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[soren]

I can't get Media server to work.
I did not get anything useful out of my search on this forum.


Win2000 server sp3, with no soundcard installed (should not be needed right?)
Media Center 9.0.180 on both machines

Media server is setup on 192.168.3.20 port 8081
Default library selected with appx 30 albums.

Client is setup on 192.168.3.30
Trying to connect to 192.168.3.20:8081


The media server says the following

07/30/03 02:04:08 - sharer starting
07/30/03 02:04:08 - Initializing server.
07/30/03 02:04:08 - Server initialized
07/30/03 02:04:08 - sharer ready to accept connections
07/30/03 02:04:08 - Started auto response thread on port 5556.
07/30/03 02:04:23 - received a connection
07/30/03 02:04:24 - Current Connections: 1
07/30/03 02:04:24 - ready for another connection
07/30/03 02:04:24 - sharing thread started
07/30/03 02:04:24 - sharing thread exiting

The client times out with a dialog

Information

Cannot establish connection to the server.
Error: Unknown error.

If I try a second time, it times out and then crashes badly!

---

If i start MC9 on the server and start webremote on 8081
I can use internet explorer on the client to browse 192.168.3.20:8081.

Any ideas why media server doesn't work?

---

How does media server work?
Does it stream audio like shoutcast?
Can I use this as a library reference only.. so I don't have
to have 2 databases in two different locations.
I don't want to ruin my APEs by streaming them with some low quality protocol.
Just having access to a single database would be enough for me!

/Sören

[JimH]

You're doing the right thing, but it looks like the port may be in use by another program or blocked by a firewall.

[soren]

Must be win2000 server doing something wierd.

I started a media server on one of my client machines, and managed to access it through a third client machine without problems.
I could even connect the win2000 server to media server on the client.

Does someone know what win2000 server could be doing ... I tried 3 different ports at variour ranges.

---

Is there a detailed explaination on how the "streaming" works?  Is it just a JRiver custom protocol that wraps any media in its original format, so APE file maintain their high quality even when "streamed"?


/Sören

[JimH]

It isn't complicated.  The port must be open on both machines in both directions.

[soren]

It's just that I have not done anything to the win2000 server to block ports.

Started a media server on 192.168.3.20:38085

When connecting netstat -an reports the following on the server:

TCP    192.168.3.20:38085     192.168.3.30:1712      FIN_WAIT_1

After a while the client times out.

No firewalls exists within the LAN.

Running the media server on the client works fine...

I'm out of ideas!

/Sören

[JimH]

Double check the IP address.  If you have two network cards or two anything that use IP addresses, you may not have the right one.

Also try a cold reboot of ALL the equipment involved.

[soren]

No I think everything is set correctly

Netstat -an while trying to connect.

Server
TCP    192.168.3.20:38085     192.168.3.30:4773      FIN_WAIT_1

Client
TCP    192.168.3.30:4773      192.168.3.20:38085     ESTABLISHED

Then the client times out.

Since the connection seems to exist I don't get why it would time out.

/Sören

[John Gateley]

Soren,

It looks like something is allowing the connection, but not allowing any content.

Try the following:

telnet 192.168.3.20 8081

and after the connection opens up, type:

GET / HTTP/1.0

and you should get an error message.

APE files are streamed as APE files, not converted to another format (unless you are using TiVo of course).

j

[soren]

I get the following when running telnet on the server:
First everything is black, but if I press enter a second time I get:

HTTP/1.1 400 Invalid protocol
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 11:26:02 GMT
Content-Type: text/plain
Cache-Control: no-cache
Connection: close

You are not using a standard Music01 protocol to access this server.

Connection to host lost.

