How to configure media sources

[rocks911]

New to the Box and having a little trouble. I looked at the sticky and have surfed the froum but the sticky is almost 4 years old and I cant find a step-by-step current tutorial.

I have movies in my pictures and songs are missing entirely even though I pointed the Box software at my "C" drive which holds all my music. It indicated it was scanning so I went about my morning. I came back a couple of hours later and there was nothing.

My media is on my W7 PC and I am using Windows Network (SMB) Samba to access my media. Thats correct yes? Why cant I drill down into "C" drive? I need C:/My Music and C:/My Pictures but all I can do is access C without being able to be more specific.

Also every time I want to do anything there is a sign in prompt. Every 10 seconds the prompt appears. I've set up the account in settings so I dont know where this is coming from. Is there a restart? Can I just flush everything and start over?

[rocks911]

I just cant figure this out. I think I scanned my PC for music, certainly thats what Boxee is telling me. I started Boxee and I negotiated my way to My Music on My C drive and the option to rescan was there. It indicated "Source was previously scanned 19 minutes ago. 0 items identified, 0 items were not."
What on earth is this all about?

I suppose it's more of the cursed W7 OS that has caused me so much grief with networking and shares that I'm about to give up hope of ever accessing the media on my PC.

[Ronald]

New to the Box and having a little trouble. I looked at the sticky and have surfed the froum but the sticky is almost 4 years old and I cant find a step-by-step current tutorial.

I have movies in my pictures and songs are missing entirely even though I pointed the Box software at my "C" drive which holds all my music. It indicated it was scanning so I went about my morning. I came back a couple of hours later and there was nothing.

My media is on my W7 PC and I am using Windows Network (SMB) Samba to access my media. Thats correct yes? Why cant I drill down into "C" drive? I need C:/My Music and C:/My Pictures but all I can do is access C without being able to be more specific.

Also every time I want to do anything there is a sign in prompt. Every 10 seconds the prompt appears. I've set up the account in settings so I dont know where this is coming from. Is there a restart? Can I just flush everything and start over?

What you describe seems to match normal results for an incomplete file sharing configuration.

If it is an SMB login prompt you get each time you try to browse, then that's probably because you haven't properly configured the Boxee SMB client. This is done in the submenu "Settings" / "Network" / "SMB client".

There you need to specify a Username and Password which match a user account on your PC which has access to the files you want to share. And you also need to specify a Workgroup name that matches the SMB workgroup of the computer (by default this is "WORKGROUP" for a Windows OS).

And of course, at the PC end you need to have set up the folders for such file sharing, before you can define any of them to be a Boxee 'File Source'.

Finally, it sounds as if you have tried to use the entire C: drive of your computer as a source, which is very inappropriate. Surely you don't want any media player to regularly dig through all your Windows system files...!?!

I understand that you probably tried this because you couldn't 'dig down', so to speak. But it is a very bad idea to share your entire OS system drive this way. You should only share dedicated media folders, and if you can't 'dig down' to reach those then you need to reconfigure PC and/or Boxee until that works properly.

Since you are using Windows 7, it would be best if someone else with that OS could help you through this configuration. I myself use only WinXP and Win2K, so my configuration details would not apply to your OS.

Best regards: Ronald

[rocks911]

Thanks Ronald,

I appreciate the reply. Windows 7 is HORRIBLE for networking with. I had to purchase Cisco's Network Magic to enable network sharing.
Before I purchased Boxee I purchased a WD TV and I could never get that to network share with W7.
Google "Windows problems with network shares" and you'll get 42,200,000 results. It is a nightmare. I dont know what magic Cisco has in their software but it makes the whole mess workable. Too bad Microcrap couldnt do the same.

After the install of Network Magic everything became visible so it would appear I'm good to go (cross fingers) I am however currently in a dead loop. I configured the weather app and it indicates that "we cant find any data for this city" so it takes me to the Location screen in settings to change my location (I set this up the other day and it worked fine) and any attempt to get out of the loop just brings me back to the previous page.

Let me say on the positive side (it would appear to anybody that tracked my postings that I do a lot of complaining, and that would be correct because the learning curve is kicking my butt) the picture that is streamed is really quite good. The WD TV gave me a washed out picture particularly for low quality vids. I had a number of 500Mb vids that looked horrible with the WD TV and they look really quite good with the Boxee, so way to go with the Intel processor!

Thanks for the replies, I dont know what I'd do without the kind help of others.

[rocks911]

I may well be the dumbest person to ever try to get the Boxee Box and my computer to share.

I reset my Boxee Box because I had some media mixed in the library. I now want to establish the media source shares from a fresh perspective.

Simple enough, right. I progress through the menus like:

Shows

No local media yet

Browse sources

No local media sources defined yet, to play local media add a folder from an attached hard disk or network

Add sources

Windows network

Z drive (user name and password menu appears. I enter the same username and password that I use to log onto my computer, click enter and I'm brought to the previous screen where my Z drive among others is shown, I click on that and I'm back at the sign in menu)

I'm wondering about the settings on the Servers screen where Enable Windows File Sharing is checked, the next line under the file sharing is "Share Password" (user name: guest) where it asks for a password if I click on it.

