MikroTik

Hey All,

I set the wlan multicast-helper to full thinking that was the issue. However, no matter what we do any sort of video will pause and have to buffer. This is the same for Youtube or for anything streamed to an apple tv on the network. What can you guys suggest to open up this type of traffic so the wife doesn't get angry .

The old router before this seemed to handle this fine so I know its related to the Microtik. Just cant figure out why. I set the ques to handle it as well as far as I can tell.

Thanks,

Tyler

My AppleTV is doing the same on RB951G. It works much better on WiFi and extremely slow on ethernet connection. All other devices are fine.
Did you find out how to fix that?

The old router before this seemed to handle this fine so I know its related to the Microtik. Just cant figure out why. I set the ques to handle it as well as far as I can tell.

multicast-helper set to full seemed to fix the issue for me, but occasionally stuff will misbehave and I just have to reboot my iOS/AppleTV and it's gravy for weeks at a time (I never "need" to reboot MikroTik except for upgrades).

Hate to be like that, but try rebooting and post back; MikroTik has been amazing to me except for this persistent issue which I'm convinced is addressed by adjusting multicast-helper.

I have been scrubbing through hour long SGDQ speed runs through YouTube app via AirPlay to AppleTV with no hiccups all night when previously everything would stutter and buffer with no relent.

do you tried adjust default RouterOS conntrack values to more saner numbers(basically decrease them, alot) ?
in case if SynCookie in MT config turned on(which is NOT default) also try to play with windows scaling. disable heuristic. and turn to "restricted" or "disabled" it, temporally.
also sometimes worth to check it with "experimental" scaling(up to 16Mb window), but generally its more handy for fat files transfer via 1Gb or 10Gb networks thru NFS or FTP to long distance
p.s.
what is "old router" you're talking about ?
they all differ in netflow config, a bit.
to guess replicating which one - would help.

what is "old router" you're talking about ?

Any off the shelf Linksys/Netgear/Asus running default OOB config won't have issues streaming AirPlay to AppleTV, at least in my experience.

sometims conntrack break vital for tcp scaling stuff. if firewall configured so hard, and icmp left untouched.

what is "old router" you're talking about ?

Any off the shelf Linksys/Netgear/Asus running default OOB config won't have issues streaming AirPlay to AppleTV, at least in my experience.

yeah, but we're tried troubleshoot Particular case, so its irrelevant.
if his goal to replicate Exact/particular model performance/settings within mikrotik - then would be helpful to Know(rather than guess)which model is that.
you imply that something wrong in ROS with mutlticast/icmp handling ?
afaik without breaking more serious stuff in ROS there not much to do about.

yeah, but we're tried troubleshoot Particular case, so its irrelevant.

Isn't it relevant that this only seems to have issues with MT units, whereas cheap, crappy off-the-shelf junk works fine?

if his goal to replicate Exact/particular model performance/settings within mikrotik - then would be helpful to Know(rather than guess)which model is that.

I don't think he's trying to replicate performance settings, he's trying to get his video streaming properly through his MT when it was working fine on whatever junk he had before. If MT >= whatever other junk then it shouldn't have this issue, or at least the issue should be understood in a way a "fix" (configuration adjustment, really) can be applied for those affected.
MT units are great, when they don't do what you expect you can at least understand the behavior and almost always adjust it, unlike other systems I've struggled with.

you imply that something wrong in ROS with mutlticast/icmp handling ?

I didn't say that, you did. I haven't done PCAPs myself to fully "understand" the problem, but whatever the case, the MT handles the traffic differently than most consumer grade routers, and that's affecting the performance of this particular setup/traffic.

afaik without breaking more serious stuff in ROS there not much to do about.

No idea what you're talking about, I proposed a fix and if there are still persistent AirPlay streaming issues after enabling multicast-helper on the wireless interface than someone (maybe me) should do some PCAP between the RB951 and the AppleTV.

