Short story
Using both a PC and an iPhone that were previously paired to a Tablo, I am unable to connect to the Tablo (continues w/ ‘Establishing websocket connection’ indefinitely) even though all devices are connected to the same router on the same subnet. The only difference is the external internet facing IP addresses are different (e.g. PC and iPhone go through VPN whereas Tablo’s is ISP’s).
Long story
I have recently purchased the Tablo 4 tuner version and everything was working great until I tried to enable the remote access. Apparently, the remote access uses the external internet facing IP address for the Tablo. Unfortunately, the router the Tablo was connected to (via ethernet) was configured to use a VPN client (OpenVPN to Private Internet Access) for all client initiated traffic, which exposes a different IP address to external sites (e.g. tablotv.com) than the IP address my ISP assigns to me. The ISP’s IP address is the one that remote clients should use to connect to my router. Therefore, I reconfigured my router’s (Netgear R7000 w/ dd-wrt) VPN client to use policy based routing. I setup the policy so that Tablo would not go through the VPN, but majority of the other devices would. This worked well for remote connections (e.g. iPhone using cellular data instead of Wifi). Unfortunately, the devices on my network that use the Web-based App are unable to connect to the Tablo even though every device is connected to the same physical router and all these devices are on the same subnet. When I delete the pairing from the iPhone, it’s unable to see the Tablo at all. I can ping the Tablo and access the basic HTTP(S) server on the Tablo just fine from my Web-based App devices. When I move the iPhone under the same policy as the Tablo (i.e. not using the VPN), it can see the device and I can connect.
My Roku is able to see the Tablo, but the Roku has the same policy as the Tablo (i.e. not using the VPN) so I don’t know if the Roku would suffer the same fate as the Web-based App devices. I have a paired iPad which I can try to see if the non Web-Based App devices suffer the same fate, but before I do I was wondering if this is a known issue? If the Web-based App thought my device was on a completely different network than the Tablo, why would it not just use the remote access (which does work on iPhone when not connected to same router as Tablo)?
I have a paired iPad which I can try to see if the non Web-Based App devices suffer the same fate
This seems to be a Web-Based App issue only. The paired iPad worked beautifully.
If the Web-based App thought my device was on a completely different network than the Tablo, why would it not just use the remote access (which does work on iPhone when not connected to same router as Tablo)?
It appears it does, and the issue is likely localized to my networking setup. I used HTTPFox on Firefox (I know, an unsupported browser, but it seems to work well), and I saw the WebSocket upgrade request (an HTTP GET) being sent to my external facing IP address, but no response. Now I have to track down why the request isn’t making it to the device and/or the device isn’t responding.
I’m suffering from this same issue that jnplgn had been in '14 - what was the solution?
rokus can see and play my Tablo but web browsers can not once the VPN is enabled. if I select the browser and Tablo prior to the VPN engagement all is good.
You cannot use a VPN with Tablo. The discovery doesn’t work through the VPN.
By default, most VPN clients get all their network traffic routed thru the VPN remote gateway.
This security measure ensures multiple users within the same local network won’t be able to see each others network traffic.
In order to allow VPN clients to access the local network, split tunneling needs to occur.
I’ve only seen this type of option available on the VPN client, not the VPN server, so I believe it needs to be set for each VPN client individually.
This article gives a fuller explanation, along with an example:
I am trying to connect my tablo without success. I reboot router, tablo then amazon fire player. Tablo works for about 1-2 minutes then I get a Playback Error - tuner has been reassigned or your device has temporarily lost connection with your tablo. This has been going on for 3 days now.
What kind of hard drive do you have connected?
Toshiba 1TB
@Jaldridge Do you have the same issue without the hard drive connected on live TV? Feel free to send our support team an email, or to give us a call at: 1-844-TABLOTV (822-5688).
The tablo will not connect without the hard drive either.
@Jaldridge Send us an email here. Or, give us a call: 1-844-TABLOTV (822-5688) - we’re happy to help.