I'm wondering about the username and what password I'm supposed to use. Why is the user name guest and not the name of my computer? Is this trying to access my Windows 7 guest account? I dont even think I have a password assigned to the guest account.

I just dont understand why it has to be so hard to navigate to an individual folder.

I am about to throw this whole mess out my window and go to the bar!!!!!

[rocks911]

Another thread with the same problems, again and again:

http://support.boxee.tv/entries/3750...-to-my-network

I appreciate your response Ronald, and I dont know how to answer what you posted
"If it is an SMB login prompt you get each time you try to browse, then that's probably because..."
I have no idea what login prompt it is. I have tried every username and password I use and nothing.

I can get through Windows Network (Samba) and I can see my C drive, my 2 optical drives, even a friggin USB drive and all of its contents, but Z drive, the 2Tb drive that holds all my movies/videos, I CANT GET IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it shows, but I cant access any folder in it for the friggin login prompt.

I have found threads at several sites with exactly the same problem. Tickets with Boxee have been opened and no resolution has been found. What's a person to do?

[rocks911]

Maddening...absolutely maddening. I could slap Bill Gates

[Ronald]

Another thread with the same problems, again and again:

http://support.boxee.tv/entries/3750...-to-my-network

I appreciate your response Ronald, and I dont know how to answer what you posted
"If it is an SMB login prompt you get each time you try to browse, then that's probably because..."
I have no idea what login prompt it is. I have tried every username and password I use and nothing.

The term 'prompt' here simply refers to any kind of display where a PC or other equipment demands manual entry of some kind. Like in this case where the Boxee Box demands entry of an SMB username and password.

But this should not happen at all if you have properly configured the Boxee SMB client, as mentioned in other posts. When it is configured to use PC account data, of a PC user account entitled to access all the drives your PC is sharing over the network, then you should be able to browse into all those drives from the Boxee GUI without having to enter any usernames or passwords at all. And that is how it works for me.

I can get through Windows Network (Samba) and I can see my C drive, my 2 optical drives, even a friggin USB drive and all of its contents, but Z drive, the 2Tb drive that holds all my movies/videos, I CANT GET IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it shows, but I cant access any folder in it for the friggin login prompt.

To me this indicates that this drive does not have the same configuration of access security and filesharing 'permissions', so that is something you need to doublecheck.

I also suspect that Win7 may require some extra config flag to allow sharing of an external drive, but I have no personal experience of that.

I have found threads at several sites with exactly the same problem. Tickets with Boxee have been opened and no resolution has been found. What's a person to do?

What I'd do first is to doublecheck the two kinds of access permissions of the failing drive and its main folders. I'm here talking both of the local 'Security' permissions, and the networked 'Sharing' permissions.

Your user account (as set up for Boxee's SMB client) needs both kinds of access permission to the shared drives and folders, either set directly for that user account name, or indirectly set for the name of a user group to which that user account belongs, such as the standard group "Everyone".

If you use that last method, then make sure that the permissions given to "Everyone" do not include write access. This way the Boxee Box can't damage content on your PC drives.

Best regards: Ronald

[Ronald]

I may well be the dumbest person to ever try to get the Boxee Box and my computer to share.

I reset my Boxee Box because I had some media mixed in the library. I now want to establish the media source shares from a fresh perspective.

Simple enough, right. I progress through the menus like:

Shows

No local media yet

Browse sources

No local media sources defined yet, to play local media add a folder from an attached hard disk or network

Add sources

Windows network

Z drive (user name and password menu appears. I enter the same username and password that I use to log onto my computer, click enter and I'm brought to the previous screen where my Z drive among others is shown, I click on that and I'm back at the sign in menu)

Being asked for username and password in such browsing should only happen if you have NOT configured the Boxee SMB client yet. This is done in the submenu "Settings" / "Network" / "SMB client", and with this properly configured you should never be asked for SMB username and password again. The required settings are Username, Password, and Workgroup. (So ignore "WINS server" and leave it blank.)

I'm wondering about the settings on the Servers screen where Enable Windows File Sharing is checked, the next line under the file sharing is "Share Password" (user name: guest) where it asks for a password if I click on it.

I'm wondering about the username and what password I'm supposed to use. Why is the user name guest and not the name of my computer?

Because this is not intended to access your computer.

Here you are configuring the Boxee SMB server, which allows your PC to access any USB storage drives you have connected to the box.

Is this trying to access my Windows 7 guest account?

No, it's the other way around, so your Win7 PC can access drives connected to the Boxee Box.

I dont even think I have a password assigned to the guest account.

That is how it should be, as "Guest" is intended for anonymous access.
I leave it blank in these settings for the Boxee SMB server too.

I just dont understand why it has to be so hard to navigate to an individual folder.

That is partly the result of access security, to prevent strangers from messing with a computer's content, as can easily happen in this age of WiFi...

I am about to throw this whole mess out my window and go to the bar!!!!!

Actually the last part of that sentence might not be a bad idea...
(Though I'd skip the part about the 'throwing'... )

When you've been working too hard with an unbudging problem for a long time you often need some relaxation to be able to attack that problem with new strength later.

Best regards: Ronald

[neveroffline]

May you try Right-clicking your folder in Windows and selecting share as? Sorry if you've already tried this.

Hope that helps.