"Scan source" button not working? What does it do?

[Cacafuego]

Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but I'm assuming the "Scan source" option found under local media sources is supposed to force an immediate re-scan of that source. Is that right? Or is it something different altogether?

The problem is that on Boxee Mac build 9816 on 10.6, this doesn't seem to be working. Or if it is, it's not working reliably. And at least part of it has to do with media not showing up in the list after it's been scanned.


Here's the bug report I submitted:

After defining a local media source and having it scanned the first time, changed content doesn't seem to be getting picked up quickly (if automatically at all), and seems to be no way to force a re-scan (I assume that's what the "Scan Source" option is for).

If I define a local media source and then:
- Add a new file
- Rename a file that was in the directory tree but in an unrecognized file format
- Rename or delete an EXISTING file that Boxee found and added to the library

...Then I can't get changes to be picked up.

I figured that "Scan source" button would trigger a scan.
Type of scanning is "Monitored"
Have tried changing from "Monitored" to "Private" and back

...But in none of those cases are the changes recognized, and I'd expect them to happen nearly instantly. In fact, I can see clearly from monitoring that Boxee is NOT performing a scan of the directories. I've waited hours in "Monitored" mode, but no scan was ever done.

I think I've been able to force a re-scan by removing the source and re-adding it. And at least once an "update" scan was done on its own, but I have no idea what triggered it.

Am I missing something?

[Cacafuego]

I updated the bug report with:

*

Though I still can't find any way to reliably FORCE a scan to happen (which is the biggest problem), I think there's a few things contributing to the PERCEPTION of the problem that are all pretty important.

- It's not clear what the "Monitored" Type of Scanning option actually does. It definitely doesn't seem to mean "changes are detected immediately". In my case it looks like it may be doing a kind of basic scan of the folder every 4 min, 20sec?

- Once a file is added or removed after a scan, the actual TV Show/Movie list seems to be updated...haphazardly. The only way I've been able to RELIABLY force a refresh is to quit and reload the application. There have been times where scans have clearly run and I'm sure that it's found and indexed (or removed my content), but hours later the shows list still has not been updated.

- There's no way for the user to know what's going on with their scans. This is true if a scan is "forced" (which I assume is what the "Scan source" button is supposed to do. If not, then what??), or when any scan is going on, for that matter. Once you set up a new source, then media will be slowly added, but the user has no way to know if a scan's going on, if it's finished, when the next one will start, etc.

Not giving any sort of indication on scan activity is fine if scans virtually always happen immediately and successfully. Otherwise users are just going to be confused and irritated about why their content isn't showing up, or not regularly, etc. And especially technical users (still going to be the bulk of the user base for the near/medium future, even if the media appliances take off).

The "sit around and wait for content to show up and have no idea if it ever will" thing that it's doing now is super-frustrating, and made worse because of the other problems I'm mentioning.

- There's not even something in the Boxee log (by default?) to show that a scan's started. Even us slightly more technical folk can't tell what's happening. The only way I seem to be able to see if a scan's happening is using a network sniffer for network drives, and because the scan process seems to hit ERRORS each time it runs, so something gets logged. Maybe there's a way to turn this on? [ Edit - I found that enabling Advanced mode will cause detailed info on the scans to get logged in the Boxee log, so that helps ]



What are other people's experience and take on this situation? I've seen other threads that recommend to "wait up to a day", but that's insane. If that's the case, something is severely broken (even if it's common).

[Cacafuego]

None of the 42 people that have looked at this thread know what the "Scan source" button is supposed to do, and/or if it works for them? =)

[judgeschambers]

None of the 42 people that have looked at this thread know what the "Scan source" button is supposed to do, and/or if it works for them? =)


Honetly, not all 42 viewers are mods or devs. Most of us mods have day jobs and are just now getting around to ...modding the fourms.

I button, I suppose, it to do as it is labeled to. I've not found that it does anything instantly or not.

There are many factors that go into indexing files.

One, it can take hours for all movies and tv shows to show.
Improper file names can cause issues
Any other number of issues on an individual's system can delay function.
That being said, maybe a seasoned mac user can address the root issue of your files not being indexed. Give it some time.

[Cacafuego]

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound impatient. It seemed unlikely to me that anyone using the software wouldn't be regularly using the local media features, and so pretty much everyone would know what it does. Definitely wasn't expecting a mod/staff response.


I'm still somewhat new to Boxee and I'm still learning about the program and the community. Seems strange to me that most people wouldn't be using the local media features, since it seems like by far the most useful functionality of the software.

