Boxee and Time Capsule

[thiagopires]

Hi everybody

Has anyone else tried to stream video from a Time Capsule?

I can get it to show in sources, and navigate through folders normally, but when I hit play it goes from " Loading... please wait" to the folder menu again.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[dave]

This is a known bug. We are working on it! It's my problem too, so I'm working with the team on it.

My permissions are setup like this, which may be the problem the Apple TV sees.
http://www.techtalkback.com/2008/03/time-machine-to-airport-extreme-router.html

[thiagopires]

Great, I'll wait then. By the way, TERRIFIC app.

[xcrozx]

i'm looking forward to this issue

[asquared]

also keen to see the solution to this bug

[runimal]

by the way, what about a USB HDD attached to TimeCapsule? same story?

[dave]

Same issue. Same story. Waa Waa...

[guibaa]

Hello,

somebody knows when the issue will be fixed?

I have all my video, music e. g. on my capsule and would like stream and test it with boxee :)

Cheers guibaa

[marcel]

hi guibaa

we are working on this issue and we hope to have a fix soon ...:)

[guibaa]

hi guibaa

we are working on this issue and we hope to have a fix soon ...:)

Thank's sounds good, will wait for it:)

[stein]

For the record, I have the same issue with Airport Extreme and external HDD connected to it.

[marcel]

the same issue we are working on this as well...:)

[xcrozx]

Keep up good work guys, cheer up!!!

[ichabodkky]

My issue is a bit different (I think). Boxee will find and stream my Time Capsule media just fine, but ONLY if my MacBook is open. It will not find the "Workgroup" if the computer is off or asleep. This is the only problem I seem to be having. Any thoughts?

[jamesh]

Mine works fine. I just added the source as the IP address of Time Capsule, then Workgroup as the username and the TC's disk password as the password.

Then it let me navigate through the TC disk until I got to my "video library" folder. Then I just add that folder as a source, tell Boxee it contains video so it gets nice and indexed, and ta-dah! It works fine!

aTV is connected to TC with Ethernet, as they're next to each other under my TV anyway.

[Carniphage]

I have a USB drive attached to an Airport Extreme - and it works perfectly with Boxee as a SMB share.

It is set up as follows:
Enable file sharing.
Secure shared disk with Airport Extreme password
Airport Disk Guests Access: Read and write
Workgroup: WORKGROUP

C.

[broux2]

I have no issues when using my simpleshare NAS drive connected to a trendnet wireless router. I connect via smb and stream video wirelessly. It is sketchy on G but works great on N.

[mortonmanor]

I'm still having similar issues and am wondering if this bug was ever fixed.

I've manually added the shares and they show up when I browse. However when I select a movie to play, it waits a couple of seconds and then goes back to the directory listing of the share. I am able to see and use media on an SMB share from my Macbook, but not from a disk attached to TimeCapsule.

On the TC, I have the following setup:
Disk Sharing with a password

On the AppleTV, I have added the share with a user name (any username used to work) and the disk sharing password.

Any other thoughts?

[Carniphage]

There is no bug that I know of. It works fine.

C.

[mortonmanor]

Carniphage, do you know what version this was fixed? Back in October, Marcel repeatedly indicated there was a known issue that was being addressed. In other threads, I've seen recent messages from users who are still experiencing similar sounding issues.

Thanks

David

[Carniphage]

Carniphage, do you know what version this was fixed? Back in October, Marcel repeatedly indicated there was a known issue that was being addressed. In other threads, I've seen recent messages from users who are still experiencing similar sounding issues.

Thanks

David

I just checked my Twitter logs - (the nearest thing I have to a diary) - I installed Boxee in November 10th.

First thing I did was point it at my Airport Extreme USB drive and it has worked flawlessly since then. I am 99% certain there is no difference between Time Capsule and Airport Extreme+USB Drive.

I have always found the "user accounts" feature in the Airport software to be odd - and have that switched-off. I have published my Airport disk sharing settings above.

The SMB sources path in Boxee looks like this.: smb://BASEMENT/Mediaserver/Media/Movies/

<source>
<name>Movies on BASEMENT</name>
<path>smb://BASEMENT/Mediaserver/Media/Movies/</path>
<private>false</private>
</source>


One question, can you add a shared directory on Time Capsule as a Boxee source?
By going to Settings Add Network Source - and browsing to the share?

C.

[mortonmanor]

It seems a major difference in our configurations is that I have user authentication for my SMB share/disk on time capsule.

I have never been able to successfully browse via the add button. If I specify the name smb://timecapsule.local, I am able to see and browse to a particular location, but I'am still unable to make it work.

When I turn on windows filesharing from my Mac, I am able to see it via the SMB browser.

[meat99]

hey all. it would be really awesome if someone from Boxee could respond here. I have a Time Capsule and ATV and haven't even been able to get Boxee to see it.

