In the same way, the wireless dongle has the MAC address - it is the same regardless of the device it is plugged into because the device does not have the MAC address. It is a subtle difference and one which people misunderstand, especially on devices with only one possible network interface.
 
You can determine the manufacture details of any MAC address from web sites such as this :-
http://www.macvendorlookup.com/
The first 6 characters of the Built-in LAN connectors of Humax unit are always 00-03-78, DC-D3-21 or 08-EB-74 as far as we know .e.g. :-
upload_2015-2-11_12-22-1.png
EDIT
08-eb-74 added to the Humax HDR / HD fox T2 list
 
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prpr said:
The HDR doesn't have a MAC address - the wired ethernet adapter on the HDR has the address.
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I would generally agree with you there but the Humax is an odd beast in this regard as xyz321 found out when building the first custom kernels. It must be something to do with the Broadcom SoC, but unless you do something about, all Humax boxes have the same MAC address - a deadbeef one. The Humax boot loader extracts the MAC address from flash (can be seen in /dev/mtd3 at offset 822272) and passes it to the kernel as a parameter. The network driver then sets the MAC address.

Code: 
humax# cat /proc/cmdline
root=/dev/mtdblock0 ro mem=128M macaddr=00:03:78:xx:xx:xx console=ttyS0,115200 bcmsata2=1
 
Interesting. Does that mean that in theory it's possible to change the MAC address in flash?

JOOI, does anyone know how manufacturers of ethernet cards (or motherboards or whatever device) set MAC addresses in the hardware?
 
Wallace: I posted a reply to your #25 at the same time I edited #24, i.e. at 7:20PM, It appears to have got lost some how, here is a copy of it :-
Wallace said:
Sorry Ezra but one of my boxes MAC address begins: 08:eb:74...
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Hey don't apologise, that's fine, the last trawl of Humax MAC addresses only came up with the two mentioned, I will add your new one to the WiKi, and also to #24 above - Thanks
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prpr said:
Interesting. Does that mean that in theory it's possible to change the MAC address in flash?

JOOI, does anyone know how manufacturers of ethernet cards (or motherboards or whatever device) set MAC addresses in the hardware?
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Historically it was in an EPROM and loaded into the Ethernet chip on bootup. This allowed cloning of MAC address program protection schemes. :)

I would have thought that these days in an effort to minimise copying then using either laser fuse blowing or one time programming it would have a dedicated area on the chip to be programmed during manufacture.
 
I'm now tryng to get my Aunt's HDR Fox T2 to come up in Maintenance Mode with wifi. 1.03.12 and 3.03. The trouble is, the wifi is a hotspot created by my iPad and it doesn't even auto connect to it on a normal power on for some reason. I have to go into the network settings and simply Apply what it already knows, at which point 50% of the time it successfully connects (the other half of the time I have to retry until it works). So there seems little hope of getting it to work in Maintenance Mode.

The reason I needd to do this is the box has developed a hard disc fault and it's making it very hard for her to record and watch things. Five minute delays on pressing Play, that sort of thing.
 
Get some proper tools. You seem to persist with plastic knives and forks when you really want metal ones, then complain that they snap when you put a bit too much force on them.
 
Perhaps his Aunt does not have a network and using the plastic knife and fork, sorry iPad as a WiFi hotspot is the only way of connecting to it?
 
Trev said:
Perhaps his Aunt does not have a network and using the plastic knife and fork, sorry iPad as a WiFi hotspot is the only way of connecting to it?
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Correct. My elderly aunt has no broadband, no mobile phone, or anything similar. The most technically complex thing she owns is the HDR Fox T2 and it was a considerable victory when she became comfortable using it. Now she's very worried it might be broken, no matter how much I reassure her at worst it just needs a new hard disc (and I have a spare grade A HDR Fox T2 at home in my loft anyway, and a unused DTR-T1000 YouView box I can remove the hard disc from).

Up to now I've installed and managed the custom firmware on my Aunt's HDR using the plastic knife and fork, I mean iPad with wifi hotspot. She has the fan package (because the noise at full speed was annoying her), auto-unprot and disable-dso (why wouldn't you?) and Red Ring and some minor other stuff. It's been OK for managing in the webui, though I do have to use my old iPad3 because I cannot get the HDR Fox T2 to connect to the hotspot my new iPad Air2 creates. It's the only thing I use my iPad3 for now.

Anyway, I've put the HDR Fox T2 in the car and driven two miles to my parents where there is broadband, and wired network, and a real computer, and all the stuff I need to run Maintenance Mode.

Ironically, the bad block was in redring.log.
 
In the absence of infrastructure (like you), I have used a TP-Link WR-702n as a WiFi router, connecting it to a HDR-FOX by Ethernet and then logging on from the iPad. The 702 can be configured in a variety of useful ways. I had no idea the iPad could throw out a hotspot (maybe my ancient one can't), but in any case WiFi connection on the HDR-FOX is a fiddle.

What I have not yet succeeded in doing is to add my 3G MiFi into the mix to provide a live connection to the hummypkg server.
 
You need an iPad which has mobile broadband in it. If yours hasn't got that (it cost about £100 extra at purchase) then your iPad won't create a hotspot.

I decided years ago the HDR Fox T2 wifi is barely usable, I've now downgraded it to useless. But I need the iPad hotspot to relay to mobile broadband (I get good 3G and 4G at my aunt's) to download custom firmware and update packages.

So I think what I want is something that will join the iPad's wifi hotspot and relay it to ethernet for the HDR Fox T2. I recall someone describing a product which does exactly that, but I can't at the moment find the relevant posting.
 
The TP-LINK TP-WR702N will do that too. In my instance it is configured to be a router providing WiFi and one Ethernet connection, but it can also be configured as an access point... or, what you want, as a client (connecting to an existing WiFi and providing an Ethernet connection). It is also supposed to be configurable as a WiFi repeater or bridge, but I have never been successful in that (not that I have tried very hard).

The 702 is configured using a web control panel, from a factory default state (set by poking a pin into the reset hole). The most awkward thing about it is their choice of subnet, because whatever you connect to its Ethernet to configure it has to be set up for the default subnet, and then switched to the target subnet. I use an ancient EeePC netbook for that, which runs a stripped-down Linux. However, once configured, the state is retained until you reset or alter it, so actually I have several 702s pre-configured (and labelled!) for various jobs (one provides a guest WiFi network for visitors, only turned on when it's needed).

The 702 is USB-powered, so as a client/router for use on the Humax it just plugs into the Ethernet and USB ports.

Similar alternative devices are available. My experience is exclusively with the 702, and mine were bought when they were on discount.
 
Owen Smith said:
I decided years ago the HDR Fox T2 wifi is barely usable, I've now downgraded it to useless.
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I don't rate it as useless. Many users on this forum rely in it, and although I mainly use powerline networking for mine, I spent several months trialling the Edimax dongle and alpha-testing the WebIF extension to configure it for my impossible-to-enter-on-the-SUI WiFi credentials.
 
I use it all the time, but did have a bit of trouble getting it set up in the first place (if you search, you'll find advice given to me on how to manually edit the wifi credentials using a terminal interface on an ethernet connection). My password is too long to enter, given the timeout feature on entering it.
 
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