Also surprises me that ANYONE would tolerate the software taking hours to update content (without the software giving any clue of what's going on), let alone waiting potentially DAYS for the content to "show up" (couple that with what I think I'm finding are genuine problems with the software, possibly just with the beta). I just expected that many/most people are adding content regularly, then expect it to show up fairly quickly, so if it took days or even hours to index, with no clues to the user on whether/when it would complete, that this would be a big deal to a lot of people.

Keep in mind I'm not critiquing the software here. Not trying to knock it at all. I'm just surprised, and people must be using the software differently than I thought they were (and different than I think I'm trying to use it for).



That being said, maybe a seasoned mac user can address the root issue of your files not being indexed.

The problem isn't that they're not being indexed. The problem is that the scan isn't running at all, and/or I can't predict when it'll happen, and/or I can't tell if a scan has completed, and/or once content has been added, the change isn't reflected in the local content list in a predictable way (the only reliable way I've found so far is to exit and re-launch the program. Then the recently indexed files always show up. Even hours after the files are indexed (which itself might take a long time to even start), they potentially don't show up, and I can't tell WHY yet, since they're clearly being indexed).

I laid it out pretty clearly in the writeups above, though I know it's a lot of reading.

[judgeschambers]

No problem at all.

But you are somewhat assuming people are using the program differently than you and have not stumbled across what is broken for everyone. That's not necessarily the case. The issue may be entirely localized, meaning, it's just your system.

I've not seen too much feedback on Mac OS. Not sure why. Have not seen this one yet. Mods responses are the norm here for Beta issues. We use the product exclusively and work closely with the devs. So we can get/give good feedback. But this is the Beta Bug thread, so there will not always be a "fix" to be made to solve the problem. It may need to be re-coded and addressed in the next release.

There are plenty of things that can cause a myriad of issues with Boxee. But I am not the guy to help on MAC. So, unless someone else has experienced this and found a cause or solution... this may be localized to your system only or ...no one else has stumbled upon it yet or....it is a hit and miss issue that affects others that again have not stumbled across it.

So, bottom line, your post is in the right place here. We just have to wait to see if another user confirms the same thing. Ether way, your bug / issue is noted. I'm answering nearly 50+ posts a day due to beta release...if not double that. We are swamped with requests and it's a holiday week.

With aaaaalll that being said, this is beta. So, issues are what beta testers SHOULD EXPECT. If this were a paid program, then yes, users would "not tolerate" boxee behaving this way. By signing up as a Beta Tester, We are relying upon you to tell us what is not working correctly. So expectations should be in line with this testing agreement. Be patient and post bugs and help us address them.

Welcome to Boxee Beta. ;)

[Cacafuego]

No problem at all.
With aaaaalll that being said, this is beta. So, issues are what beta testers SHOULD EXPECT. If this were a paid program, then yes, users would "not tolerate" boxee behaving this way. By signing up as a Beta Tester, We are relying upon you to tell us what is not working correctly. So expectations should be in line with this testing agreement. Be patient and post bugs and help us address them.

Yeah, of course. I may be new to Boxee, but I'm familiar with software QA and beta testing process =) (Potential) Bugs are bugs, and I'm treating them that way.



The part I've been amazed at is when people say things like "it can take a few hours for your new file to show up in Boxee". Or "Give it a few days to make sure the next scan completes". Not in reference to amazingly huge libraries, but just in general. Seems like people aren't surprised when content takes a super-long time to show up. And that's not just a Mac thing.

And all this relates to my points about things leading to PERCEPTION that scans "just take a long time"...Especially the fact that there's pretty much zero way for a regular user to see what's happening with a scan - if it's running, what it's doing, if it's timing out on something, if it's complete, what the progress is, etc. Or potentially other bugs (I'm hoping that the fact that content isn't showing up in the media list for hours/need reboot after a scan is a bug).

Since people SEEM (and again, I'm still getting a feel for things, so I might have this wrong) to generally think scans take forever, and since they don't have any way to see what's going on, I don't know how people would know if a long scan times are due to a bug, or local system problem, etc.

Seems instead like most people are just assuming "well, that's how Boxee is! Can take a day!" and not investigating further (probably because they can't). I'm just surprised that as a rule people aren't rejecting that and saying "if it takes a day and my library isn't ridiculously massive, then something must be wrong and needs fixing". That was my first reaction, and after looking into it, I think I see at least two bugs (that have both been reported).


The other thing that goes along with my confusion on all this is the existence of the "daily" scan frequency option. I don't understand why anyone would use it except in very rare circumstances, but it's also the DEFAULT when setting up a new source. It potentially saves on disk/network access, but Boxee also doesn't seem to re-index things unless something has changed (though it does do a simple scan), so it shouldn't be crushing people's disk/network/cpu except in some rare cases.

