[pangster]

Does anyone have a working solution for sharing files from an iMac to their Android device running XBMC??

I'm running XBMC Frodo RC2 on my ASUS Padfone 2 and it plays local media perfectly (SD card, USB drive etc). The issue I have is that no matter how I seem to configure network shares - I can't get it to play/stream the data from my iMac (I have XBMC Frodo RC2 running on the iMac as well with the same shares as they are on the iMac hard drive).

I've done some searching on here and can't find a definitive answer so thought I'd post the question - hoping someone else would have come across this and have an idea of what's wrong and how to fix/work around.

What I've tried so far:

SMB SHARE (via the sharing option in OSX 10.8.2.):

• File Sharing is enabled (ticked)
  
• Media folders are listed in 'Shared Folders'
  
• Under 'Options' - 'Share files and folders using AFP' is (ticked) as is the option for 'Share files and folders using SMB (Windows)'
  

RESULTS:
This results in me being able to see the files in the shares - it pulls back the filenames, file size details, fanart etc - but when I select the file to play I receive an error message (Playback Failed - One or more items failed to play. Check the log file for details):





UNPNP SHARE (using PS3 Server):
This results on me only being able to see the artwork in the shared folders for some reason? i..e only jpg files and not any video files (avi/MP4 etc) - not sure why this is the case as the exact same setup allows me to access video files on other devices...

Can anyone offer any advice or suggestions around the attached?

[kemonine96]

Can you post the xbmc log file? It will likely shed some insight.

On android it will be in one of the following locations:

• /Android/data/org.xbmc.xbmc/cache/temp/xbmc.log
  
• /sdcard/Android/data/org.xbmc.xbmc/cache/temp/xbmc.log
  
• /data/data/org.xbmc.xbmc/cache/temp/xbmc.log
  

[pangster]

thanks for the prompt reply kemonine96 - I've checked the above locations and done a search for 'xbmc.log' - but nothing has came up?.. is the log file an option that needs to be enabled??

[kemonine96]

It should be auto-created whenever you launch XBMC. Can you try running "cat /data/data/org.xbmc.xbmc/cache/temp/xbmc.log" from a terminal emulator on your device? Also, if you un-installed XBMC or cleared the app data it will delete the log.

[pangster]

I think part of the problem was thinking that the issue might have been at the Android side of things.. when in actual fact it looks as though the issue could be with Mac OSX ML breaking SMB shares!.. a bit more digging and reading and trawling the internet and it seems as though SMBUp is a piece of software which might fix this - downloading just now and will update how I get on -this will hopefully fix the SMB share issue.

Regarding the UPNP issue - I think this has been caused as I run EyeTV software on my iMac (as I use an Elgato Netstream SAT tuner) and this looks as though it could potentially cause conflict with XBMC - so think i could be making progress on both these fronts!! (fingers crossed!!)

[pangster]

UPDATE:
SMBUp has resolved my issues with sharing from my iMac to my ASUS Padfone 2!! streaming now works well. The only apparent issue (which seems to be well documented on here) is that there is no H/W decoding? - so it's all being done by the phone. Not a huge issue as a lot of the files I stream are TV episodes in SD anyway (H.264). I did try some HD and it seemed to stream 720p without any issues and fairly stable - 1080p was a bit laggy/stuttering though.... still can't complain for what is essentially smartphone running SW decoding!! - great stuff!!

Not got round to investigating or resolve the UPNP issue yet - still confident it will be a conflict issue with EyeTV though - will look into when I get more time.

At the minute - I'm VERY happy though!!