Some files won't play from share, but will from direct usb connection

What version of Windows Home Server?

There’s a thread around here somewhere (but for the life of me I can’t find it – can’t be more than a week or two old but my searches aren’t revealing it) that someone running a WHS had to do something (yeah, big help) in order to get his files to play.  That might be the problem here, but without being able to locate that thread I can’t be more helpful.

But it was version 2008 of WHS, that much I do remember (whether that applies to other versions I don’t know).

I am using WHS with server 2003 as a backend, I’ll look into testing some things on that idea I just still fail to see how in the same disk on the server, in the same shared folder two files of identical codecs one plays and the other will not.  I’m sure it’s something silly that I’m just not seeing, but it really seems like this little device is quite picky.

Well, just to give you a “for instance” it might be something to do with the filename that WHS doesn’t like (or passes through a different way).

For a long time the whole “case sensitive” issue with thumbnails threw me in a similar manner.

You could always try renaming one of those problematic files to something really simple (like “one.avi”) and see if that helps any.

xyexz wrote:

I really appreciate the reply, but as I said, when moving from the server to the usb external drive, (without any modification/re-encoding of the file), it was able to play direct from USB just fine.

Also I’m accessing these files from my server through a network share from an ntfs drive, so I fail to see how my server could be to blame as long as the file shows up on the WD TV Live, unless I’m missing something?

Your reply shows me why you have the problem!!

Some files do play and some files don’t play via your media server therefore there must be ‘something’ different between your files. Maybe the actual makeup of the file or even someting like the naming. As they play OK directly this means that the WDTV can play them but somehow the media server does not send them or allow them to play.

Have you tried playing the files via network shares.

xyexz wrote:

I am using WHS with server 2003 as a backend, I’ll look into testing some things on that idea I just still fail to see how in the same disk on the server, in the same shared folder two files of identical codecs one plays and the other will not.  I’m sure it’s something silly that I’m just not seeing, but it really seems like this little device is quite picky.

How can the device be picky when you say that you can actually play all these files if you access them from a directly connected device. You have to have an open mind when trouble shooting these problems.

It doesn’t have to be my whs install, it could also be the wd tv live :D.

If you read my 2nd reply you’ll see that I mentioned I’m accessing all these files via network shares, I gave up on the file streaming through wmplayer or anything else as it’s never as efficient as a plain jane network share.

As I do a lot of application development professionally I decided to write an small application that watches a directory for new movie files and cleans up the names of the files using regex and moves them to the folder that is shared on the network that the wdtv has access to, it renames all files to show.name.here.S00E00.avi.  Every single file I have has the same naming structure this way and keeps everything orderly.  Given that detail I really can’t see there being an issue with naming convention although that was a good suggestion because that sort of thing has burned me elsewhere in unrelated scenarios with unrelated tech.

I really think it’s something with the way WD TV is mounting the network share due to the fact that sometimes the video folder doesn’t show up and other times it does, most times I just have to back out a couple of times and come back in before it’ll show the directory where I house all my videos.

If I fire up one of my laptops, go to the same network share (which always shows the video folder) and launch the file through the network share with windows media player, vlc or any other application capable of playing the said unplayable (over the network share) file it plays without a hitch, so I can’t see it being something with my server not serving the file correctly, (how many ways are there to serve a file anyways? :smiley: )

I did check all the file attributes and did a compare of files that won’t play and files that will play and all are completely identical.  So I have two files with identical codecs and identical permissions/attributes but only one will play.

Certainly odd…

I don’t think you read what I wrote correctly or took it in the correct context.  Picky as in it plays one way, but decides it doesn’t want to play another way… “picky”, or perhaps “choosy”?

Okay, but as an application programmer (I did it for 30+ years) you have to know that the first step in troubleshooting is to try and isolate the problem, and I really think you should at least rename ONE of the problematic videos to something very simple (like “test.avi”) just to see.

If it still fails to play then you know it wasn’t the name, but without trying that you can’t eliminate that possibility (because “assuming” things is the biggest downfall in programming :>)  With that possibility eliminated perhaps we can think of something else (at the moment I’m out of ideas, but you never know )

Right, I know all about assumptions haha.  I’ve tried renaming for the sake of the remote possibility of a “no-way” solution but no luck.

