Firewall Wizards,
I've been using above mentioned router for several years now and have been happy with it for the most part. However, I believe I have narrowed down a problem I'm having to it, and wanted to know if anybody else has seen this. Firmware version is 1.43.3. I know there is newer firmware, and I might upgrade if it is strongly recommended, but my research on *that* shows some mixed reviews. So I'd like to save that option as a last resort.
Brief description of the problem... I recently connected a Prismiq MediaPlayer unit to my home network. This device streams audio, video, and images from a media server (in my case a W2K Pro box with their accompanying Media Manager software installed) over a home network to a TV. Audio and video work fine, but the images won't display. After a conversation with their tech support, I learned of several ports over which the media server and the MediaPlayer must communicate in order for everything to work as advertised.
I connected the MediaPlayer via crossover directly to the media server, and everything worked, including images. But with the two connected via the BEFSX41, no images. It is the same behavior whether I have the A/V software (Norton) and the firewall software (ZoneAlarm) on the media server enabled or disabled. The ports that need to be wide open between the two devices are 7777, 8081, 8080, 2498, 2650 & 554. However, I didn't think the BEFSX41 was supposed to in any way block traffic between LAN ports.
Here is another data point. I have a 4-port dumb hub connected to the BEFSX41, and have both of these two devices on that hub. With the hub jacked into the Linksys device, images do not work, but they do if I disconnect the hub from the Linksys box. I suppose that's because everything has the Linksys box as its default gateway, so when it's in the loop so to speak all traffic goes to it as the next hop.
The only thing I could see anywhere on the Linksys box management interface that even remotely looked like it might be involved was that remote management (default port 8080) was disabled. However, it is my understanding that is meant to block port 8080 requests inbound to the WAN port, and supposedly doesn't affect 8080 traffic on the LAN side. Just for grins, I temporarily enabled it anyway , but still no joy.
Anybody got any ideas? BTW, this Prismiq unit is pretty cool, if I could ever coax full compatibility with my network out of it. :-) It's functionality is pretty basic, for instance the web browser is workable if spartan, but for what it was designed to do it is pretty slick for the money. (I don't work for Prismiq and don't know anybody who does, although I feel like I know the tech support staff :-).
Thanks for your time and consideration, LLB