Media on external Hard Drive

[GSi095]

Hi,

All of my media is on an external HD but I can't get Boxee to access or see it. its only interested in my User/Movies folder

Anyone experience this?

Dave

[agentlame]

can you give some more detail about what's not working?

can you add it as a source? does boxee see the drive at all? does boxee not see the media? or is boxee just not recognizing the videos on it?

[GSi095]

Hi Neil,

It only sees my internal HD, it cant find anything else. I cant add or even see the drive.

It is a Western Digital 750GB MyBook on USB

Dave

[Handbone]

I'm not having any problems locating my external HD. Did you look under "Volumes"?

[GSi095]

will have another look but dont recall seeing that as an option

[maubrowncow]

I'm having the same issue. External Drives are not showing up in the list of storage sources. I've tried entering the location of the firewire drive manually (Volumes/<drive name>) but when I check the status of the drive, boxee says, "Loading Error, Failed to retrieve data".

[rfredley]

I can corroborate this issue.

However, I've been able to manually enter paths using

/Volumes/Name of Drive

For each of the drives I want to use.

They're both USB and Firewire (I have 6, 2 USB, 4 FW).

Of course I can't keep boxee running long enough to test if videos that load from these drives crash boxee for some reason. But that's a different thread.

[jlafontaine]

I'm getting this same issue.

It's a USB drive that works fine otherwise, but is not showing up in the devices within boxee.

I tried inputting the path manually but get the same message "Loading Error, Failed to retrieve data" when I try to access the source.

[agentlame]

sounds like a bonafide bug, to me... maybe if some of you kind gents could post up some debug logs?

something like a log of you loading boxee, then trying to add the source, then browsing to it?

[jlafontaine]

Gah! Problem fixed. Due to (very) silly human error.

No more worries for this guy. Good luck and thanks. It's seems to be working perfectly!

[agentlame]

Gah! Problem fixed. Due to (very) silly human error.

No more worries for this guy. Good luck and thanks. It's seems to be working perfectly!

would you consider sharing your conclusion, in the interest of helping the other users experiencing similar issues?

[rfredley]

I've been (presumably) submitting my bugs and logs through my crash reports which come up every time I add some sort of file (still haven't figured out which one it is yet) to boxee. Seems to be crashing on either retreiving or storing meta info. Regardless, if you'd rather get those details here, I can do that too. Just figured it was painful for you to go through 2 piles of logs.

As to the USB/FW drives not showing up in boxee, I'm not sure what log you're looking for. It's not actually throwing an error, just not showing external drives. I can manually add them from a clean install (or after I trash my preferences folder) by typing in their paths through the handy manual add section of sources, so perhaps a log of me turning on boxee the first time, and then adding the sources manually?

And if there's a list of known file types that are known issues, that might be helpful in my trying to give you a clearer view into why boxee crashes every time I add one of these drives to my list of sources and go to view the media a few minutes later. It might be a meta retreival/display issue or it might be file types.

[marcel]

Hi rfredley

You can pm the logs(crash reporter and boxee) or follow this thread and adapt it for mac..http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=1366

[xain09]

Strange... I have all my music on an external USB drive and it works like a charm.

[Media1]

Would also be very interested in the response, I have tried manually adding the external USB connected MyBook source as /Volumes/Media_Drive but get "Loading Error" failed to retrieve data when looking under sources for those that I have added.

[Media1]

I was trying to manually specify the drive path, when I selected /Volumes under the menu, it located the external drive and is now importing the songs

[jbardi]

I know boxee is in alpha, but I can't help but think this is an individual local issue. Possibly something to do with the drive format or how it is connected to the mac. I have a 1TB MyBook, a 250GB Elements drive and a 16GB RiDATA thumb drive, all USB that are all seen just fine, all formated at Fat32. My setup is on a Mac Mini. Try running repairs on the drives and checking the drive format or cabling, because almost ALL external drive issues I have experienced with any computers and software have always ended up being a bad drive, errors on the drive, formatting issues or bad firewire/usb cables rather than the software application that was trying to access them.

[rfredley]

If I weren't experiencing the issue myself, I would tend to agree with you, jbardi, on the local drive issue. I just find it hard to believe that it could be an issue affecting 3 separate drives on a firewire bus (running through a fw hub) and 1 drive connected via USB (no hub). None of them appear in boxee, though all are accessible when I manually enter their path into the window.

Now that I have turned off the "resize preview thumnails" option, I can access and index all of my media off of each of these drives. It all indexes fairly well (better than expected, frankly) and while I haven't really spent more than 6-8 hours with it, I've not had any playback problems, even with 720p source materials.

[redmenace]

The drive mounts and is showing up on the desktop just fine, but boxee only sees my internal HD as I try to browse and add local sources. I have a Western Digital 750gb external drive that contains all my media. (same model as a previous poster, in case that's not just coincidence.)

I'm on a macbook pro 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, running OSX 10.5.5

[pavelbure]

i am having the same problem. my drive is not formatted fat32 but mac os x extended.

[adhumphr2002]

I am having the same problem. I have two external drives both Mac journaled.

[MILE]

Now that I actually replaced my tv with a new Mac mini I have encountered the very same problem -- all my video files are on the external HDD (a 500 GB USB drive) but I cannot access them or that drive respectively...!? It's just not showing up anywhere in Boxee's settings... :(

:: M ::

[marcel]

guys

can you add the source via settings >media sources>local sources..browse to /volumes do you not see the external HD..

