WHS Premium RC1 (Vail) and Netgear EVA8000 Media Player

[wecpcs]

I had installed the new version of WHS Premium RC1 (Vail) and quite liked it and it appeared to be fully functional and so I gave away my original copy of WHS ver.1 to a friend and installed it on a Home Server I built for him as well as activating and registering it for him. It was not until later which I thought was just a formality was to set up media streaming of MP3's and photos to my Netgear EVA8000HD media player and I was horrified when it did not work. I set it up exactly as I have done a number of times and the Netgear could see the shares perfectly, but when trying to do a full scan of my media, it got to about 2,400 files in total and the screen went blank and the Netgear would not respond to the remote. After forcing it to shut down and after a restart it comes up with this:

"\\SERVER\EVA8000\library"

Warning: Your media library location is no longer accessible on your network. This location is used to store your media library and preferences and helps speed up media scanning.

Do you want to

     Try accessing this location again

     Choose another location

     Ignore this error and continue.


I notice that the Netgear EVA8000 does actually write to its share for its library location as it create an empty folder called "pvrdata" which is normal and an empty text file called "tst032306.txt" instead of the library folder containing a text file mlibrary.txt

Does anyone who has a similar setup know what is happening. I have asked both on the MS Home Server forum and the Netgear forum and have been totally ignored. In the meantime I have downloaded a 30 day trial version of WHS 1.0 to get my setup up and running again which is now working perfectly once again as media streaming is my most important use for it. I have just ordered from CCL another copy of WHS 1.0 while they are still available and have been given a fairly high spec PC (better than my current server) and intend to reinstall the new copy on that after rebuilding it in a new new black case, then release my existing setup to try again with the newer Vail version.

My one thought might be that the Netgear does not support the new 64bit version of Vail which is based on MS Server 2008 and the previous version was 32bit based on MS Server 2003, but I cannot get any confirmation on that and I do not want the expense of buying another media player just to test that theory. I would rather just stick to something that I know that works as it has already cost me another £80 for my own stupidity.

So any help would be most appreciated as I know there are several others on here with a WHS.

Colin

[Ray]

Sorry I can't help you much, Colin, I'm not familiar with the Netgear media player, but I'm running WHS 2011 RC on one of my machines and I've had no problem so far streaming photos or music from it to either my PC or my Samsung TV. I suspect as you do that the problem lies with the Media player.

[Steve]

Is this carried out by simple SMB shares. I wonder if it's disconnecting or a permissions issues .Does the eva8000 have it's own user account on the WHS with read permissions for the media shares.

[wecpcs]

Is this carried out by simple SMB shares. I wonder if it's disconnecting or a permissions issues .Does the eva8000 have it's own user account on the WHS with read permissions for the media shares.

The eva8000 uses the Guest account on the WHS, which has read only access to all media shares on the WHS and read/write to its own share for storing its media library and preference, as in the original WHS 1.0. I cannot understand why that after seeing the shares and scanning the shares (upto about 2,400 media files anyway which takes about a couple of minutes), creates the pvrdata folder it requires but then fails to create the library folder containing the mlibrary.txt file and instead just creates an empty text file "tst03206.txt" and promptly locks up. This is why I think it might be because of the newer 64bit OS.

I have searched several forums and used Google and cannot find an answer anywhere. Most users it seems just use the backup and remote access facility which is my secondary reason for the WHS, the primary one being the streaming of music and photos. Everything else on the newer WHS works fine, the backup, restore and remote access from the web.

Colin

[wecpcs]

Sorry I can't help you much, Colin, I'm not familiar with the Netgear media player, but I'm running WHS 2011 RC on one of my machines and I've had no problem so far streaming photos or music from it to either my PC or my Samsung TV. I suspect as you do that the problem lies with the Media player.

I think you are correct that it is the Netgear EVA8000, now EOL (as its successor the 9150) as it does not support Windows 7 anyway (which I use), but as I stream from the WHS that has never been a problem for me. I am very reluctant to go and buy another new media player especially the very latest Netgear model just launched (due to their terrible support, which when things go wrong they just make it EOL and bring out another model and leave the users high and dry).

Colin

[Steve]

Have you tried with a smaller library as a test . I'm just wondering if it falls over  on a particular media title or length of title, as you can get some pretty odd names with non alpha numeric characters.

If you fancy trying another media server which stores the media on SMB shares have a look at Vortexbox @ http://vortexbox.org


You could try setting up an account for the EVA 8000 on the server and then log  on to the share with user permissions.

[wecpcs]

Have you tried with a smaller library as a test . I'm just wondering if it falls over  on a particular media title or length of title, as you can get some pretty odd names with non alpha numeric characters.

If you fancy trying another media server which stores the media on SMB shares have a look at Vortexbox @ http://vortexbox.org


You could try setting up an account for the EVA 8000 on the server and then log  on to the share with user permissions.

Hi Steve, I have tried it again when I did a fresh install on the other PC I was given, with only 4 albums and it bombed out straightaway with the same error.

I do not really want to buy another media player because of the cost and the eventual cost of the new version of WHS which I think will be rather high, hence the PREMIUM suffix and the fact that it is being aimed at small businesses despite it being called HOME server. Also that was the reason they pulled the drive extender technology because it did not work well with some apps the small businesses are using.

I will try setting up an account for it when I next try, after I have rebuilt my server using the newer PC and relegate my existing one for Vail.

Colin