I have the same problem. I have video files in a ISO format, and can’t play the files when they a stored on a network server (In this case a Synology). AVi, VOB, MKV. DivX - no problem. But when copied to a USB HDD drive, there is no problem playing the ISO video files… Strange ??  :cry:

GreystoneDK wrote:

I have the same problem. I have video files in a ISO format, and can’t play the files when they a stored on a network server (In this case a Synology). AVi, VOB, MKV. DivX - no problem. But when copied to a USB HDD drive, there is no problem playing the ISO video files… Strange ??  :cry:

How are you playing them. Do you connect to the Synology via network shares or media server.

If it is via the server button then it may be that the Synology server is compatible with the iso format. Try network shares and see if that works.

Hey - You’re right… It works with network shares…

Thanx…:smileyvery-happy:

I am also experiencing this issue with my WDTV LIVE (WDBAAN0000NBK) with firmware v1.02.21.

I am trying to play AVI files from a network share and some files won’t play, but if copied to a USB drive and played locally to the WDTV, then it works fine. Other files work fine both over the network and locally.

My network share is just a shared folder on Windows 7 x64 Home Premium computer.

I am connected to my windows machine via a Buffalo Technology Nfiniti Wireless-N Ultra Compact (WLI-UC-GN) adatper through a D-Link DGL-4500 802.11n wireless router (not that this should make a difference).

Has anyone come up with a fix or workaround or heard a response from WD?

I got the same problem. I enabled my network shares and for the first share folder it worked nice, so i created some more, but i am unable to play any file of my new shared folders…pretty strange. i tried reset, restore factory defaults, putting it off for 15 minutes, renew the network connection, renew/change all shared folders, connect via cable instead of wlan…nothing worked. is this a bug or a serious hardware problem? external devices via usb work fine btw…

i’m starting to become a little upset… :cry:

My firmware is up to date (1.02.21) and i am using a TP-Link TL-WR941ND 300 Mbps W-Lan Router and a TP-Link TL-WN821N 300 Mbps W-Lan USB Adapter.

I have the same issue.  I opened a share folder on my laptop and my WD TV Live can access all the AVI’s.  Then I added 3 news AVI’s to the same folder.  But I cannot play them on the WD.  I can copy them to a USB device and they work just fine, but not from the share folder on the laptop.  The other AVI’s still work from the share, but not the 3 added today.

I just tried something new.  If I copy the AVI’s that would not play to a new folder on the laptop and share that new folder, the files will now play.  Just thought I’d share that so others with this issue can try it on their end.

Then it may be a permissions thing on those particular files (worth trying to copy them back to your original computer with a different name and then see if they can play – if they can’t then it’s some kind of permission thing on folder level).

Having exactly the same problem, I think I found what it is.

When a network share is created, the files that are already in it can be accessed and play fine. However, if sometimes later you copy other files into the share, the newer files will appear on the WDTV but they could not be accessed (played). 

Any other network end-point (like a laptop) would still be able to access and play these files. I also found that if you remove shares from the network, they are still listed.

My conclusion is that there is a bug in the WDTV firmware that caches the files table from the network share, but it fails to update them when files are added or removed. 

The only workaround that I found (besides renaming the share) is to turn off the WDTV and disconnect the power for a few seconds. When it is restarts later, the cache will be cleared and once again you’ll be able to play all the files.

This is really annoying - someone should report this bug to WD.

Nice find bigAl, I’ll give it a go later.

It is quite crazy that the WDTV is caching this stuff, especially between sessions (ie power on/off). Obviously, as from other posts, the power off button is not that since it stays so warm after turning it “off”.

Come on WDTV, what are you going to do about this? Please respond.

Welcome to the forums.

Unfortunately, I cannot reproduce that bug (i.e.: I can copy or delete files from my net shares and the Live reacts just fine without having to reboot it – I do this all the time, in fact).  Now, I will say that I am not in the same folder on the Live at the time (that is, I need to either go out of the folder and then come back in or be in another folder for it to refresh but I don’t think that’s unreasonble).

I’m not saying it isn’t a problem in your setup, or that it may not be a problem with others, only that it doesn’t work that way for me – so we’d have to have more people test this out to find out exactly where the problem is (yeah, I know, WD ought to be doing this instead of us, but they don’t seem to have a lot of interest in net shares as a playing approach, even if a whole lot of us think that’s the best way to use this thing).

Perhaps others reading this can try this out in their system and report the results in this thread.