Is it possible to use SMB over wifi for shares?

1st Official Post

    Hi.

    I've got an old Windows 7 PC that I don't use anymore.

    Thought I could use it as a media server and share the movies etc. on it to my Wetek Play 2 running kszaq [8.2.0.1] LibreELEC 8.2 for S905/S905X via samba over Wi-Fi.

    However I have spent several hours trying to set this up, but LibreElec just cannot (won't??) see the samba share. I've enabled samba in LibreElec and followed the guide to enable sharing folders in Windows 7.

    I can see the Windows folders over Wi-Fi on my other laptop also running Windows 7, on LibreElec, browse shows nothing and even if I enter the share manually I get an error "File exists".

    What am I doing wrong??

    1) "I've enabled samba in LibreElec" means you've enabled the Samba server in LibreELEC which has nothing to do with a client (ie. Kodi) accessing your Windows shares.

    2) "browse shows nothing": as explained in the 8.2 announcement, network browsing is no longer supported.

    3) "I get an error "File exists".": there's a bug in Samba which is causing this error when accessing an authenticated share, you could be prompted for a username/password but unread you get this bogus error. It will be fixed in LibreELEC 8.2.1 which is undergoing internal testing, so please wait for that release.

    @milhousThank you for your reply.

    So basically I have to wait until 8.2.1 is released?

    In the meantime you say that enabling Samba in LibreELEC has nothing to do with client. Forgive me but although I've been using LibreELEC since OpenELEC days I've never embarked into SMB/Samba shares.

    Is there a simple guide that includes what I need to do in Windows, LibreELEC and Kodi to achieve sharinf files over Wi-Fi?

    Quote from spinecho

    So basically I have to wait until 8.2.1 is released?

    I think so. You could try rolling back to an an earlier release, eg. 8.0.2, add the authenticated share, entering your username/password and checking the "Remember" box (which automatically creates passwords.xml), then upgrade again to 8.2.0.1 and I think your shares should continue to work.

    Quote from spinecho

    Is there a simple guide that includes what I need to do in Windows, LibreELEC and Kodi to achieve sharinf files over Wi-Fi?

    There's nothing special you need to do to access a Windows share over WIFi - the steps require are the same as a wired ethernet connection.

    Once you've created your Windows share (password protection enabled, added a username/password), Kodi (in LibreELEC) should then automatically prompt you for the username/password when you first try to access the Windows share.

    Unfortunately, it's this last step which is currently broken due to a bug in the latest Samba (and fixed in 8.2.1) which doesn't return the correct error code so Kodi reports a bogus/misleading error.