Hi there,
First of all, sorry for the handwriting in the image below… wrote it very quickly. I recently installed a secondary router to work with my Quest 3 VR headset (so I can basically stream VR games wirelessly from my PC). This has a different network name and password. My PC is connected to it, along with my Apple TV, PS5, and Nintendo Switch. The thing is my Jellyfin media server is connected via my main router, which like I said before, has a different name and password. I can’t have my Apple TV or my PC connect to the media server. I also can’t connect from my PC to the media servers via Windows remote desktop, which I also strictly need. Any thoughts how I could fix this? Thanks!
Why do you have a second router and a second network?
Is this a double NAT situation? I’m unclear on why you need two networks. If you put the secondary router in bridge mode or access point mode, would that solve your problem? Is there a reason you can’t set up the VR thing on the main router?
Or, why not connect your media server to the secondary network?
I can’t play the VR on the main router. The latency would make it unplayable.
To play on PCVR games with the Quest wirelessly, performance is massively improved with my secondary router since:
It’s Wifi 6E instead of Wifi 5 (my main mesh router)
It makes an uninterrupted connection for the Quest
I don’t think you’re quite getting it. The issue here is not the fact that your VR headset works better over 6E on your new device that’s closer. The issue is that you’re insistent that you need that new device to ROUTE traffic. Turn off all typical router functions, (no DNS, no DHCP, don’t use the WAN port, put it in bridge mode if able, etc.) and only use it as a switch/AP.
The problem isn’t the need for better connectivity, the problem is the fact that the way you have achieved better connectivity causes other issues. And then you double down and insist that you have it set up correctly, when clearly you do not.
If you can’t turn your secondary router into an AP, you can connect the LAN side of your secondary router to the main router so that they can be in a single network. also turn off any DHCP servers on there. Don’t connect the WAN. That’s the simplest fix.
This is the way.
Done correctly, all of the devices will be on one network (i.e. they can all see each other, and there is a single device - the primary router - that is providing NAT/DHCP services to all devices), AND there will be two wi-fi options in the house with two SSID’s, one from the primary and one from the secondary. So you would get the benefit of a faster wireless connection for the Quest.
One minor question for OP: do you really need the secondary router and that network switch? I would guess the secondary router would have enough ethernet ports.
What’s the problem on the Quest that forces you to have two routers? Might be easier to solve that and pull everything under your main router.
If you really cant merge the two networks, maybe you could add another network interface to the server? Like plug ethernet to the main router and connect wirelessly to the 2nd router?
It depends what make and model these routers are, but u/jerwong’s advice is right.
If you want some key words and phrases to figure out how to set it up, you’re running is two subnets, two DHCP servers and an internal NAT firewall on your second routers which is keeping the two networks separate. You want everyone on a single subnet (or separate subnets with a subnet mask to cover both), a single DHCP server (or two in the subnet mask solution could work) and to remove your internal NAT firewall, which will be an outcome of the first two things.
If all this is foreign to you and you don’t want to learn, it’s probably best to just spend some money on the problem.
The ‘right’ way to do it is to fix the main network so that it works with your Qyest.
From your diagram you should be able to access it already. It’s what is called dual NAT where a router is behind a router.
Otherwise you could turn off DHCP on one and use static IPs / routes
Would it be possible to plug your media server into both routers?
Right now your secondary router is running an entirely separate network than the first one. Depending on the feature set of your main router, you could create a subnet for your secondary router and put it in AP mode, so it doesn’t create the second network and instead acts as an access point to the first one.
Please follow the /u/jerwong advice.