I assume that when people drop new content in their local sources, they'd expect them to be ready for use in pretty short order. Hours/days would be pretty unacceptable to me. So why would "Daily" be the default scan time? Does anyone leave it set that way?

[Cacafuego]

My other point wasn't that I was surprised people hadn't noticed the "scan source" problem I'm seeing - it's that nobody so far seems to have really used it, or know whether it has ever worked or not =)

Not just mods, but the 100+ views on this thread.

Anyway, this is all getting really long =)

[NomadDNA]

I'm not really sure what the problem is here.

I just ran a test to see how quickly Boxee Beta .9816 would pick up a new movie... Here's what I found:


9:39 : Ensure that Boxee is frequently scanning SMB network
9:41 : Add new movie (District 9) to SMB network
9:42 : Open Boxee ***TIMER BEGINS***

[I continuously open my movie selection, searching for the new movie to appear]

9:47 : District 9 appears - ***TIMER ENDS @ 4minutes and 30 seconds****

So, of my 205 digital movies, and 1,154 TV episodes, Boxee found my new movie in 270 seconds +/- 15 seconds. I would consider that pretty damn good.

So, again, what's the problem? Boxee doesn't pick up a single file out of 1,300 in nanoseconds? I'm pretty sure that why there's a browse feature, for those who can't wait the 270 seconds while Boxee scans 657GB of data.

Boxee Build: 9.20.9816
Computer: MacbookPro 15"
OS: OSX 10.6.2
Network: SMB over Airport Extreme and Buffalo LinkStation Pro

[Cacafuego]

So, again, what's the problem? Boxee doesn't pick up a single file out of 1,300 in nanoseconds? I'm pretty sure that why there's a browse feature, for those who can't wait the 270 seconds while Boxee scans 657GB of data.

Boxee Build: 9.20.9816
Computer: MacbookPro 15"
OS: OSX 10.6.2
Network: SMB over Airport Extreme and Buffalo LinkStation Pro

Did you even read this thread? No, that's not the problem.

And we've kind of devolved from the original problem/question (which was "what does 'Scan Source' actually do, and does it work for anyone else") into something different, too. :)

[Cacafuego]

...Though that's really good to know that you're seeing acceptable behavior. I'm definitely not (and I get the strong impression that I'm not alone).


Incidentally, I suspect the only reason that it took 4min30s is that in "Monitored" mode Boxee scans every 4min20s. It may have even been faster if "Scan source" does what we think it does and actually works for you.

[cogadh]

You are definitely not alone. As someone who only uses Boxee for internet sources, I never had use for the local media features of Boxee, but I decided to try it out (mostly to see what this thread was all about). I added one movie to one folder that I added into Boxee as a local source. I made sure the movie was named correctly and I can play the movie in Boxee if I find it with the file browser. If I hit the "Scan Source" button it appears to do absolutely nothing and that 1 lonely movie does not appear in my library at all. After around 4.5 minutes, it does appear, but that would seem to be due to the regular "scheduled" scan, not the "Scan Source" button action. This is on Windows XP, not Mac, so it would appear to be a Boxee thing, not a Mac thing.

[judgeschambers]

Yeah, we are talking about a few different things here now.

I'm the one that posted that it could take a day for a show to pop up. Really, I've had specific episodes of a show take this long. I've already spoken to Marcel last week about the slow index time of some shows and movies. He is concerned as well. He's not sure if it's the IMDB or Boxee. I'll keep you posted as I work on this with him.

The scan source button. Yes, it does not appear to do anything right away. Though being there it would seem there is some intention to make it work. It may not now, but I'm sure they plan on it. Heck, it could get removed. ;)

I leave my boxee beta set to scan daily. I have an ATV using Alpha and it smacks my network all the freakin' time! Beta, I see it scan once and done. I like that.

I think we've covered this pretty well. I'll post back any resolution I get after I do some testing and report to Marcel. I'll see what he says about the Scan Button too. :cool:

[Cacafuego]

See what he says about having some sort of scan status/progress indicator too, so we have some chance of knowing what's going on =)

[MrG299]

This is kind of an old thread but I've been experiencing many of the same frustrations that Cacafuego has. So you're definitely not alone :). Prior to the release of the boxee beta I was an avid user of XBMC.

XBMC has an option to have your sources scanned upon startup and this seemed to be an easy way to deal with this issue. Also, while scanning the media a progress bar is shown in the top of the window which is great in reassuring that your sources are indeed being scanned. Furthermore a progress bar would let one know that the "scan source" button is actually doing something. If my memory serves me correct back in the alpha the "a" button brought a menu that showed the progress of indexing. Was there a reason this was taken away?

