Good to know I'm not alone I've done further testing and I can play mkv and mpeg files as well from the server. Seems this issue is isolated to mp4 files.
Well... I'm not sure yet. Like I said, I need to test more.
I've seen a few sporadic files that used to work fine, which now give me an error and won't play. I don't know for sure that they're MP4s, but they certainly could be. Of course, it could also just be that these particular files got hosed.
I also just noticed I can no longer fast forward mkv file more than about 1m 30s. That shows as the total time, even for a 2 hour movie.
This is something else. The MKV is still loading, and you can't FF past the point that has loaded. If you wait patiently, it'll load more and you'll be able to FF further ahead.
A few questions:
1. When you are doing this, are the Client and the Server on the same network (LAN)?
2. If so, do you have the network volume mounted on the client machine (in other words, are the files at accessible via Windows Explorer using the same exact path on both machines)?
3. Is Options > Media Network > Client Options > Play local file if one that matches Library Server file is found enabled on the CLIENT side?
You will have MUCH better video playback performance if all three answers above are yes.
There are two ways to accomplish #2. You can either:
1. Make sure the server shares the entire drive that stores the video files, and then mount that drive on the clients with the matching drive letter. For example, if all media is on the server on a physical drive called drive M, then share that entire drive, and mount it on all clients as M. Then, the paths will match on both the clients and the server.
2. If your media on the server is on the C drive or some other storage system where you can't make the drive letters match, you can accomplish the same thing by using UNC paths instead. In this case, you'd import all files on the server via their UNC path instead of by pointing at the drive letter. So, they'd import with a path like \\myservername\MediaShareName\Video\TV Shows\Breaking Bad\2\blah.mkv. That same UNC path will work on both the server and the clients equally, so it accomplishes the same thing as using the drive letters. If you need to switch an existing library to this system, you can do it through the Rename, Move, and Copy Files tool, using the Find And Replace section at the bottom.
The way you are experiencing playback is that the server is streaming the file to you. This works, but it is much slower than direct access to the file. Now, it could be that your network volume is just disconnected on the client for some reason, and that's all you need to fix.
However, the streaming system that you're using now, is best used when the answer to question #1 above is No. You need to stream across because the "Internet" is in the way.