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    I've been trying to use the Media Library Sharing feature for music, photos and videos. The client machines are running Vista and using WMP11 obviously. When I try to connect to the share it says "Contacting the remote media library..." and never seems to finish.

     

    Anyone else having this problem?

     

    Thanks in advance

    Rob

    Tuesday, February 20, 2007 12:35 AM

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    Do you possibly have a firewall in the way that is blocking the media sharing ports? Is the Media Sharing feature turned on?
    Tuesday, February 20, 2007 12:40 AM
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    Is it turned on at the server

    all i have is Windows Live OneCare turned on

    Tuesday, February 20, 2007 1:58 AM
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    Try disabling the firewall and see if that solves the issue.
    Tuesday, February 20, 2007 2:40 AM
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    I tried. Makes no difference

    Is it supposed to be instantaneous? or does it a while the first time?

    I've left it for about 10-15 mins and it doesnt change

    Tuesday, February 20, 2007 3:13 AM
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     Rob777 wrote:

    Is it turned on at the server

    all i have is Windows Live OneCare turned on

     

    Windows Live OneCare can block Windows Home Server Connector from working.  Try disabling it (if you haven't already)

    Tuesday, February 20, 2007 11:39 PM
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    walk us through what you've done so far.  It sounds like you enabled Media Sharing through the WHS Console tool.  Did you enable all three  types?  And for each type you enabled, how much data do you have?  If possible, I'd recommend sharing just a few songs or a couple videos to start with.

    Next, you said you're using WMP 11.  Walk through how you configured it to consume the Media Sharing off WHS.

    Do you actually ever get an error back?  Or does WMP just go out to lunch and stop responding?

    Wednesday, February 21, 2007 12:02 AM
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    I just thought of something. By default Media sharing is disabled in WMP 11. You may need to enable it there. To do that open WMP 11, click the arrow under Library and click Media Sharing, If you are using Vista you may need to click Networking and change your network to a Private network. After you do that check the box that says Find Media that Others are Sharing. Then click OK. Within about a minute after that you should see your WHS appear in the list along the left hand side.
    Wednesday, February 21, 2007 3:16 AM
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    I tried everything that they have in here and it shows no files on the server in wmp11.
    I added the folder to my library and it seemed to have added some files but not all.
    I had it rescan the folder but then it saw thousands of files and added nothing.

    • Proposed as answer by bobpavey Wednesday, December 1, 2010 3:54 PM
    Wednesday, February 21, 2007 4:42 AM
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     Caven Barrett wrote:

    I tried everything that they have in here and it shows no files on the server in wmp11.
    I added the folder to my library and it seemed to have added some files but not all.
    I had it rescan the folder but then it saw thousands of files and added nothing.

    Hi Caven,

    Do you have media sharing enabled? If so, have you tried the directions from my above post. If media sharing is enabled you shouldnt have to manually add the folder to the library. WMP will if configured correctly automatically find the WHS and add it to the library all by itself.

    Wednesday, February 21, 2007 4:49 AM
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    Hey, sorry for the late reply

    I have about 7000 songs, over 3000 photos and 120 videos

    The videos work (it took some time but works now). But the other 2 just never show up. sigh, dont tell me i have to leave it for 3 weeks before they appear...

    Wednesday, February 21, 2007 7:51 AM
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     Tom Ziegmann wrote:
    Do you have media sharing enabled? If so, have you tried the directions from my above post. If media sharing is enabled you shouldnt have to manually add the folder to the library. WMP will if configured correctly automatically find the WHS and add it to the library all by itself.
    exactly.  if you're opening WMP 11 and adding \\server\music to your library you're not using Windows Media Connect and the media sharing on WHS doesn't even need to be enabled.

    Wednesday, February 21, 2007 5:28 PM
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    i had to add it as it would not use the upnp setup and allow me to access the streamed folders.
    I can't even access any new folders that I create now on the home server. Does anyone know how to empty the wmp11 library so I have it look for the files a fresh using the upnp setting for the media streamer.

    Wednesday, February 21, 2007 10:48 PM
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    If you just highlight everything in the library and then press delete it will empty the library out. When you are using the WHS it appears as its own library. It does not add to your local library.
    Thursday, February 22, 2007 12:56 AM
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    I've tried everything.. still not working (well videos appears to work fine however)

    I've left it 'contacting' for say 15 mins then it just gives up saying there are no items available

    This occurs on all 3 of my computers

    Is there a way to have the server manually discover all the items that way its all prepared when a computer try to access the library? (wishful thinking)

    Thanks for your help

    Thursday, February 22, 2007 8:16 PM
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    Did you submit a bug on this and upload the TALQ logs from your Windows PC and Windows Home Server on http://connect.microsoft.com/WidnowsHomeServer?