Personally, since setting multicast-helper to full on the wireless interface on my RB951Ui-2HnD, the issue described streaming AirPlay from iOS (iPad/iPhone to AppleTV) has completely disappeared.

do you already post that as bug to MikroTik ?(there was part of forum for)
personally i never saw such issues on my MT devices, sometimes over RB's YouTube slightly more sluggish, not something worser, which im cannot live with.
point is: if you suspect that there more serious and ROS-persistent issues, we're can't fix it(there isn't open-sources of ROS, sadly, to dig in for community in case of issues), while MT guys - potentially can. IF they know about.
personally i found multicast helper on WiFi more helpful more because some devices tend to compeltely abuse Wi-Fi(usually netbooks with obsolete mPCIe-cards), rather than videos/streaming issues.

edit: add instead of "only-hardware-queue" to your WAN interface(either that was SFP or copper Ethernet) to pfifo with buffer from 10 to 100 packets(most report that between 40 and 60 was optimum). sometimes it helps return "SOHO-routers-alike behavior". bloatbuffer, impact, if so nasty thing.

More self-confirmation here, I was doing streaming at home (as opposed to my parents house where I'm usually doing AirPlay) this evening and was having issues, realized I didn't apply the multicast-helper=full at the apartment, applied it to the wireless interface, issues went away immediately.

Before: /interface wireless> set 0 multicast-helper=full

ros code

/interface wireless> print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running 
 0  R name="wlan1" mtu=1500 mac-address=D4:CA:6D:DE:68:A3 arp=enabled 
      interface-type=Atheros AR9300 mode=ap-bridge ssid="Beefarino" 
      frequency=2412 band=2ghz-b/g/n channel-width=20/40mhz-ht-above 
      scan-list=default wireless-protocol=802.11 wds-mode=disabled 
      wds-default-bridge=none wds-ignore-ssid=no bridge-mode=enabled 
      default-authentication=yes default-forwarding=yes default-ap-tx-limit=0 
      default-client-tx-limit=0 hide-ssid=no security-profile=default 
      compression=no

After: /interface wireless> set 0 multicast-helper=full

ros code

/interface wireless> print                      
Flags: X - disabled, R - running 
 0  R name="wlan1" mtu=1500 mac-address=D4:CA:6D:DE:68:A3 arp=enabled 
      interface-type=Atheros AR9300 mode=ap-bridge ssid="Beefarino" 
      frequency=2412 band=2ghz-b/g/n channel-width=20/40mhz-ht-above 
      scan-list=default wireless-protocol=802.11 wds-mode=disabled 
      wds-default-bridge=none wds-ignore-ssid=no bridge-mode=enabled 
      default-authentication=yes default-forwarding=yes default-ap-tx-limit=0 
      default-client-tx-limit=0 hide-ssid=no security-profile=default 
      compression=no

/interface wireless> export
# sep/26/2014 20:11:22 by RouterOS 6.15
# software id = X659-3QZL
#
/interface wireless
set [ find default-name=wlan1 ] band=2ghz-b/g/n channel-width=\
    20/40mhz-ht-above country="united states" disabled=no distance=indoors \
    l2mtu=2290 mode=ap-bridge multicast-helper=full ssid=XXXXXXX \
    wireless-protocol=802.11
/interface wireless security-profiles
set [ find default=yes ] authentication-types=wpa-psk,wpa2-psk mode=\
    dynamic-keys supplicant-identity=MikroTik wpa-pre-shared-key=\
    XXXXXXXXX wpa2-pre-shared-key=XXXXXXXX

My AppleTV is doing the same on RB951G. It works much better on WiFi and extremely slow on ethernet connection. All other devices are fine.
Did you find out how to fix that?

Do you solved problem with wired connection? I have the same issue with same router 951G-2HnD.

Found temporary solution: http://forum.mikrotik.com/viewtopic.php ... 30#p482530