Can someone please post a step-by-step set of instructions to gettting this going?

Also, it would be good to know if an ATV / Time Capsule ethernet connection is a must in order to make this work.

Thanks!

/t

[marcel]

Is your Airport guest access read and write?Is your windows file share workgroup name "WORKGROUP"..

[meat99]

hey Marcel,

i believe it is set to "read" and yes, "Workgroup"

any ideas?

[marcel]

have you tried adding by IP ..settings>media sources>networks>manually ad IP.

[meat99]

yes. that connects - but the connection isn't consistent. each time I go back to that modal i get a different error.

sharing not enabled, no media located, etc. once it even connected, but now I can't get back to it.

[marcel]

when you add your share are you using guest...

[The Spirit]

hi
any updates on the timecapsule streaming issue?

[Carniphage]

hi
any updates on the timecapsule streaming issue?

What issue?
It works already.

Turn off user accounts. - And set a workgroup name.
Then you can browse the workgroup - see the disk and add it.

C.

[The Spirit]

doesn´t work for me.
user accounts are off. workgroup name is WORKGROUP. i see timecapsule, but wenn adding it, i get error 2

[Carniphage]

Can you access your shared files from other computers?
You are adding through Settings/ Media Source / Add Network Source / Add new Source?
Does your time capsule have a static IP number. Is it always the same? Or is it being changed dynamically?

C.

[The Spirit]

i now found out, after starting boxee, i see my media on the time capsule. but after around 2-3 minutes, the tc connection is gone and i can´t reconnect.
i don´t know, why boxee looses the connection.
i don´t have this problem with xbmc.
thanks for helpl

[wgoosey]

For what its worth... up until the Time Capsule firmware update, I was happily and very easily able to watch both DivX files and full DVD rips off my Drobo which was attached to my MBP. I could also watch video content on my Time Capsule drive itself. I was also able to watch video off of any of three USB drives hubbed off the AppleTV with the Nitro ATV hack installed.

After the firmware update or some other evil thing happening I can still see and use all the USB drives. My non-Time Machine files on the TimeCapsule have disappeared and while I can see the files on the Drobo, attempting to play any of them results in a return to the menu. One thing of note, I CAN play music off the DROBO. So, it appears to be a VIDEO thing and NOT a generic Network permissions issue.

Any help would be much appreciated. I loved the way it worked BEFORE :)

goose


I just checked my Twitter logs - (the nearest thing I have to a diary) - I installed Boxee in November 10th.

First thing I did was point it at my Airport Extreme USB drive and it has worked flawlessly since then. I am 99% certain there is no difference between Time Capsule and Airport Extreme+USB Drive.

I have always found the "user accounts" feature in the Airport software to be odd - and have that switched-off. I have published my Airport disk sharing settings above.

The SMB sources path in Boxee looks like this.: smb://BASEMENT/Mediaserver/Media/Movies/

<source>
<name>Movies on BASEMENT</name>
<path>smb://BASEMENT/Mediaserver/Media/Movies/</path>
<private>false</private>
</source>


One question, can you add a shared directory on Time Capsule as a Boxee source?
By going to Settings Add Network Source - and browsing to the share?

C.

[robb14]

Hi Hardworking Boxee workers,

Any update on the timecapsule firmware issue ?

cheers,

Rob

[marcel]

sorry..we are still working on this issues

[Floyd]

Hi, does anybody have a workaround?

For Mac, you can mount the volume via AFP in OS X then add the source as a local source, has anyone found an easy way of mounting the Airdisks as AFP on 2.3.1 and adding as local sources in ATV?

[Splog]

I've been having similar problems and have found a solution.

Windows Vista + Boxee + Apple Time Capsule

Starting issue: Boxee will not add Time Capsule content to library. From the Video page I can browse the TC and see the content, but Boxee would not play any of it.

I had to faff around with the settings of the Time Capsule to be able to play movies from the Time Capsule. I'm not sure which setting did the trick but I currently have the following settings set:

Airport Guest Account - Read and Write
Share disk over WAN - checked
(I also have the workgroup set to WORKGROUP, though this didnt make a difference at this stage).

At this point Boxee would not add any movies to my library, even after I tried adding the Source in various ways: navigating to it, typing it manually, discovering it via the network, via a mapped network drive, etc. Some of the set up sources would change their path info to a cache directory in the local directory structure.

What I could do though - which was a big step up - is that from the Videos page I could browse the Time Capsule and play films. The library still would not update.

Solution:

I edited the sources.xml file (located at: C:\Users\Mojo\AppData\Roaming\BOXEE\userdata\profi les\splogmojo ...obviously these are my details!) and added a movies source with the path including device name on the network:

\\trove\Time Capsule Disk\Movies\ (trove being the name of the TC)

Boxee now indexes the TC and plays the content. Hurrah! Oddly if I look at the TC source in Boxee the path information shows up as blank. If I try to add the path within Boxee the software changes it to the cache folder again.