    It would be greatly appreciated if you could take the time to do that.

    Friday, February 23, 2007 3:03 AM
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    Cab 330559554 has my logs, I'm seeing (and have reported) the same problem.

     

    Saturday, March 3, 2007 6:20 PM
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    I can't find it on connect - that's the bug number?

    I'm having a similar issue - I enabled sharing of my music (around 10,000 songs) and to begin with, WMP11 in Vista would see some of them and stream them, but now on any Vista PC it either stays on Contacting remote media library permanently, or comes back saying no media found!

    Does Media Connect on the WHS maintain a database of the available files? If so, is there a way to clear it and force it to rebuild?

    Friday, March 9, 2007 9:36 AM
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    I have exactly the same problem.

    I've disabled the firewall on Home Server and on my Vista machine temporarily and Windows Media Connect shows that media sharing is up and running, however if I run WMP11 on my Vista box, or got to the Media blade on my Xbox 360 it finds the Server is sharing but doesn't show any content at all....

    WMC seems to find the Music etc, as when it first starts it takes about 5 minutes while it searches the HDD but still doesn't show anything for any media type :(

    Sunday, March 11, 2007 8:26 PM
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    I have the exact same problem. I use a XP/WMP11 client, and I have turned the media share function on for this.

    There is always quircks with the library. I store my music as flac and the scanned covers turn up as pictures on my client. So I thought I might edit the library on the server to delete these unwanted pictures form showing up the wrong places, but as it turns out, the wmp on the server has nothing to do with the media sharing function. So now I wonder about I have to do it manually on all the clients, or if changes made on a client, will be propagated to the server? And what about tags and cover art when using a 3rd party fileformat (flac)?

    Having access to WMP11 on the server to manage the library would be quite convient.

    Rgds.

    /Schroinx

    Tuesday, March 13, 2007 12:57 AM
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    You stated earlier that you have OneCare installed. Media Sharing will not work unless you edit the firewall in LOC to allow sharing with other computers on the same home network.

    Just a suggestion that wasn't covered in this thread.

    Dawg.
    Tuesday, March 13, 2007 2:09 AM
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    Hello

    I was wondering about this part of the reply above, After you do that check the box that says Find Media that Others are Sharing. Then click OK.

    I don;t see that anywhere in my Windows Media Player?

    I have all the Media Library Sharing turned on, on my server, however none of my music shows up in my client machines using Windows Media Player.

    Suggestions?

    Thanks

    LB

     

    Tuesday, March 13, 2007 10:45 AM
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    I don't see it either.

    /Schroinx

    Tuesday, March 13, 2007 12:04 PM
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    I was playing around with my xbox360 last night and tabbed over to the media tab, to my amazement, all my music, pictures, videos show up. I didn;t have to do a thing except tab over to the MEdia Tab.

    Interesting.

    So at least I know the server is working ok.

    So why would none of my PCs work. I disabled the firewall on all of them, still no joy.

    LB

    Wednesday, March 14, 2007 10:15 AM
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    Most likely, your PCs didn't work because only WMP 11 on Vista is capable of consuming uPnP streamed media. You can, however, configure them to access the server shares directly. That might even be faster.
    Wednesday, March 14, 2007 3:44 PM
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    Btw. is there a way to display the contents of the shared music folder on WHS in Vista MCE, without having to add all of the music to the WMP11 library on Vista?

    I've 'illegaly' installed WMP11 on WHS, I can access the library on WHS in Vista's WMP11, but I cannot access the media from within Media Center.

    Adding the contents of the shared folders on WHS in Vista WMP11 takes me more than 48 hours...

    Wednesday, March 14, 2007 5:00 PM
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    I'm finally having some luck with Media sharing - I've deleted all the music from the music share, and am re-ripping my CD's.

    It appears, after some experimentation,  that if you have any corrupted mp3 or other streaming files, it really upsets the server, which then fails to stream anything!

    Wednesday, March 14, 2007 6:53 PM
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    Well, I don't want to rerip my cds into mp3 to use this feature as I'm quite content with the flac versions I already have spent several days converting my cds into. It is fustrating if the media connect can only work with wmp/mp3 files.

    So if I get the above right, it is a XP/WMP11 issue, rather than a WHS issue.