[judgeschambers]

The scan souce button is back in the new public beta. It seems to now force a rescan of an already config'd smb share.

I feel that the coding and effort to make a progress bar is unnecessary (there are better things to fucus on right now). It works, I see my router go crazy hitting my server and the boxee network. There's your indicator. =)

Aslo, if the share is set to scan "daily", and something new is added, boxee will initiate a index every 4.5 minutes. You can see it on the router or use WireShark to watch and time the activity. Boxee is indexing. It can take hours to complete depending upon share type, file quantity etc.

[cmendill]

So, of my 205 digital movies, and 1,154 TV episodes, Boxee found my new movie in 270 seconds +/- 15 seconds. I would consider that pretty damn good.

So, again, what's the problem? Boxee doesn't pick up a single file out of 1,300 in nanoseconds? I'm pretty sure that why there's a browse feature, for those who can't wait the 270 seconds while Boxee scans 657GB of data.


Thanks for actually doing a controlled test on this. However, as boxee gets more and more popular, the Boxee devs should realize that people will start to judge it compared to what they are used to. In that case, while 270 seconds may be a great improvement over previous versions of Boxee, most people will want media recognition to be instant -- as it is in iTunes.

You mention scanning 657GB of data, well Boxee isn't really reading all those bits (or at least it shouldn't be), its indexing the filenames, which should be very fast. Looking up the movie on imdb should be another few seconds. I really think Boxee needs to get that 270 seconds down to about 10. I know iTunes gets around this by using xml libraries -- where reading, writing, and searching are much faster than doing IO on the individual files.

In the meantime, adding some transparency to scanning would be nice. So, you can have some idea of how long you will have to wait before you can watch a movie.

[booyaa]

i suspect since no one has answered this succinctly, you're gonna have to get the answers yourself by taking a peek at the source code. yeah i know its a real crap way to do things, but sometimes its got to be done.

also have you checked the xbmc forums? if this is legacy xbmc functionality, you'll find it better documented by those guys.

just my $0.02

[cogadh]

In the meantime, adding some transparency to scanning would be nice. So, you can have some idea of how long you will have to wait before you can watch a movie.
I agree, some kind of transparency should be included (can I get simple progress meter?), but the priority right now is just getting the scraping and resolution to work properly. Once that is accomplished, then adding "bells and whistles" can be taken care of. However, you don't have to wait at all to watch your movies. Even if Boxee has yet to identify all your movie files, you can still access them through Boxee's file browser functionality.


also have you checked the xbmc forums? if this is legacy xbmc functionality, you'll find it better documented by those guys.

Actually, its not legacy XBMC functionality, Boxee has its own IMDB scraper that uses licensed access to the IMDB database (unlike the XBMC one). It is still a work in progress, so improvements in resolution time can be expected (eventually).

[judgeschambers]

Thanks for actually doing a controlled test on this. However, as boxee gets more and more popular, the Boxee devs should realize that people will start to judge it compared to what they are used to. In that case, while 270 seconds may be a great improvement over previous versions of Boxee, most people will want media recognition to be instant -- as it is in iTunes.

You mention scanning 657GB of data, well Boxee isn't really reading all those bits (or at least it shouldn't be), its indexing the filenames, which should be very fast. Looking up the movie on imdb should be another few seconds. I really think Boxee needs to get that 270 seconds down to about 10. I know iTunes gets around this by using xml libraries -- where reading, writing, and searching are much faster than doing IO on the individual files.

In the meantime, adding some transparency to scanning would be nice. So, you can have some idea of how long you will have to wait before you can watch a movie.

I really don't get why this is such a big deal? You set up Boxee, set the files to be indexed the first time, when the primary index is complete your files are there. Then if you add a new file....about 5 minutes later it shows up. Enjoy.

I'm not trying to be mean. Really, I"m not. I guess I've not been sold on the benefits/value of this "indicator." Especially once your entire library is done with it's primary indexing. :confused: I personally don't need to watch a count down indicator bar for every file that I add. When it's done...it's done.

I guess I'm of the thought that there are bigger issues that boxee needs addressed other than a count down meter. Sure, when everything else is flawless, like video playback-music playlists-DX for HD videos, then when they have some spare time a countdown bar would make some nice eye candy.

Better yet, sell it on GetSatisfaction (http://getsatisfaction.com/boxee/). If it gets votes it might get worked into a future build. :D

[NomadDNA]

I really don't get why this is such a big deal?

Hallelujah, brother.

