Subnet, wireless, and Firewall issues with Ipad - solved

After several weeks I finally got my ipad completely working. A few hints on this forum help.  Maybe this will help someone else.

Symptoms:

After I got all of my house on the same IP subnet I was able to get the Ipad App to control the receivers and the DVR  but not show the channels, streaming or schedules.  The app would login OK, then hang in "Retrieving Account Information" Finally minutes late the screen would clear, say "Searching for Receivers" on the left, and try to load the guide in the middle.  The buttons at the bottom showed both my receivers, my playlist from the DVR, and I could control them.  Just not anything from the Internet.  After a lot of time, here is what worked:

1. same subnet.  

The reason the DirecTV Ipad App cares about having everything on the same subnet while most of the rest of your hardware does not care is that the Ipad must communicate with other devices on your network, while most other things don't.  So if you have two routers, two wireless networks, or some other config you'll need to map everything to one subnet 192.168.A.nnn or whatever.  In my house I have one room with four computers and the DirectV DECA box attached to a Wireless router set up in Client Bridge mode.  It sends (via WiFi)  all traffic to my wireless AP/DSL modem, which the Ipad connects to as well. So while I have two wireless routers, I have only one AP (and one DHCP server).  Everything is in the 192.168.1.xxx subnet and works fine.  For more info about client bridge mode check out dd-wrt software for your router.

I had to set things up this way as I do not have a way to run cable from one part of the house to another, so I had to use WiFi in two different ways.

MAybe this will help:  --> means hardwired  ~~~> means wireless.

DirectTV --> WiFi Bridge ~~~~~~WiFI AP --->Interenet

          Office PC --^             Ipad ~~~^

I hope this helps someone else.

2. Opening Firewall

Unlike other posters I really believe in having a hardware firewall in addition to other security. So I do not disable my router's firewall.

Go into Setup->network->Network Services - select Configuration Type, select Manual - Write down the STB and Audio Port numbers - something like 27189 or whatever. Then exit without changing anything - leave the services set to manual.

Go into your router/modem that has a firewall (often 192.168.1.1)  and in the NET/PortForwarding section of the firewall set up PORT TRIGGERING.  You want port trigger instead of PORT FORWARDING so multiple devices on your network can use the ports.  Use the lower number as the starting,  the upper number as the end - and map them to the same ports