New RC1 Firmware 1.2.1.20440(9th October)

[FrAnt!c]

+1 Thanks for the fix regarding the wmv/mms playback has been bothering me for weeks/months

+1 from me too!

[mrjohnyblaze]

dropouts is worse than 1.2.020310? or 1.2.1.20426?

dropouts are much worse in all 1.2.1 releases. 1.2.0 release did not have dropouts with legacy audio such as DTS core. 1.2.1 releases have more frequent dropouts as of which happen in both legacy and HD audio. 1.2.0 seems to buffer more frequently also, especially compared to 1.1 releases.

[Ronald]

@Marcel:
Please double-check with Kosta (to whom I've been reporting) regarding the serious bugs in SMB password handling, which cause Boxee to fail connecting properly with two out of three computers in my LAN when using any of the new firmwares after the last 'stable' (1.2.0.20310). Using that last stable firmware Boxee worked fine with all three of my computers (and these are all still configured the same way as before). (Worked fine for connection that is, though some audio delay issues do apply to all releases, even the stable one.)

My own conclusion is that your changes to provide support for 'non-standard' characters in SMB username and password have eliminated the necessary negotiation with each SMB server, required to find the proper authentication method to use with each individual server. Instead you now appear to enforce the use of a single authentication method (one of the new that support 'non-standard' characters), thus making connections fail to all servers that either do not implement that particular method, or do not allow it (as per system configuration).

Logging in here today I was shocked to discover that your team had made yet another release without doing anything at all to remedy those severe SMB bugs. I could have understood it for an experimental beta, but to call it a serious 'release candidate' is a slap in the face of everyone suffering from these horrible bugs.

After you've spoken with Kosta about this, please feel free to contact me again for arranging any supplementary tests to investigate the problem so as to fix it. I will check in here fairly regularly, so a PM or even a normal thread reply will do fine to request further test reports, and you can also use my email address to reach me if you prefer (Kosta already has it).

NB: Since your own changelogs state that you didn't even try to fix the SMB bugs this time, I will not bother testing this version at all, unless it is to produce new test logs at your request.

Best regards: Ronald Andersson

[azzad10]

seems a lot faster loading apps and websites in the browser, don't know if this was an intentional improvement or a coincidence but I like it!

Only thing that seemed a bit messed up for me is youtube seeking, it doesn't seem to seek to the time when you drag the time bar as it should

[Prospero424]

Wired Ethernet performance for me - as it has been for all 1.2.1x builds - is still ridiculously slow to the point that it's all but unusable. Wireless is much, much faster than wired Ethernet, which is ludicrous. Firmware 1.2.0x and below all work fine in the same environment. I had no network performance problems to speak of until these 1.2.1x builds.

Sound in Netflix is back, the SMB authentication issue seems to have been handled, and HD audio (88.2, 96, 192khz) now outputs properly when EDID is enabled, so these are all very good things. But without a reliable network interface, all of this is just about useless to me. I'm desperately hoping the Boxee team can fix this issue before this firmware goes stable.

Marcel - if you need anything from me that's not already in my signature, PLEASE let me know. I'm willing to do any testing and provide as much feedback as you need so long as this gets fixed. In fact, I'm going to send you an email right now.

[pettern]

will look into the UPnP issues and the Ready NAS (this is with no username and password)..Can you check if NFS works?

Yes, nfs works fine and is what's I'm using, which makes this issue less of a problem for me personally.

[Ronald]

the SMB authentication issue seems to have been handled

That is very odd, since this release candidate did not attempt to modify any SMB behaviour, according to the changelog list in the first post...

And the SMB changes in the previous RC release did NOT improve the SMB authentication issue overall, though it did permit those with non-standard characters in username and password on their computers to connect.

But this was done in an incorrect fashion, making Boxee unable to connect with any SMB server not configured to use that special authorization method (which deviates from original SMB standards).

I think Boxee needs a smarter SMB server negotiation procedure, so as to decide which authorization method is appropriate for each server.

But in the meantime, until such a new negotiation procedure can be coded, a simple workaround is to code Boxee to use its old methods for users who define SMB username and password without using any characters outside the original SMB specs, while using the new methods (as in recent betas and RCs) for those users who have such non-standard characters in their SMB usernames and/or passwords. That should provide decent functionality for all. So that is what I suggest for the next beta/RC release.

Best regards: Ronald

[Prospero424]

That is very odd, since this release candidate did not attempt to modify any SMB behaviour, according to the changelog list in the first post...

I was just speaking to the current state of this firmware in regards to my network environment. It was actually the previous RC release that fixed SMB authentication with my Server 2008 machine and the beta that fixed the HD audio issue.

This particular RC1 build actually didn't make any noticeable changes on my end at all.

[Prospero424]

Okay, I've tracked down my wired Ethernet performance issue.

What I did was replace my Netgear WNR3500L running Tomato with my old Linksys WRT54GL running Tomato, and the performance problems went away altogether.

I then put my Netgear back in place and flashed it with the vanilla Tomato USB firmware. Same problem. Then I flashed it with the stock Netgear firmware. Same problem. Then I flashed it with DD-WRT. Same problem. Put the Linksys back in place, problem disappears.

Reverting back to the latest stable Boxee firmware (1.2.0x) results in no performance problems regardless of which router is being used and which firmware is on each router.

This leads me to believe that the changes made to SMB in these latest 1.2.1x builds have introduced performance issues for both the Netgear WNR3500L in particular (a very popular router, it should be mentioned) and with the Broadcom BCM4718/BCM4716 (CPU and WiFi) and/or BCM53115 (gigabit Ethernet switch) chipsets in general.

No other explanation makes sense. I'm hoping the Boxee devs can use this information to track down which change made to the Boxee SMB client in this firmware version is causing this issue.

[Mike Hock]

Well my Dune HD1 hasn't arrived yet so the Boxee Box is still my primary media player so I might be trying out this firmware. I currently get constant buffering streaming bluray ISOs or full bluray MKV rips via SMB from my Windows Vista 64 PC even though the bitrate on the few files I've tested has not went over 45Mbps for both the video and HD audio stream.

This makes no sense as I can stream all the way up to the 70Mbps birds test scene. Also, when copying files to and from USB drives connected to the Boxee Box I get average sustained rates of 8.6MBs sometimes going into the mid 9s. There is something screwed up with the SMB implementation in the Boxee Box on these recent releases.