    I believe there should be some interface on WHS where the user can administer the media dbase by remote access, as I don't think any changes made to the dbase on the client will be propagated to the servers dbase, and thus to other clients. And then we lose the benefit of having a central media(file) server.

    /Schroinx

    Wednesday, March 14, 2007 10:27 PM
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    I meant that if any of the files in the streaming folders are corrupted, then WHS seems to have a hard time.
    Thursday, March 15, 2007 8:35 AM
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    I think DriveExtender is causing problems with the Windows Media Connect software on the WHS.

    I now have 2 home servers running, one running on a 1GHz AMD Duron with only 256MB RAM and a single 250GB PATA hard drive. The second server is a 1GHz AMD Athlon, 768MB RAM and a total of about 688GB disks, mixed PATA and SATA.

    The Duron will stream quite happily and show all the tracks and disks I've added so far (without cover art, as noted by someone else in a bug on connect).

    However, while the Athlon one will stream, it won't display more than a few of the disks I've added, and sometimes will fail to display any media at all! (The music share is set to be duplicated).

    From this it would appear that Drive Extender and Windows Media Connect aren't playing happily together.

    Have submitted a bug here: https://connect.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=263541

    Thursday, March 15, 2007 3:46 PM
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    I'm using WMP 11 on XP and have it working. Here is how I got it to work. There is not need to turn off Windows firewall on WHS. The Ports are open. If you are running a Software FW or WF on your PC shut them off. You will be safe behind your router.

    Next, on your PC go to My Network Place, you should see all the shares on your network and those from WHS. There also should be an icon of a monitor with antenna's. If not then you Windows Media Connect is not running on WHS.

    Open up WMP 11 on you PC, Laptop or desktop, go to Library, media shearing, Check the box next to Share My Media to: if Windows Media Connect is running on WHS you may see 2  icons they  maybe labeled Unknown Devise. Right click and go to properties and find the MAC Address that matches your WHS. When you find it select the icon and click on allow.  Click on Ok.

    Next, go back to Library in WMP, go to Add to Library, check the radio button "My Folders
    and those I choose, DON'T click on OK, CLICK on the Advance Options button, Click on Add, this will open a window to add the folder, expand My Network Place, Select the Music Share folder chick OK. Before closing out, Select C:\Documents and Settings, click on ignore then OK, this will save time from scanning your PC for media and slowing down the discovery process.  \\SERVER\Music to WMP 11 is added and begin the scan of the media on the shares. When Done from WMP on the tree on the left select Library, then Songs you should see all the music added from WHS. Repeat to add the Video and Photo Share folders.
    I can steam music and video from WHS to my laptop using WMP 11 and WinDVD 7.

    I hope this helps it worked for me.

    Thursday, March 15, 2007 10:02 PM
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    What you're describing is accessing the music via a standard SMB share, not uPnP streaming.
    Thursday, March 15, 2007 10:39 PM
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    If I understand a previous post, you should not have to select the Library and add folders, it should be automatic and show up in the left hand file tree automatically.

    You can see a previous post that another user stated that in.

     

    LB

    Thursday, March 15, 2007 10:47 PM
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    I also mentioned that I use WinDVD 7, but didn’t explain. Open WinDVD 7, click on the UPnP icon, Expand the UPnP Server tree, expand WHS, expand the Music and select the file if I want to play or expand video to select a video. I use WinDVD 7 to stream Video.

    Friday, March 16, 2007 1:25 AM
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     Richard Holland wrote:
    What you're describing is accessing the music via a standard SMB share, not uPnP streaming.


    Microsoft calls it Media Sharing, So what I described is basically how MS suggest how to do it.

    The FAQ is here. The two to read  How do I turn on media sharing? and What if I cannot play music using a digital media receiver after upgrading to Windows Media Player 11?
    and expand To specify monitored folders for sharing media for the step on how to do it.

    Friday, March 16, 2007 6:49 AM
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    Maybe I am missing something here.

    I want to use the WHS the way it was designed, as I'm sure others do to.

    So how do we get the uPnP streaming to work?

    After reading the FAQ it almost sounds like Media Player 11 is supposed to be running on the WHS?

    I also noticed something, In My Network Places there is an uPnP listed, when I double click it, it says Web Page can't be found.

    This is the port that it says its looking for.

    2869/upnphost/

    Could that port be blocked on the WHS?

    LB

    Friday, March 16, 2007 7:09 AM
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     Longbow22 wrote:

    Maybe I am missing something here.

