Not finding media sharing PC

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Not finding media sharing PC

(8 posts)

keithsuddick

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I have an HD-Fox-T2 which used to access and play media from my main PC - Windows XP Pro SP3 via Windows Media Player 11.

Tonight I tried to play a video and the Humax box just kept reporting that no server could be found (for any media type).

I've rebooted the PC, all the network components involved and even power cycled the Humax box but it still just says no server found.

I can't remember when I last used the Humax box to play something from the PC but I may have re-arranged the media on the PC since then - different drive, different folders maybe, but I've just double checked on the PC in Windows Media Player that sharing is enabled and the relevant folders are included in the library.

I found a post about resetting the list of devices the PC shares media too, so I removed all the devices from the list, turned off sharing, rebooted, then re-enabled sharing. My laptop soon reappeared in the media-sharing device list, the Humax box has not.

Any suggestions please?

Regards,

Suds

| Sat 2 Nov 2013 0:21:50 #1 |
keithsuddick

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Further to my previous post, I have still been unable to get my HD-Fox-T2 to see my media sharing PC, so I ran Wireshark on the PC and got the Humax box to look for Video and Music sharing devices.

I'm no network expert but I don't understand what I saw in the Wireshark capture - I'll try and attach it here but it's also available at suddick.net/images/humax-pcap.png

The first half or so of the capture shows the packets generated by the Humax box when I searched for various media. What are the addresses 239.255.255.250 and 224.0.0.22? I don't believe they exist on my network, they are certainly on a different subnet and I got nothing by either pinging or tracert'ing them. Shouldn't the box be broadcasting to an address on my network?

The second half or so of the capture shows the results I got from pinging the Humax box (192.168.0.111) from the PC in question (192.168.0.20) and as you can see both the request and reply packets are shown.

I'm stumped...?

Regards.
Attachments
1. humax-pcap.png (52.2 KB, 1 downloads) 11 years old
| Sat 2 Nov 2013 23:33:15 #2 |
REPASSAC

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You should be connecting the T2 to your router not the PC.
Your Router's DHCP service will configure the T2 correctly.

| Sun 3 Nov 2013 7:45:37 #3 |
keithsuddick

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REPASSAC: Thank you for your reply. I should have been clearer in my posts...

My T2 is connected to a local switch along with some other devices which then connects to the rest of my network where my router and my media sharing PC are located.

The Humax box does indeed gets it's IP address and DNS server information from the DHCP service on the router and always has.

The box connects just fine to the internet and I can access BBC iPlayer and so on from the Humax Portal which I take, aliong with the ping results I included earlier, to mean it's network configuration is fine.

I'm going to turn media sharing on on another (newly-built) PC and see if the T2 finds anything then.

Regards,

Suds

| Sun 3 Nov 2013 12:52:20 #4 |
keithsuddick

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Solved:

After trying with another PC, which did appear on the T2, I narrowed down the problem to my main PC itself although no problems were apparent on the actual machine.

I read quite a lot of posts regarding WMP and media sharing and whilst trying to reset my media library I discovered that I could not stop the "Window Media Player Network Sharing Service" (WMPNetworkSvc) - it would simply stick in a "stopping" state and then I couldn't do anything else with it.

I ended up uninstalling and reinstalling WMP but the reinstall was not completely successfull - it reported a "DRM migration failure" although it did go on to apparently install WMP 11. However I still could not stop WMPNetworkSvc. So I read more around WMP and DRM.

It seems that if you change the processor in a PC or maybe some BIOS settings that change something like Hyperthreading then it can invalidate the DRM information that WMP maintains as it is tied to the specific hardware configuration that WMP is initially installed on. And, I upgraded the processor on this machine jsut a month or two ago.

I found a post detailing how to remove the DRM information - basically, delete everything in the "%systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\All Users\DRM" folder - which may be hidden. I ended up doing this in safe mode and while I was there I uninstalled WMP 11 again too.

Rebooting, allowed me to re-install WMP 11 without any errors this time, the WMPNetworkSvc stopped and started correctly when requested and the PC's media library re-appeared on the T2.

Somewhat of a pain and it would have been nice if something on the PC had notified me that changing the processor had caused an issue, but it seems like this is resolveable.

I hope someone else finds this useful.

Regards,

Suds

| Mon 4 Nov 2013 17:24:02 #5 |
REPASSAC

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keithsuddick - Many thanks for documenting the solution to your problem. It is what this forum is about.

| Mon 4 Nov 2013 18:54:15 #6 |
damian

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I second Repassac, thanks for posting your solution Suds,

a combination of Micky$oft and digital rights management, an unnecessary layer which hinders the rights of 99% of us who've bought and paid in good faith and should be able to enjoy what we've paid for.

Similar to hdmi and hdcp (digital copyright protection) that's causing real connectivity problems with certain hardware, again completely unnecessary and hurting those who've paid good money and expect better.

Maybe one day it won't all be profit orientated and we'll learn to trust and make life easy for all to enjoy (I can, but dream).

| Mon 4 Nov 2013 20:36:38 #7 |
keithsuddick

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REPASSAC and damian: No problem; I've found lots of solutions to other problems on forums like this and the internet in general, I'm only too happy to contribute anything I've learned to our collective knowledge in the hopes it helps someone else.

I Agree completely with damian, things are getting overly-complicated for purely commercial reasons and it's common sense that the more complicated things become, the more likely they are to go wrong.

Regards,

Suds

| Tue 5 Nov 2013 0:14:34 #8 |