Chromecast not working
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I have a really simple (temporary) setup: 1 flat lan subnet... There are some Chromecast devices on that subnet, but casting simply doesn't work. I've tried the Avahi package and the udpbroadcastrelay package. Neither of them resulted in working functionality. If anyone has any tips, I'd really appreciate your help.
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@krismortensen Are you saying that you are not able to Cast from some device (phone, browser etc) to a Chromecast device? Or are you trying to "cast" as in watch Netflix or some external source on Chromecast?
And are both the Chromecast units and the other devices on the same interface/subnet?
You don't really need Avahi or udpbroadcastrelay in order for devices each other when they are on the same interface/subnet. Across VLAN's and interfaces is a different story, but you mention flat lan subnet so I'm assuming none of that is in play?Which also means pfsense doesn't have anything to do with discovery, or even being able to cast directly from a PC to Chromecast.
IF, on the other hand you are not able to watch Netflix being "cast" from a phone, then it's something else that is not set up correctly, like DNS perhaps? -
If you just have a single subnet that that traffic just goes from the client to the device and not through pfSense. So you have some issue in the Chromecast setup not the firewall.
Steve
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@Gblenn
I am trying to open an app (let's say YouTube) on my phone, which is on the same subnet as my Chromecast device plugged into the HDMI port of my TV, and cast from there. When I hit the Chromecast button on my phone, it finds no devices to cast to.
This worked right up to the point that I put pfsense in place, and there is no switch etc... currently everything connects to the pfsense via an access point, which is directly connected to the LAN interface. The pfsense handles DNS, DHCP and is the gateway. When I try to ping the Chromecast devices from the pfsense GUI by hostname, they don't resolve. However, a ping by IP gets a response. -
You can enable 'DHCP Lease Registration' in the DNS resolver to allow pinging by hostname. But I wouldn't expect that to have any effect on Chromecast.
I assume both those things are WiFi connected? The access point must allow 'intra-BSS communication' for wifi devices to connect directly.
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@stephenw10
Thanks very much for the tip about DHCP client registration, though I don't see a setting available for that on the resolver or the DHCP server.With regard to connectivity, yes both are connected via wifi. This same access point was in use and working with Chromecast before setting up pfsense. I have no idea if it supports intra bss communication, but am assuming it does since it worked before.
The difference between then and now is that the access point is actually a wifi router, so it used to be my gateway etc. All I did was turn off DHCP services on it and connected it to the LAN port of the pfsense.
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The setting is in Services > DNS Resolver:
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@stephenw10
Again, thank you. Unfortunately, that doesn't exist for me...it's super strange. I'm also less concerned about this unless of course it would somehow allow Chromecast to start working. -
Are you running Plus with Kea for DHCP? That isn't an option in Kea yet in 24.03. It's just been added in 24.08-dev. Try switching back to ISC if so.
But, yes, it's hard to imagine that would make any difference to Chromecast.
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@krismortensen said in Chromecast not working:
Unfortunately, that doesn't exist for me
If that checkbox option @stephenw10 highlighted is not present on your system, then perhaps you have enabled the Kea option instead of ISC DHCP. DHCP Registration is not currently supported with Kea (it is coming with the next pfSense update, though).
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@krismortensen said in Chromecast not working:
The difference between then and now is that the access point is actually a wifi router, so it used to be my gateway etc. All I did was turn off DHCP services on it and connected it to the LAN port of the pfsense.
It is quite possible that when DHCP was enabled on your Wi-Fi router that it was doing the client DHCP registration automagically for you and thus Chromecast could find the other "clients" on your network by device name. Once you turned off DHCP on the Wi-Fi router, that name registration would be broken.
Did you change the Wi-Fi router to "bridge" or "AP" mode?
When you set up pfSense, if you changed the DHCP server to Kea from ISC DHCP, then client DHCP registration will not work. That could be the problem. Change back to ISC DHCP. You can do that under SYSTEM > ADVANCED > NETWORKING:
Once you make the change back to ISC DHCP, then follow @stephenw10's instructions to enable the DHCP Registration option.
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As enumerated in thousands of post on this forum (true, half of them are probably mine
), I have to warn you about this option :
as it comes with a 'side effect'. If you can live with it, then ok, no big deal.
Also, the upcoming, next pfSense version will propose a far better KEA implementation, and we can put the issue to rest.
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I would still test it because it's one of the few things that might have changed here.
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@Gertjan
Is the side effect you are referring to the reload of the resolver cache? If yes, then that sounds annoying, but I can probably deal with it.Also, when is the new Kea version set to release?
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@bmeeks
I went ahead and reverted away from KEA and enabled registration in the resolver settings. Unfortunately, this did not solve my problem.
I didn't do anything on my old wireless router except turn off DHCP, so maybe the mDNS traffic for Chromecast is getting "stuck" inside the wireless router as if it's a layer 3 boundary? ...but then again, if that were the case, then none of my DHCP traffic should be working either because I don't have a relay set up anywhere, and the DHCP requests wouldn't make it past a layer 3 boundary on the wireless router either...I do think that trying to turn off any sort of routing capabilities on the wireless router is a reasonable step if it can even be done though...
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If it's running as an access point it should be layer2 only. It could still isolate wireless clients. Simpl changing the DHCP settings there shouldn't make any difference though.
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@stephenw10
I feel SUPER dumb. I did a sloppy job by not turning off all of the routing and firewalling capabilities on the old router, and that is exactly what the problem was. As soon as I disabled all the things, casting worked. I'm pretty sure that this wasn't a routing thing though because I only have the LAN port of the wireless router plugged in (and DHCP would have failed), but this router had firewall services applied to the physical LAN ports which had never been used before. Guessing that the firewall services didn't kick in for WiFi clients (which is dumb) and that's why I didn't have problems in the past.Thank you all for being so helpful and dealing with my ignorance!