    I want to use the WHS the way it was designed, as I'm sure others do to.

    So how do we get the uPnP streaming to work?

    After reading the FAQ it almost sounds like Media Player 11 is supposed to be running on the WHS?

    LB



    This maybe the way MS does streaming.

    Windows Media Connect is running on WHS it's installed during setup and is now in WMP 11 so you don't need WMP install on WHS.

    If you want UPnP you will need to use a third party Media Player like WinDVD that has a UPnP client in the player. I use WinDVD 7 for Video.


    Friday, March 16, 2007 7:19 AM
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    In a previous post a user stated the uPnP only works with with the Media Player 11 in VIsta, maybe that is what the issue is.

    LB

    Friday, March 16, 2007 7:22 AM
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     Longbow22 wrote:

    Maybe I am missing something here.

    I want to use the WHS the way it was designed, as I'm sure others do to.

    So how do we get the uPnP streaming to work?

    After reading the FAQ it almost sounds like Media Player 11 is supposed to be running on the WHS?

    I also noticed something, In My Network Places there is an uPnP listed, when I double click it, it says Web Page can't be found.

    This is the port that it says its looking for.

    2869/upnphost/

    Could that port be blocked on the WHS?

    LB



    That is known issue the bug has been reported on Connect.

    No the Ports are open on WHS.
    Friday, March 16, 2007 7:31 AM
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     Longbow22 wrote:

    In a previous post a user stated the uPnP only works with with the Media Player 11 in VIsta, maybe that is what the issue is.

    LB



    Yes that is true, XP users have to do it the way the FAQ suggest for WMP 11.
    Friday, March 16, 2007 7:34 AM
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    Working with one of the support guys on the connect bug site, we think we've found one of the causes of streaming not working on my systems. It appears Windows Media Connect doesn't play nicely with folder duplication. We turned off all folder duplication on my main server, which is still using driveextender to manage the 4 drives, and then WMP11 started working properly showing all the music available on the server.
    Saturday, March 17, 2007 8:36 AM
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     Richard Holland wrote:
    Working with one of the support guys on the connect bug site, we think we've found one of the causes of streaming not working on my systems. It appears Windows Media Connect doesn't play nicely with folder duplication. We turned off all folder duplication on my main server, which is still using driveextender to manage the 4 drives, and then WMP11 started working properly showing all the music available on the server.

    I can confirm that I've experienced the same issue / fix (have made the appropriate comments on Connect).

    Gordon

    Sunday, March 18, 2007 8:39 PM
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    Hi guys!

     

    Can you help me with my problem with media serving?

     

    I have a Vista (build 6000) on my desktop PC. I have Sony PS3 connected to TV. Goal: to watch movies on TV from PS3.

    Month ago everything worked fine. I had movies on the PC. Media Player 11 was set up to share my media files. PS3 has seen the media server.

     

    Now I have a problem with WMP. Symptoms:

    1. PS3 does not see the media server

    2. When I enter Library / Shared access to media files I have error C00D0FF4.

    3. If I drop wmpnetwk.exe and wmpnscfg.exe processes, I can enter the media sharing dialog. But when I put the check on the 'share my media files' checkbox and press 'ok', WMP freezes. If I drop the WMP application and try to enter the sharing settings again I have the C00D0FF4 error again.

     

    Why WMP ceases to function as media server? Does anybody have the solution?

    Saturday, June 7, 2008 6:42 PM
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     Llandaff wrote:
    Hi guys!

     

    Can you help me with my problem with media serving?

     

    I have a Vista (build 6000) on my desktop PC. I have Sony PS3 connected to TV. Goal: to watch movies on TV from PS3.

    Month ago everything worked fine. I had movies on the PC. Media Player 11 was set up to share my media files. PS3 has seen the media server.

     

    Now I have a problem with WMP. Symptoms:

    1. PS3 does not see the media server

    2. When I enter Library / Shared access to media files I have error C00D0FF4.

    3. If I drop wmpnetwk.exe and wmpnscfg.exe processes, I can enter the media sharing dialog. But when I put the check on the 'share my media files' checkbox and press 'ok', WMP freezes. If I drop the WMP application and try to enter the sharing settings again I have the C00D0FF4 error again.

     

    Why WMP ceases to function as media server? Does anybody have the solution?

     

    This forum is for Windows Home Server.  You should post your question in the Vista and/or PS3 forums.

    Saturday, June 7, 2008 8:35 PM
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