[Cacafuego]

I really don't get why this is such a big deal? You set up Boxee, set the files to be indexed the first time, when the primary index is complete your files are there. Then if you add a new file....about 5 minutes later it shows up. Enjoy.


Yes...Except when it *doesn't* show up 5 minutes later. Which for me (and I believe a lot of people) is often. But even if it was only semi-infrequent problem this seems like it'd be important.

Like I said earlier - if Boxee reliably added the media to the library after 5 minutes, things would be MUCH better. However, when things go wrong (and so far in my experience, this is pretty common), and even when they don't, people want/need to know what's going on. There's no way to know:

- Did a scan even start? (I've had problems where it wasn't - hence the original topic of the thread)
- Is it still running? (Scans can not only take a long time, but can also take an *abnormally* long time, as has been my and several other people's experience with the Public Beta. How can I differentiate between "it didn't recognize my content" and "Scan process aborted abnormally" and "I have a big library and it's taking a while to scan" and "It took 12 hours for a scan to run because of some issue or other"?)
- Did it scan ALL of my sources? (I swear I've had problems where it's stopped scanning certain sources until I restarted the app, but I haven't really looked at this closely).
- Did it find the content and add it to the library, but the library list hasn't been updated yet (I've had that problem consistently in earlier builds, not sure about latest)?
- Did it find the content but NOT add it to the library? (Happens to everyone. A lot. For a wide variety of reasons (but mostly naming))

And then of course there's the "alright, I'd like to have some idea of when the video I added will be available" factor.

I know many of these are due to bugs+issues that should/would be worked out over time. But it's pretty unusual for an application to not give regular users **ANY INDICATION AT ALL** of what this basic, potentially long-running, complicated (and seemingly fragile) process is doing. And like I said, it leads to poor expectations and negative opinion of the product. For example, people, including yourself, will assume it's "normal" for stuff to take "hours" for content to show up, when (potentially) the application isn't actually working properly.

It just seems like "Good user design 101". Give the user feedback on what the app is doing, so they can make choices.


I haven't seen it, but if XBMC at least has a scan progress bar (and Alpha had a scan indicator), then SOMEONE thinks user feedback is important.


Maybe I'm lucky that this is one of my biggest frustrations with Boxee (that is, I don't have more severe problems). But for users that do use a lot of local content, I think it's an important problem. Medium priority.

[Cacafuego]

Hallelujah, brother.

Don't be snarky. Last time you posted to this thread you clearly hadn't read it, and it doesn't sound like that's changed.

I'm not trying to waste anyone's time here. I'm not complaining about my personal pet-peeve of the day, or about something silly. I honestly believe this is a significant usability problem with the product. I never said it was top-priority or "such a big deal". But in my opinion it's important. I also might be alone - fine. But I don't think so (just read the thread).

Heck, BOXEE-3733 (http://jira.boxee.tv/browse/BOXEE-3733) is the #5 top bug in Jira at the moment, and covers a lot of this topic. Plus there's been BOXEE-3898, and BOXEE-3814, BOXEE-3859.

So don't belittle us. judgeschambers sure didn't.



Seriously, I don't understand why some mods here get so defensive at times. I keep seeing posts where people bring up potential problems with the product, and they're treated like they're stupid or that it's inconceivable to think the app might not be working well as-is (or even broken!) instead of trying to understand or troubleshoot the issue. Not just feature requests, but real potential bugs (or what I call "usability bugs", which is what part of this thread covers).

Granted, there are also a lot of stupid posts as well =)

[Cacafuego]

Rafael mentioned in one of the bugs: "there are also many issues regards that and we are aware that the scanner must be more transparent." They seem to get it. Sorry you don't.

[adam0]

I agree that this is an important issue. I've been going back and forth for a couple days now between Boxee and my file renaming utility trying to get a few TB's of content correctly named and showing up in boxee, and a it would definitely have been a lot more convenient if shows showed up faster during this process or I could at least tell the progress of the scan(for initial scan's I had to leave running overnight). Having a progress meter at this stage of configuration would be most helpful, I agree after the bulk of the media is in I wouldn't really need it for adding a single movie or similar item, however it would be useful for larger assimilation's like a whole season of something, in either case I feel it would provide some peace of mind to know what boxee is thinking about.

[funkyg73]

It has been my experience that newly added content does not show up in a matter of minutes. At least not video content. Music and photos do show up rather quickly. I have a folder with approximately 100 movies. I have it set to scan for changes frequently. It consistently takes hours, or a reboot for the newly added video to show up. Sometimes it doesn't show up at all. Alternatively, if I browse to the folder from within Boxee, and then select the manual option to scan, it usually shows up within ten minutes.