[pornmaster]

guys I am having the same problems, I am using the ATV and the drive that I have formated on FAT32 is not seen. When I load my external HD connected to the USB of the ATV it sees all files.

Not sure if I am missing something or not.

[MILE]

guys

can you add the source via settings >media sources>local sources..browse to /volumes do you not see the external HD..

The problem is that it doesn't even say /volumes in there...!? Not sure what's up with that...

Anyway, after a few restarts of both the drive and Boxee I finally managed to make Boxee connect it by manually entering a path like '/Volumes/myHDD' and it seems to be working now...

:: M ::

[mniemann]

I just downloaded Boxee and face the same problem. All my media is on an external USB drive and the drive does not show up as an option.

When I go to "Settings, "Media Sources and Applications," "Local Sources" nothing shows up. I click on "Local Sources" and nothing happens. Then I click on "Manually Add Source" and again nothing happens. As a matter of fact, none of the options that appear on the "Media Sources and Applications" screen do anything at all.

I'm not sure where to go next.

[marcel]

@ mniemann are you using the latest version released an hour ago...

[variablizer]

Boxee 0.9.5.4497

MacBook Pro 2.16 Core Duo, OS X 10.4.11

I'm having a similar problem.

I have the Drobo connected via FW800. I've successfully added a video source on this drive (from an earlier install), but I can't get Boxee to add my music folder as a source. When I go to the Add Source Manually screen, the keyboard won't come up for me, so I can't even enter a path.

When I go to add a new local source, I click Rescan and the path entry field comes up, but again the keyboard won't activate.

I can access the content by browsing, I just can't add the path as a source.

Where does Boxee write logs to? I'd be happy to share, I just don't know where to look.

[drummerjoe]

Has this been resolved? I have the same issue too. All of my content is on a 1TB WD Mybook connected to my mac via USB. Boxee does not see the drive as a local source. I can manually browse the directory of the drive after manually adding it as a source (/Volumes/DRIVE NAME), but Boxee does not index any of the content on it.

[marcel]

what OSX are you using?10.5?10.4?

[J0hnathan]

I got the same trouble not long ago.

[rfredley]

I've had this issue since day 1 installing boxee. Since it's an easy work around, I haven't complained, but yes, it's still a bug. There is no "volumes" option when you browse to add a new source.

Mac mini, all updates installed that the os is looking for.

[drummerjoe]

what OSX are you using?10.5?10.4?

I'm using 10.5, but I got it to index after a fresh install.

[lemonslice]

I know boxee is in alpha, but I can't help but think this is an individual local issue. Possibly something to do with the drive format or how it is connected to the mac. I have a 1TB MyBook, a 250GB Elements drive and a 16GB RiDATA thumb drive, all USB that are all seen just fine, all formated at Fat32. My setup is on a Mac Mini. Try running repairs on the drives and checking the drive format or cabling, because almost ALL external drive issues I have experienced with any computers and software have always ended up being a bad drive, errors on the drive, formatting issues or bad firewire/usb cables rather than the software application that was trying to access them.

With all due respect, considering the number of us who can't automatically or sometimes even manually see connected drives, this pretty much rules out it being a "local" or "individual" issue.

I think you're assuming that because boxee can see your Mac Mini's USB FAT32-formatted thumb drive, it should be able to see all connected drives for all users in general. Otherwise maybe we should check to see if we have a 'bad drive", or a cable is bad, or drive checks repairs might be needed.

This is a rather silly conclusion to draw. We don't need to repair our drives or check our cables, they work just fine, and are easily viewable from other devices and computers on the network, appearing instantly as shares, and accessible. Boxee should see the attaches storage just as easily as this, ideally.

A single FAT32 USB thumb drive is too small a basis to draw a conclusion from. Ideally Boxee should see connected drives, automatically, without the user having to manually give it instructions to find it or recognize it. Connected storage should appear on the list. As it is now, Boxee only automatically recognizes files and folders stored on a boot drive, or an internal HD. A lot of us don't store media libraries on our boot drives and internal drives, we store them on external HDs. It's a popular and sensible way to store large media libraries.

Hopefully as Boxee is refined, it'll automatically recognize attached storage, otherwise many of us have an unnatural barrier to finding our own media.

[rfredley]

Anyone else?

I had this issue from day 1.

I've done 2 dramatic things since I last tested for this issue:

Upgraded to the latest boxee (0.9.11.xxxx)
A complete archive and install of my OS.

There were some other buggies with my mini, hence the archive and install (ghost processes running the cpu at 100%, etc.) so that may be what fixed it...

Anyone else?

[williamsw2]

I am brand new to boxee and having the same issue using a macbook pro and appletv. I installed boxee no problem last night for the first time but I am unable to add my external USB drive as a source or a folder on my time capsule as a source. The only way I was able to get it to work was to run TVersity media server on my desktop pc and then add the source from my network drive (time capsule). I still cannot get my USB drive to work that is connected to my macbook pro.

William

[marcel]

i agree there is an issue which we need to fix ..i know that the latest firmware version of time capsule and Extreme are not working properly with boxee(it is something we will be fixing)

[williamsw2]

How would I use a drive connected directly to my macbook pro via esata? I have a 1TB drive that I moved all my movies to, I then enabled sharing via the system preferences (just like the youtube tutorial shows) but I cannot find the shared folder on boxee.

[ganar]

Boxee only identifies series on the ~username/movies/ folder . If the files are on an external drive, either connected to the machine or on the network the volume may be added manually but the series won't be identified.

I'm downloading the last version of boxee to check if the problem has been solved