Best Windows 10 server set up to multiple Libreelec/Kodi devices

1st Official Post

    Hi, As per the title, I want to know the best way to set up a Windows 10 PC to act as a server to multiple Libreelec/Kodi devices.

    I currently have my media stored on different drives on my Windows 10 PC and I have a Libreelec PC connected via ethernet and SMB to play back my media.

    Although this I've got this set up working with one device, for the life of me, I cannot get a second Libreelec device to connect using what I think is the same method. Which, if I recall correctly, was Add network location (windows SMB) and type the PC name, plus my user name and password. Then this showed in the connection list, then when I selected that connection it could see my Movie folders and my TV series folders. However, When I repeat that process on the second Libreelec device I cannot get it to add the network location.

    I've come to the conclusion that it is an issue with my Windows 10 PC which I'm using as a server and not the Libreelec devices. My problem is that I don't know much about networking and sharing folders. I'm learning as I go along. It might well be that I've set up the shared folders properly but Windows Firewall is stopping the other Kodi devices connecting in some way.

    When I've tried searching Google the results are usually about using Kodi installed on a PC which contains the media or Kodi devices that get their media via USB. Not using a PC as a server like I want to be able to do.

    What is the best way I can set up the Windows 10 PC to share two media folders (drives) to multiple Kodi devices? Is it better to set up an FTP server on the PC, some other method or will (should) it be easy enough to share these folders/drives without doing anything special?

    It would be useful to know what search strings I should be putting into Google so I can find something to walk me through any setup changes I might need to make.

    Thanks in advance.

    Pete

    • Official Post

    In my world, "the best server" and "Windows" are words which are not often spoken in one and the same sentence. :cool:

    If one Kodi device is able to connect to your Win10 PC, so should any other (Kodi) device. Otherwise, your settings in Windows 10 are probably not optimal. Perhaps you have limited the amount of users permitted to connect to your server to '1' ?!? During the last 12 months, lots of changes have made SMB go from good to better, or from bad to worse, judging from all reactions of Kodi Samba/SMB users. SMBv2 requires a Windows share to have full credentials, including a password.

    SMB and NFS are the two most suitable file protocols when it comes to streaming over a local network. FTP is not an option for that in my book/network.

    Alternatively... If you have some old PC collecting dust somewhere, on a rainy weekend try installing Ubuntu Linux on it as an OS, instead of Windows. And then install NFS server for a couple of videos as a test setup. There are plenty of tutorials for that to find. And once it runs, it runs and runs and runs. My NFS file server already worked with XBMC Eden, some 7 years ago. 8)

    • Official Post

    Make a backup of the working LE device and restore the backup on the non-working device. You should now have devices with identical configuration and thus should eliminate "PEBKAC" from the setup process. If you still see issues; then yes it might be something server-side, but there is nothing by default in Windows that can/would restrict the number of clients connecting (until you reached large numbers of clients).