[jallama]

Hello,

I installed the boxee beta for the first time on my machine yesterday. I was playing with settings and watching videos for over 5 hours.

During that time none of my previous (alpha boxee) media sources content was added to my library. They showed up fine and I could browse them via the files tool and play content.

I thought maybe it had to do with old setting not being compatible with newer boxee, I did not that in the settings media area the SMB sources sayd "Not Connected".

Just to play, I deleted boxee and everything in ~/library/application support/boxee and reinstalled.

I had to manually add my sources again, this time they showed as "connected" in settings media. I waited around and waited and waited and waited and waited and still nothing showed up in my library. I then went through and selected "Scan Media Source" on the left side box of all the folders.

I have to admit I do have a large media collection on my linux box, so I let it sit over night, I queued up some videos and when to sleep. In the morning Boxee still had not index/added to the library any of my content.

I'd have to agree with some of the above posts that, some kind of feed back when scans happen/complete would be nice. It doesn't have to be a progress bar, merely an over lay (small top right) "Scan started" then when its finished "Scan Completed". Maybe give a little more insight, "Daily Scan Started on SMB://Resource" or "Manual rescan started on SMB://resource". Maybe the "scan complete" overlay could state a number of new or removed items? "Manual Scan on SMB://resource ended found 5 new items, removed 3 items".

But aside from that clearly something is not quite right. I'm ok with the initial scan of my media to take hours, as long as it eventually works, but over night with no results seems to indicate something is wrong.

Currently I'm at work, so I can't give specific details about my mac book pro at home, however I am willing to provide any information needed to help the boxee team troubleshoot the situation, I just need to know what you guys are looking for.

Lastly, I want to re-iterate how wonderful boxee is, I've been using the alpha version for about a year now and could not be happier at how it performed. I was a little miffed at the clumsy UI, but the beta more thank makes up for that with its new UI, stellar guys simply stellar.

I'd also like to report that the TV Shows app is wonderful, everything worked really well with little effort on my part.

Keep up the good work guys, and again please let me know if I can provide any information about my mac or installation of boxee that might be helpful to this discussion.

I think for now, I'm going to just copy a very small directory of videos/music/photos to a smb share and try adding that one folder as a media source. Maybe try to time it as people have done above in this post, just to get an idea of how long (if it is indeed working correctly) it would take to scan my entire library of media.


Jake

[jallama]

Hello,

I installed the boxee beta for the first time on my machine yesterday. I was playing with settings and watching videos for over 5 hours.

During that time none of my previous (alpha boxee) media sources content was added to my library. They showed up fine and I could browse them via the files tool and play content.

I thought maybe it had to do with old setting not being compatible with newer boxee, I did not that in the settings media area the SMB sources sayd "Not Connected".

Just to play, I deleted boxee and everything in ~/library/application support/boxee and reinstalled.

I had to manually add my sources again, this time they showed as "connected" in settings media. I waited around and waited and waited and waited and waited and still nothing showed up in my library. I then went through and selected "Scan Media Source" on the left side box of all the folders.

I have to admit I do have a large media collection on my linux box, so I let it sit over night, I queued up some videos and when to sleep. In the morning Boxee still had not index/added to the library any of my content.

I'd have to agree with some of the above posts that, some kind of feed back when scans happen/complete would be nice. It doesn't have to be a progress bar, merely an over lay (small top right) "Scan started" then when its finished "Scan Completed". Maybe give a little more insight, "Daily Scan Started on SMB://Resource" or "Manual rescan started on SMB://resource". Maybe the "scan complete" overlay could state a number of new or removed items? "Manual Scan on SMB://resource ended found 5 new items, removed 3 items".

But aside from that clearly something is not quite right. I'm ok with the initial scan of my media to take hours, as long as it eventually works, but over night with no results seems to indicate something is wrong.

Currently I'm at work, so I can't give specific details about my mac book pro at home, however I am willing to provide any information needed to help the boxee team troubleshoot the situation, I just need to know what you guys are looking for.

Lastly, I want to re-iterate how wonderful boxee is, I've been using the alpha version for about a year now and could not be happier at how it performed. I was a little miffed at the clumsy UI, but the beta more thank makes up for that with its new UI, stellar guys simply stellar.

I'd also like to report that the TV Shows app is wonderful, everything worked really well with little effort on my part.

Keep up the good work guys, and again please let me know if I can provide any information about my mac or installation of boxee that might be helpful to this discussion.

I think for now, I'm going to just copy a very small directory of videos/music/photos to a smb share and try adding that one folder as a media source. Maybe try to time it as people have done above in this post, just to get an idea of how long (if it is indeed working correctly) it would take to scan my entire library of media.


