Sky Q on a VLAN - home screen problem

[PhilTheDoc]

I have a Synology RT6600ax router with a Draytek Vigor 130 modem on Sky VDSL broadband - no problems. My Sky Q 2TB box connects to the main network on the Synology router either by WiFi or ethernet with no problem. However, I want it on a VLAN to isolate it from all my other devices. The Sky Q box will connect to a VLAN (WiFi or ethernet), and the settings page says it's connected and the IP settings are all good, but the Sky Q home screen says "It looks like you do not have internet connection right now". BUT - if I use voice control on the remote and ask for "BBC iPlayer" or whatever, it works! So the Sky Q box is connected to the internet, but the only way to access streaming apps is by voice.

I can't find any difference between the main/default network on the Synology router and the VLANs. There are no firewall rules in the way. I can't find out why it works normally on the default network, but not on any VLAN (I've tried several - both WiFi and ethernet with the same outcome). It seems as if the Sky Q box gets the stuff for the home screen from the internet by a different route from the streaming apps.

Any help much appreciated - I'm both confused and out of ideas! Thanks 🙂

[ThePope27 · Accepted solution]

@PhilTheDoc 

The Sky Q box must be able to IGMP to the default gateway

[PhilTheDoc]

Thanks @ThePope27 I'll fiddle with some firewall settings for IGMP and the default gateway and see what happens.

[PhilTheDoc]

Well I've tried everything to achieve this with no luck. The Synology SRM firewall doesn't have any settings for IGMP; just ICMP. I've even let the whole VLAN through to the default network - no restrictions at all - with no effect. I'm at the limit of my knowledge about networking when it comes to IGMP snooping and IGMP proxy servers.

The Sky Q box has more than one MAC address (besides the three for the ethernet, 2.4GHz and 5GHz interfaces) and my extensive (so far unsuccessful) searching forums found a suggestion that this may be relevant although I have no idea what a MAC address without an IP address can achieve.

@ThePope27can you tell me generically what giving the Sky Q box IGMP access to the default gateway would involve? TIA!

[PhilTheDoc]

@ThePope27 

I've now got Synology support looking into this. I'm still very intrested in your reply about IGMP and the default gateway. I don't really know what this implies for how I set my system up. I tried giving the VLAN the Sky Q box is on full access (TCP, UDP and ICMP) to the default gateway IP address with no luck.

Have you managed to run your Sky Q on a VLAN?

If you could explain a little more I'd be very grateful. Thanks!

[PhilTheDoc]

After a prolonged discussion with Synology support I've solved this. It turns out @ThePope27 was correct. The Sky Q box tries to access the router's primary LAN default gateway to display everything on the home screen. When it's on a VLAN it can't do that - by default of course. However there is a setting in the Synology SRM software that allows management access from a device on a VLAN and if this is set the Sky Q box can access the primary LAN's default gateway and it works normally. It would appear that the Sky Q box accesses the internet by two different routes, one of which (to display the home screen) is pretty non-standard, as I had already tried firewall rules to allow the VLAN to access the primary LAN's default gateway but that didn't work.

I did try Sky support (Synology support wanted to know what they said) and they were zero help - I was told the Sky Q box was designed before VLANs were available. The tech I spoke to had absolutely nothing to say about it, and could give me no advice at all. All he said was "it won't work".

So if you want to set your Sky Q and minis up on a VLAN to keep them separate from all your other devices, it's possible on the Synology RT6600ax.

[TimmyBGood]

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@PhilTheDoc wrote:

I did try Sky support (Synology support wanted to know what they said) and they were zero help - I was told the Sky Q box was designed before VLANs were available. The tech I spoke to had absolutely nothing to say about it, and could give me no advice at all. All he said was "it won't work".

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Not strictly correct: the first IEEE VLAN description dates from 1998.

What's more likely is the designers of Q back in 2014-15 never anticipated encountering them on a domestic network.

Realistically you're probably not going to talk with anyone working frontline support who's very informed on such topics.