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[grahamk]

If I have Media Jukebox installed on a network with MP3s on a network share, is there any way to install the media jukebox software so that the library and rating system are shared between all the systems on the network?

Graham

[JimH]

Install the same version of MJ on both machines.  Run Media Server on the server.  On the other machine, do MJ Tools/Connect to server and enter the IP address of the other.  Assume you have version 8.

[grahamk]

Media server cannot run on the system that is holding the MP3 files. Is it possible to have media server use a network share?

Graham

[xen-uno]

Sure thing. Files can be on any machine that is accessable from the Media Server machine. As long as your "link" is fast enough, it should work fine.

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[MrCC]

@grahamk

Media server cannot run on the system that is holding the MP3 files.

Can you clarify what you mean by this please?  I have Media Server running on the same machine as has the MP3 files.  Seems to work fine, I can access the files from other local clients using Media Server, connect (with the right IP 192.168.0.150 etc.).

What I am seeing which is unfortunate is a change from the functionality I had before.

The Server PC (W2k, MJ 8.0.392) plays music in the lounge.  It runs TCP/IP, so I have it connecting via drive letter M:  to a share on itself which has all the MP3 files.
The other network clients (W98, W2k, XP) also connect to remote M: drives on this share.
This seems to work Ok, the other clients seem to access the MJ database files on the 'server' PC OK.

One thing I particularly liked about this previous setup was that under MJ's File Location I could see all the folder structure.  This has dissappeared when I use the Media Server function to connect.  All I see now is the m01p://192.168.0.160:80/M:  and no folders beneath it.

Anyone have any ideas perhaps on how to see more, or is this how it works?

[grahamk]

In my case the files are sitting on a system that doesn't run windows, so I cannot run the media server on it. It works fine as suggested above though.

Graham

[xen-uno]

He doesn't mean it can't literally run on that machine, he just doesn't want it to.

> All I see now is the m01p://192.168.0.160:80/M:  and no folders beneath it

That's normal. The server takes care of file locations. All the client should see (and care about) is a list of available tunes and Med Serv playlists.

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edit > My mistake...he did mean it literally

[MrCC]

All the client should see (and care about) is a list of available tunes

That's fine, but you loose a very nice function of being able to quickly view file locations where you may have new albums held.
In my case I have newer albums sorted into standard Artist/Album folder structures.  The rest of my collection is in the process of being changed over to this structure, but it will take some time.
Being able to browse by File Location is very functional.

Do you know if there are any potential problems with just sharing the driveletter as I outlined above, and mapping across to the MJ database files and the music files/folder structures?  It seems to work OK.

The reason I mention this is that the other day one of the clients caused a re-build of the database, and some playlists were cleared.

@JimH
Can you perhaps comment on this please? Are there any plans to put the File Location functionality into the Media Server linking?  It was great when this was introduced into MJ, but it goes away when you use Media Server.

[grahamk]

It seems like using the media server doesn't solve my original problem. I would like one place that all the ratings are stored - but when i connect to a media server and try to "Send To" I find that "Rating" is grayed out. Is that the way this is supposed to work?

My goal is a central rating database for all systems on a small home network. MusicMatch does this by putting the rating in the tag, which works, but is slow and difficult to update across systems. I like MJ's method better, but have to be able to set ratings from a client too, tell me it's possible please and I can finally get rid of Music Match!!! :-)

Graham

[xen-uno]

File "served" by Med Serv are read only as far as the client is concerned. To make any file changes they would have to be made at the server. Files are protected in that way (anybody could connect to your Med Serv...you wouldn't want them changing stuff, would you?).

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[grahamk]

Actually, yes, that is exactly what I want - I want the ability to rate files from any system on my network. Nobody else is on the network except people whose taste I implicitly trust. :-)

For instance, say my media server is running in my living room, and I'm down in my home office listening to music, I hear a song I would like to give a rating - I dont want to have to run up to the media server to do it.

Give me the option to allow it, i'll be a customer for life. :-)

Graham

[xen-uno]

Yeah, that'd be cool.

In a client/server scenario.....
I wouldn't think it would be too hard to have Med Serv look at the user account of the person logged in at the client computer to determine file privledges.

Or......
When connection is established between client/server have Med Serv prompt a sort of mini login, with the rights defined already at the server on a per user basis.

And/Or.....
Have MJ's database constructed as multi user with record locking (I know a thing or two about multi user DB's....I write them in MS Access).

All this requires some extra code in MJ, you surely won't see it before v10.

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