Jake

Hello again,

I kept digging through the forums and found this page:
http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=5214

More important that the filename schemes, which 90% of my media should already follow, is the part where it says "also, boxee does not index while you are watching any streaming media." duh so even though I left it on, I was still watching stuff. Tonight I'll set it up and just let it sit for a few hours.

I'll keep you all posted on my findings.


Thanks
Jake

[Cacafuego]

BOXEE-3733 is up to #3 now =)

[subvertbeats]

Hello Cacafuego.

Im not entirely sure where I sit on this issue.
My logic is that such progress indication shouldnt be necessary once the bugs are ironed out of the scraping algorithms, and therefore perhaps the dev effort is better spent on trying to resolve any remaining issues with that part of boxee.
On the other hand, maybe there is some existing mechanism (detailed logiing, debug switches or something) that help the devs monitor what is going with the indexing processes, so maybe part of that could be exposed to end users without a lot of dev effort.

And I want to just say that I dont think anyone is discounting your issue as invalid.
I myself, along with the other mods who have posted here do have a 100% grasp that this is an issue for you and others.
However, just because we are mods does not mean that we cant have our own personal opinion.
From what Ive read it seems you're a pretty pragmatic person, so I hope you can appreciate this. Keep up the good work....

[Cacafuego]

Yeah, of course. I just didn't want anyone to ignore the feedback since 1) I (for one) feel strongly about it, and 2) apparently so do lots of people. Even if people also disagree, it seems to be a common complaint and needs to be considered seriously. Plus one person in particular sort of set me off. =)

Thanks for the feedback, beats. May this thread be retired now, and all bugs be fixed. =)

[judgeschambers]

Final Thoughts:

1-As mentioned by subvertbeats (http://forum.boxee.tv/member.php?u=8573) there are known issues with the indexing overall. I.E. Incorrect movie recognition (including not being recognized at all), delays in the overall function, and local network connection bugs. (the connection issuse have been mostly addressed in the latest build;))

2-Many people are not naming their files correctly.

3-As mentioned by subvertbeats (http://forum.boxee.tv/member.php?u=8573),"My logic is that such progress indication shouldnt be necessary once the bugs are ironed out of the scraping algorithms, and therefore perhaps the dev effort is better spent on trying to resolve any remaining issues with that part of boxee."

4- The biggest one - If you have 100 movies in your share folder you just added .......and each time you check back in Boxee's My Movies and it now shows 25 movies have been indexed..........then an hour or so later.....another 25 have been added so the total is now at 50 out of 100.......Isn't THAT an indicator of what it's doing? I know, I know..you want more than that. :cool:

Personally, based on #1-3, I find an indicator and the work needed to create it redundant and unnecessary allocation of labor. But, that's my project management side talking. And I'm not a Boxee Dev or manager either, so this is just my opinion...

Closing:Take Action!

Cacafuego (http://forum.boxee.tv/member.php?u=30911) Since you feel so strongly about this topic, have you taken any proactive action on this as a Beta Tester and User of Boxee? Meaning, asside from this thread, have you posted a request on http://getsatisfaction.com/boxee/ so people can vote on whether or not they find this indicator relevant? I've not seen this in any of your posts nor have I found a request on http://getsatisfaction.com/boxee/

I did a quick search and found none for an Indicator or progress bar. I did find one (pre beta era) that wanted detail info (see enclosed pic). Please search there first to see if someone else has not already posted a request. If not, post a detailed (not too long) request with the exact problem, exact solution, function of solution, and value to the user. Make your request title very relevant like: Indexing Progress Bar or Indexing Progress Details or something with key words. Then post the link here so readers can participate with you. Good luck ;)

[Cacafuego]

Yes, I've done even more productive action, I think. See BOXEE-3814 and BOXEE-3733. As I mentioned, BOXEE-3733, which is directly related, is now the #3 listed bug and seems to be getting attention. Posting something to getsatisfaction seemed redundant, but if you think it'd help then I'll post there as well.

[Cacafuego]

And I agree with #1 and #2, partially with #3, and less than 0% with #4 =)

Of course, I think if the scan system was more transparent/user friendly then it'd go a long way to helping with (but definitely not resolving) #1 and #2. But yeah, #3 should be somewhat more priority. And the "more transparent/user friendly" scan I'm thinking of might be a pretty huge job.

[Cacafuego]

http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=578 =)

Okay, okay, enough. =)

[Cacafuego]

BOXEE-3733 is #2 top rated in Jira now, doubting mods!

[jallama]

Hello,

I installed the boxee beta for the first time on my machine yesterday. I was playing with settings and watching videos for over 5 hours.

