[moloc]

Appletv 2, iOS 3, jailbroken with Seasonpass.
Using the latest nightly build.

I bought a refurbished Appletv2 about a week and a half ago, I jailbroke it using Seasonpass and installed the latest nightly build of xbmc. I got the unit set up and it worked perfectly for about 5 days. Xbmc can no longer see my media from my Windows 7 desktop or my workgroup as a whole.

XBMC is connected to my media though a smb share to a computer running Windows 7. One day it stopped working and says “share not found”. If I try to add a new file source and browse to my workgroup XBMC can’t see anything (including the workgroup itself) and If I manually type in the correct address it still says share not found.

My network is wired from my Windows 7 machine to my ATV2 unit using cat5e/6 trough a gigabit router.

I am still able to SSH and FTP into the Appletv2 device so I don’t think it’s a network connectivity issue. I am able to connect to the same Windows 7 machine using UPNP though PS3 Media Server. This isn’t an ideal solution as I was planning to migrate my media to a unraid server and connect to that using smb but since held off because I of this problem.

In addition to what I mentioned above I deleted my userdata folder for xbmc to restore it to default thinking I did something to it. I still am unable to see my workgroup.

FYI, I also installed a windows copy of xbmc on my laptop, and I am able to see my workgroup and add paths accordingly.

Any help would be appreciated I am not sure what to do now.

[bootmonster]

Have you tried creating an SMB share on the laptop and see if the ATV can see that? Best to rule out the PC before you start messing around with the ATV itself.

[moloc]

No I didnt create a share on my laptop. But I have a few desktops in my home with shares already. Before my atv could see those computers (using the browse function) altough I never did add them. I could try to add them manually but as I said above I couldnt see my workgroup.

On the Win 7 machine with the media files the permissions for the folder is set to everyone etc.

At work atm so I can't try it out but when I get home I will.

[keith]

Guys,
These are Windows Networking 101 issues.

The core of the issue is this.

Windows has whats called a 'master browser'. This is the main machine that it uses to 'query' what is shared. How it decides who is the 'master browser' is through a 'master browser election' where every machine is given a 'weigh' and then the one with the highest 'weight' is who wins.

Still with me? Sounds easy enough right? Where here's how it gets screwed up.

The same version of Windows has the same browser weigh. So you have 5 XP boxes and 1 ATV2? Guess what, your master browser could change. And then shares will be screwed up.

Commonly, the easiest way to fix this is to setup a linux box, where you can modify the master browser weigh to be a higher number than all of the Windows machines. That way every election it wins, so it always knows whats up. Thats how I make Windows networking 'reliable'.

Easiest fix: always go by IP. Never rely on Windows file sharing to 'browse' your stuff properly.

Ways to fix browsing:
1) via a reghack, on one machine, change the weigh of the browser to something obscene high so this machine always wins. Hope it stays on the network all the time.
2) Via a reghack on all machines, switching the 'Preferred Master Browser' bit to 'No' on all machines but one, making sure that one stays on all the time.
3) Stop using SMB (windows file sharing) and use FTP or uPNP or something else
4) Stop using Windows.

I vote 4.

Info on this:
http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/...index.html

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/188001/en-us

[moloc]

Going on your advice, I migrated my meida to a linux file server. It took a few days as I needed to get a new motherboard. Everything works smoothly now on the atv2.

Thank you very much for the very informative links.

[rflores2323]

4) Stop using Windows.

I vote 4.

[RussK]

>Commonly, the easiest way to fix this is to setup a linux box, where you can modify the master browser weigh to be a higher number than all of the Windows machines.

I have the same problem. Hacked ATV2 with XMBC, 3 xp boxes and a boxee box. I want the AV2 to see the shared H/d looked up to the boxee. All the windows computers can see it fine, and the boxee can see all the windows computers.

Any details on reg editing a windows box to raise the broswer weight?

[zooms99]

I had the exact same problem and this is the first thread that seems to make any sense of it. i have done quite a bit of research on master browsers and i have finally found what i believe is a solution.

what was happening to me was my wife's iphone was somehow messing up the master browser elections. my atv2 would work fine one day and then not see the workgroup, or my computer on the workgroup, the next day. yesterday i could see WORKGROUP under smb connections in XBMC, but no computer in that group. i had my wife turn off her iphone's wifi and that workgroup went away (the iphone was not the master browser, but was still screwing up the smb share). i then set a custom workgroup name on my pc (win 7) and restarted, that way i could make sure the workgroup showing up was my pc's not the iphone (or somebody hacking my wifi). that workgroup then showed up when my wifes iphone was still off (i had restarted several times before that with no change). it's very consistent: turn on wifi some smb error, turn off wifi pc's workgroup comes back.

here are a couple on websites that explain how to fix this (other than the always useful suggestion of 'switch to linux').

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/135404
(go most of the way to the bottom, just above the "status" section for the reg tweak and the services.msc tweak)

http://www.windowsnetworking.com/kbase/w...owser.html
(this is for NT/XP, my reg key is "MaintainServerList").

what i did that fixed the problem was in services.msc i changed the computer browser to automatic. i also changed the "MaintainServerList" reg key from 'auto' to 'yes'. i then added the "IsDomainMaster" string and made that 'yes' too. now i can see the pc's workgroup, the pc, and all the shared files in xbmc. hope that helps.