So after a ramble:

TC set for read and write access for guests
WAN access
Workgroup set to WORKGROUP
Manually edit sources.xml and use a path of "\\<device>\folder"

[buyrihn]

Splog has some sound advice- I was having the same issues. I couldn't connect to any of my media shares; rather I could see what was in them, but I couldn't play anything. My shares are connected to a USB drive connected to an Airport Extreme. I am using Boxee on Apple TV. I also enabled and disabled settings after I got it working to determine exactly which settings needed to be enabled- it's the Workgroup that's key.

Airport Extreme Settings:
Enable File Sharing with a secured disk password and read only rights
Share Disks over WAN.
Type "Workgroup" in the Workgroup space, and update your router.

Boxee:
Settings->Media Sources->Network Sources->Add New Source

Enter in the IP address of the Airport Express (normally 10.0.1.1), and put in your Airport Extreme user name and password. Your user name is usually the username you use to log in to your Mac, but you can verify it by going to you Keychain and looking at the Login info for the Base Station.

Add your source.

RESTART BOXEE!!

I haven't followed Splog's method for making the videos show up under movies or tv, but all will definitely work when you go to browse, under Video.

[gauchers]

I'm having the same problem with my USB hd connected to my airport extreme after 7.4.1 update. Everything worked fine until the update. Now I can still browse to my files on the hd but nothing plays...Followed the instructions above but no success at all. NAS files still play fine so it's definitely an airport problem.

[ziyizhang]

I'm experiencing this problem too. My setup is Boxee on Apple TV and would like to stream video in Time Capsule. I have tried the Time Capsule settings as suggested above but it still doesn't work for me. Anyone kind enough to share any solid workaround to this problem?

Thank you in advance.

[garyi]

Not working for me either. The problem was identified in 2008, has any progress been made?

I can see the share and add it apparently successfully but it says 'not connected'

I can navigate via browse but my films are straight dvd rips (video ts) and boxee apparently has no stacking feature so thats a no go as well.

[geoffc]

I would really liked this looked into. I want to be able to stream content from the Time Capsule harddrive onto Apple TV through Boxee.

It's connected through ethernet, I have a password on my time capsule and i got it to recognize the drive, but it cant pull any media off of it.

[landlinesaver]

As a newbe to Boxee it looks like it could offer what I have been looking for but I have fallen at the first hurdle. I am trying to use my new apple time capsule to network movies to my new apple TV. I can get it to show in sources, and navigate through folders normally, but when I hit play it goes from " Loading... please wait" to the folder menu again. Same error as other people seem to be having. Does anybody now if this has been fixed or a wayaround it. I would love for it to work.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

[marcel]

you tried to play this via the Browse option??? Does this happen on all file formats?

[landlinesaver]

Thanks for the reply, it will play the AVI file format but only at a very slow speed, almost like it is being streamed over the internet with the spining timer coming up all the time. The other 99% of my files have been ripped by ripit as a Folder called VIDEO_TS (.VOB files) I have not tried playing via a browse but not to sure what you mean. The only way I can get the files to play direct from my Apple Time-Capsule is using nito TV and SMB protocol. But would rather use boxee to do everything.

Really hope I can get this working.

Thanks again, for your time

[thewaxtadpole]

so when will this be resolved.. as of right now I have nothing to do with this boxee but return it.

I bought it to replace a TVersity set up, in order to play movies directly from my TIME CAPSULE without having to have a PC inbetween. between this and no netflix I have absolutely no use for the unit.

When is Apple Time Capsule support coming?

[JimWiley]

so when will this be resolved.. as of right now I have nothing to do with this boxee but return it.

I bought it to replace a TVersity set up, in order to play movies directly from my TIME CAPSULE without having to have a PC inbetween. between this and no netflix I have absolutely no use for the unit.

When is Apple Time Capsule support coming?

Hi!

I think you need to post this is in the Boxee Box, subforum?

However, I can shed some light on the problem. Boxee uses smb for networking and the TimeCapsule's implementation of a smb server, frankly stinks. There have been problems since firmware 7.4.x for TimeCapsule, that mean the timecapsule's smb server just shuts down.

Some users have reverted to 7.3.x firmware for their TimeCapsules (although I'm not sure if this is a valid solution for those of us with newer TimeCapsule's). Other users have got the smb server to work by clicking on disconnect all users in the TimeCapsule admin utility - this forces the TimeCapsule to restart it's smb server, allowing clients to connect again.... although this is only a temporary fix...

I've heard that this was also a problem with older version of Ubuntu (I've experienced it myself with Hardy), but since then something has changed in Ubuntu and newer versions don't crap out the timecapsule. I haven't verified this myself - YMMV. Could be Boxee could tweak it's smb implementation on the BB to stop this happening.... try in that sub-forum and see if any of the team can help you. I think they're actively watching it to solve outstanding problems....