Media server log says:
07/30/03 13:34:27 - sharer starting
07/30/03 13:34:27 - Initializing server.
07/30/03 13:34:27 - Server initialized
07/30/03 13:34:27 - sharer ready to accept connections
07/30/03 13:34:27 - Started auto response thread on port 5556.
07/30/03 13:34:32 - received a connection
07/30/03 13:34:32 - Current Connections: 1
07/30/03 13:34:32 - ready for another connection
07/30/03 13:34:32 - sharing thread started
07/30/03 13:34:39 - sending 400
07/30/03 13:34:39 - Invalid Media Server protocol attempted.
07/30/03 13:34:39 - sharing thread exiting


When I do the same for the client:
First everthing is black in the command window
but when I press enter an additional time I get

HTTP/1.1

Then telnet exits.




Media server log says:
07/30/03 13:28:56 - sharer starting
07/30/03 13:28:56 - Initializing server.
07/30/03 13:28:56 - Server initialized
07/30/03 13:28:56 - sharer ready to accept connections
07/30/03 13:28:56 - Started auto response thread on port 5556.
07/30/03 13:29:20 - received a connection
07/30/03 13:29:20 - Current Connections: 1
07/30/03 13:29:20 - ready for another connection
07/30/03 13:29:20 - sharing thread started
07/30/03 13:29:29 - sending 400
07/30/03 13:29:29 - Invalid Media Server protocol attempted.
07/30/03 13:29:29 - sharing thread exiting

Very wierd..

It's pretty cool that you wrote a TCP/IP wrapper for all kind of media.
I actually thought about doing something similar a long time ago .. totally different type of application though.

One thing... when running the media server on one of the clients, I could test how it works. The fact that it "copies" the entire file in case of an AVI movie is a bit tiresome .. takes a few minutes.
Is this because of the nature of AVI file (you need the whole file to check something ..I don't know what it is a checksum?). Is it possible to "simulate" the behavior of reading the file from a disk, instead of buffering as you do now?

/Sören

[JimH]

Soren,
We can't provide a lot of details on how this works.  I hope you will understand.

I haven't completely followed which machines work and which don't, but can you connect to the server from another PC and it works?

If not, can you play the files on the server when you use MC there?

Try connecting from the server TO the server by entering the localhost address 127.0.0.1. :[port]

[soren]

System is connected through a Linksys WRT54G wifi router.

Server:
Wired
Win2000 server sp3
192.168.3.20.
It is setup on a domain XXXXX.
Media server is running on the win2000 server, but there is no soundcard in that machine.

Running media center on the server in a loopback to the media server 127.0.0.1 and 192.168.3.20 works fine.

Client 1:
Wired
Win XP SP1
192.168.3.30
Not part of the domain but a client workgroup.

Client 2:
Wireless 54g
Win XP SP1
192.168.3.80
Not part of the domain but a client workgroup.

PDA:
Wireless 11b
Dell Axim using netremote MC only ccf.
192.168.3.99


None of the clients can access the media server on 192.168.3.20 they always time out as described previosly.

If I start media server on 192.168.3.30, both the server machine and the second client can use it.

Tried many different ports.

Win2000 server must be doing something to the outgoing traffic on the ports .. but what???

Have you ever seen this before?

/Sören

[JimH]

Win2000 server must be doing something to the outgoing traffic on the ports .. but what???

Have you ever seen this before?

I don't think so, but we've seen a lot of strange problems.  

It could also be related to routing.

At this point, it looks like our software is working and there is a problem in the networking.

Did you do a cold reboot of all the equipment?

[soren]

As cold reboot as possible considering the tempratures we have here today...

I'll wipe win2000 server and install XP on that machine instead .. too many issues with win2000 server.

Thanks for all the help!

/Sören

[John Gateley]

let us know if it helps.

j

[soren]

I have now installed WinXP SP1 on the server, and everything works fine!

I think you need to test win2000 sever in you dev environment, I don't think I did anything wrong when setting it up.

Win2000 server is very nice to have as a server since it has built in software Raid 5 support.
Linux also have support for software Raid 5, but I guess you have no plans for a linux version ??

Thanks for the help.

/Sören