Can't add new content from another computer on my network

1st Official Post

    Forgive me if I don’t use the correct terms here. I’ve tried to learn the correct terminology by searching google but as soon as I use the word 'windows' most of the search results relate to Kodi installed on a windows machine with the media stored locally and that’s not what I’ve got.

    I have the latest version of LE installed on a HTPC (generic PC) but store all my media on my desktop PC, not the HTPC, and network the two computers together via Ethernet.

    Up until a few days ago I could easily navigate LE to any of the shared folders on my desktop PC via SMB. However I’ve been trying to navigate LE to a new shared folder on my desktop PC. Now when I go to Video > files > windows SMB it doesn’t see the desktop PC at all, even though it still plays all the media in the folders I’ve originally setup. It’ll even update the media library if I add new content to the media folder on the PC. Additionally I can navigate the desktop PC to any of the home folders on the HTPC. This leads me to suspect that it’s not a firewall issue on the desktop PC.

    In desperation I did a clean install of LE on the HTPC and for a while I could navigate to my original movie and TV series folders on the desktop PC but then I tried to navigate to a new folder I was no longer able to see the desktop PC again.

    Any ideas?

    • Official Post

    Shared folders that are initially okay to navigate to, but later are not, are indeed a mystery.

    FYI, LibreELEC now defaults to Samba SMB network version 2 instead of the old version 1. This has been done due to the outbreak of the WannaCry virus disaster. It means you have two basic options:

    1) Make your Windows 'server' compatible with SMB v2. You will need a Windows user account with a password to create a share. Then use "Add a network location..." in LibreELEC when adding a video source. Fill in all user credentials and path details.

    2) Select SMB v1 compatibility in the LibreELEC Settings Add-on, and keep using a not-so-safe network setup.

    Thanks for the reply.

    I've been trying option 1 but I'm not sure what I'm doing.

    I have created network locations on my 'server' windows 7 PC for all the shared folders I'd like my LibreELEC HTPC to access. Now if I right click those network location folders under My Computer it shows the target as \\myserver\TV series and \\myserver\Movies etc.

    In LibreELEC I go to videos>files>add videos>browse then which option should I select? I've tried all of them without success. I suspect I should now be selecting the bottom option 'Add network location' then using \\myserver\TV series and the username and password in the appropriate boxes. Is this correct?

    Thanks in advance for your help.

    Pete

    • Official Post

    One other thing: network browsing in SMBv2 is no longer functional. You will have to manually add a network location as said earlier via the Kodi GUI when adding a video source.

    Also, from my experience: avoid upper/lowercase combinations and spaces in folder names. Replace them with _underscores_ or a dash-character. Or use no spaces at all. Example: \\myserver\movies and \\myserver\tvseries