Jim

[thewaxtadpole]

Hi!

I think you need to post this is in the Boxee Box, subforum?

However, I can shed some light on the problem. Boxee uses smb for networking and the TimeCapsule's implementation of a smb server, frankly stinks. There have been problems since firmware 7.4.x for TimeCapsule, that mean the timecapsule's smb server just shuts down.

Some users have reverted to 7.3.x firmware for their TimeCapsules (although I'm not sure if this is a valid solution for those of us with newer TimeCapsule's). Other users have got the smb server to work by clicking on disconnect all users in the TimeCapsule admin utility - this forces the TimeCapsule to restart it's smb server, allowing clients to connect again.... although this is only a temporary fix...

I've heard that this was also a problem with older version of Ubuntu (I've experienced it myself with Hardy), but since then something has changed in Ubuntu and newer versions don't crap out the timecapsule. I haven't verified this myself - YMMV. Could be Boxee could tweak it's smb implementation on the BB to stop this happening.... try in that sub-forum and see if any of the team can help you. I think they're actively watching it to solve outstanding problems....

Jim

so I am out of luck using a Time Capsule considering apple has no intention of helping along anything but AirPlay now.

[JimWiley]

so I am out of luck using a Time Capsule considering apple has no intention of helping along anything but AirPlay now.

No, I don't think so. What I was trying to say with the Hardy example is that later revs of Ubuntu used a newer version of smbclient that didn't crap out the TC (as long as you use the right settings...)

So, could just be that you need to inform the Devs (file a bug report, supply logs) and they could fix it quite soon. I know they are clamouring to solve all these issues, after the problems they've been having. But to fix a problem, they got to know about the problem....

I would start by getting your log (a full one not an abridged one) that is of a session where you try to connect to your TC. Post it to pastebin and then post a link in a thread in the BB sub-forum where you describe your problem accurately and give all the relevant details. Make sure you are running the latest firmware, since it may be the problem has already been fixed....

Jim

[thewaxtadpole]

So still.. nothing? There was a new time capsule firmware release today.

[JimWiley]

So still.. nothing? There was a new time capsule firmware release today.

I've updated mine and not experienced any drops yet on my ATV(Karmic) and MythTV(Lucid) boxes yet.... I'll report back if it starts dropping out...

How's your experience been so far?

Jim

[thewaxtadpole]

no luck with either firmware update

[JimWiley]

Well, couple of things. When you say either firmware update, I'm going to assume you mean the latest Time Capsule and Boxee Box firmwares? I am assuming you are using the smb client of the Boxee Box. I am assuming that you have successfully connected at least once with your login credentials and what you are experiencing is a drop out. I am also assuming that if you go into airport admin app and click 'disconnect all users' in the disk pref pane and then wait 2-3 mins then you can successfully re-connect from inside Boxee. If all of these things are true, then you need to gather up your logs and submit a ticket on jira (With all the details above, your log, your TimeCapsule Firmware version and model number). As I mentioned before, correct smb settings on the client side can stop (or at least reduce to a bare minimum) these TimeCapsule smb server crashes.

If there's something wrong with the smb client implementation that's freaking out the TimeCapsule (and you have the latest versions of everything) then the best thing is a jira ticket..

Jim

[jabohn]

I don't know if this will help you, but I did a complete wipe of the AppleTV to start everything from scratch. Then when I set up the connection to the SMB shares in Boxee, instead of going by name, I entered the IP address instead. Since then I've not had a single problem with the SMB shares.

[nuggyblake]

I don't know if this will help you, but I did a complete wipe of the AppleTV to start everything from scratch. Then when I set up the connection to the SMB shares in Boxee, instead of going by name, I entered the IP address instead. Since then I've not had a single problem with the SMB shares.

Very interesting. I think this is often is a function of how you distribute IP addresses (DHCP or static). I wonder if the host file has some outdated address in it that confuses things (same name but a older ip address ?), hence specifying IP works. I think its always a decent idea to check your hosts file for older entries and edit accordingly (assuming you know how:))

Great tip.

[seand5018]

In my house, I have two ATV's and one has an SMB share publishing my video library on a local USB drive wirelessly to the other. For that I also designated the smb share in Boxee using smb://192.168.blah.blah/Volumes/Name of Drive because appletv.local would cause confusion but it also seems more stable.

Maybe that should be a recommended practice.

[wayra]

What is the status of the request.

It seems that is long waited feature, many Apple Users store media files in this wireless HD, so it is a really needed function.

Please let us know the time frame of this implementation.

Thanks:confused:

[Kelmk]

I am having this problem recently with boxee loosing the connection to my time capsule. The only way I can get it to reconnect is to close boxee and reopen. This is on a mac.