VST Connect & VST Connect SE - Solution Thread

changed it to 73934 65739

I tried it out with my buddy and it worked!

Hi
I can’t get this to work. I am using the mac version of cubase 7 and VST Connect performer.
My router is configured to accept udp port 51111-51113.
The studio computer is on a raw internet line without router/firewall.
Both firewalls in the Macs are off.

I have made a wireshark trace to see what´s going on.

Both computers connects to the Steinberg server: ip: 194.6.195.159
But when the peer to peer connection is to be established both computers send on port 51111 and 51113 to each other but nothing happens in the apps. The packets data includes the data “hello version 28” which seems to me to be a sort of keep alive message. After a while it times out.

It also seems a little bit odd of which computer that starts the negotiation after the server connection is established. I have tried different connection methods and therefore different IP-adresses. It seems that the computer with the highest address starts the ptp negotiation. This means that the one with lowest IP needs to have its router/firewall configured correct. This is not good since that cannot be the clients task (performer). It shall always be that the performer has to establish the ptp connection. The studio shall be the “server” and the performer shall be the “client”.

Anyway Steinberg: The VST Connect SE is a terrific idea but right now it does not work. And make sure you are using correct client/server behavior so firewalls/routers in the way can be configured correctly. Maybe using uPNP is something to consider as most people using Cubase are musicians and not computer networking guys.

Regards
Anders

Even in a local network computers have different ip addresses …

True, but if you are behind a router the steinberg server will se the same ip address and since the udp ports are fixed there is no way of port forwarding to the right computer.

Regards
Anders

I would love to see this work…I cannot get it to work.

Does anyone have this working reliably at this point? If so did you have to set up your router any way special?

I can log in and get a key, but the 2 machines fail to connect to each other.

You have to port forward udp ports 51111 to 51113 on both sides. But I can not get it to work even after that.
I can see the traffic coming to the computers on each side but nothing happens.

I was able to set this up with a buddy. We could see each other from the webcams (The video is flaky to say the least)and hear each other from the To Performer and Performer monitor but I could not record his audio using the built in template. No audio is passed through the “Performer Rec” channel when sourced to “TB/Performer”. I have followed the guide and the video to the T but with no success.

Then the implementation on steinbergs side is insufficient , as the combination of ip/port should be unique for each machine.
Networking for beginners…

So true, and the server should respond to the client source port not the fixed 51111 or 51113.

And NAT should be no problem. …

Did you have to forward the ports to get this much to work?

I had to open ports 51111 to 51113 on my router so that my buddy could connect. Problem still that I cannot record him.

I port forwarded to my computers ip address and I was able to connect to a remote machine, but it would time out in about 5-10 seconds.

Duracell: your findings are correct, but there is no particular order in which the nodes connect to each other. In fact, they both attempt to connect in parallel until one gets a reply, and they reply to the translated port too (NAT traversal).
Thus I’m surprised that your connection doesn’t work, if Wireshark shows incoming packets, a reply should be posted (you should see that in the Wireshark logs…no?). Can you provide more details?
R: if you can monitor your partner you can certainly record him. That’s nothing to do with VST Connect, normal Cubase recording business…you did set the Performer Record track to record enable…?
Video will also be enhanced in the next update.

There is indeed a timeout of approx. 8 seconds when there is no activity Possibly…if neither audio nor video is transmitted from the other side, the timeout might be hit - we’ll check. OTOH a connection without both video and audio doesn’t make much sense :slight_smile:
Did you try this more than once?

Good to hear about how the connection is established, then what I saw on the wireshark log make some sense. My computer was still in the establishment phase. I will keep you updated on my findings.

BR
Anders

I did some more tests. Here are the wireshark log files (open with wireshark).

Both computers are macs running OSX 10.8.2

studio running cubase 7.0.0 is behind a router/firewall with port forwarding ip 10.0.1.100.
performer running VST connect SE performer has a public IP-address.

BR
Anders

studio:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/5967/VST%20Connect%20studio%20behind%20firewall
performer:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/5967/VST%20connect%20performer%20no%20firewall

We did a crude test…so perhaps what you say is the problem. I will try to test with someone else shortly.

I have the same problem. We connect and then disconnect with “Connection Timout, Disconnected” message. We have forwarded all port 51111-51113 (at both ends for troubleshooting), tested the forwarding with PFPortChecker from portforward.com. Tried putting both the computers on the DMZ… same problem. Leave this off, it won’t make a difference if the ports are forwarded properly. Should I enable ping on WAN? I’m about to.

I went to speedtest.net and tested my internet speed and his. Both have 3.5mb upload and 26mb download - and 16ms ping on his and 15ms on mine. Way more than the requirements of 256kb upload and a great ping.

Both running 64bit Windows 7 - Performer has nothing but the client performer software and a Behringer usb audio input which when my track was set to 96khz and 32bit floating, I got a message from VST Connect that I had to change to 48Khz and 16 bit to match the settings on the performer. It made a proper handshake there.

I can see the Performer audio settings - for the 5-10 seconds it stays connected. It is really connected.
He has never been playing while I’ve been connected, not sure if we would hear anything.

I tried to set my remote delay compensation to various levels up to 20 seconds. Still drops within 10 seconds.

I’ve used the preset template and made 2 of my own - I understand how it works. Performer Group track routing is TB Performer in and To Performer Output. The VST Connect and SE plugins come alive during the connection. They are in the Insert locations on the input channel for VST Connect and the performer group channel for VST Connect SE.

Is there something we are doing wrong? Do I need to enable ping on the WAN? Is there an update that solves this?