During that time none of my previous (alpha boxee) media sources content was added to my library. They showed up fine and I could browse them via the files tool and play content.

I thought maybe it had to do with old setting not being compatible with newer boxee, I did not that in the settings media area the SMB sources sayd "Not Connected".

Just to play, I deleted boxee and everything in ~/library/application support/boxee and reinstalled.

I had to manually add my sources again, this time they showed as "connected" in settings media. I waited around and waited and waited and waited and waited and still nothing showed up in my library. I then went through and selected "Scan Media Source" on the left side box of all the folders.

I have to admit I do have a large media collection on my linux box, so I let it sit over night, I queued up some videos and when to sleep. In the morning Boxee still had not index/added to the library any of my content.

I'd have to agree with some of the above posts that, some kind of feed back when scans happen/complete would be nice. It doesn't have to be a progress bar, merely an over lay (small top right) "Scan started" then when its finished "Scan Completed". Maybe give a little more insight, "Daily Scan Started on SMB://Resource" or "Manual rescan started on SMB://resource". Maybe the "scan complete" overlay could state a number of new or removed items? "Manual Scan on SMB://resource ended found 5 new items, removed 3 items".

But aside from that clearly something is not quite right. I'm ok with the initial scan of my media to take hours, as long as it eventually works, but over night with no results seems to indicate something is wrong.

Currently I'm at work, so I can't give specific details about my mac book pro at home, however I am willing to provide any information needed to help the boxee team troubleshoot the situation, I just need to know what you guys are looking for.

Lastly, I want to re-iterate how wonderful boxee is, I've been using the alpha version for about a year now and could not be happier at how it performed. I was a little miffed at the clumsy UI, but the beta more thank makes up for that with its new UI, stellar guys simply stellar.

I'd also like to report that the TV Shows app is wonderful, everything worked really well with little effort on my part.

Keep up the good work guys, and again please let me know if I can provide any information about my mac or installation of boxee that might be helpful to this discussion.

I think for now, I'm going to just copy a very small directory of videos/music/photos to a smb share and try adding that one folder as a media source. Maybe try to time it as people have done above in this post, just to get an idea of how long (if it is indeed working correctly) it would take to scan my entire library of media.


Jake

Sorry I've not had a chance to reply since my last post. The problems for me turned out to be the smbd configuration on my linux box.

For whatever reason they would connect, and I can play media from the Files App, they would not scan.

I ended up adding



guest ok = yes
browseable = yes
public = yes


To all of my samba shares in /etc/samba/smb.conf

Keep in mind with open access like that you want to make your shares read only, so add this line too:



writable = no



That cleared up all my troubles.

Thanks
J

[JackandJohn]

A quick note because this thread came up as I was searching for "Scan Source not working" (or something)

I have a folder structure like this:


Video:
|-Cartoons
|-Educational
|>TED Talks
|-Movies
|-TV Shows
|>-Breaking Bad
|>Season 1
|>Lie to Me
|>Season 1
|

So, when I added the sources, I added cartoons, movies, and tv shows as "Video" (Set to scan daily)
And, I also added the entire parent folder, set to scan never, thinking this would just mean I could access it in the files directory.

HOWEVER

Boxee took this to mean "Don't ever scan this folder or subfolders", so when I went to watch a show that was missing, and noticed the last scan was last month, I started trying to manually initiate a scan; it said it was starting, but nothing else happened after that: no indication of failure.

I wandered around aimlessly until I acted on a hunch and deleted the source for the parent folder.
Scan worked as it should.

I guess to watch stuff that boxee will never recognize, I have to add each subfolder and tell it to not scan

[flighttime]

I realize this is an old thread but I was just wondering why no one has just stated the obvious. The "Scan Source" button doesn't do anything. After clicking, a message is shown saying the source has been updated but it doesn't EVER initiate an actual scan. This is a bug and I'm sure it will be address at some point. The solution, for me is to keep all my sources set on "Scan Daily" and if I add a file and can't wait for the scheduled scan, just switch that source over to "Monitor Frequently". With large collections, it's best to have things broken up into lot's of sub-folders, (Music wise, that means a folder for each genre.) and the have each one added individually. Makes things go much faster when adding and also allows you to correct problems by removing and then adding again much, much faster. This is beta software. I happen to love it and feel it's just not a big deal to find work arounds for the problems encountered. I still have foobar2000 as my main "directory" for music and I don't think that's going to change since I prefer that when actually sitting at my computer but boxee is exactly what I was looking for when sitting on the couch and can now grab my phone browse though just about anything I might want to hear or watch.