[KenV99]

I have been able to replicate the problem.
If I start swmc on one machine while no other copy of swmc is running anywhere, then that machine works fine.
However if I start another copy on a different machine after the first is running, then that machine has the same issue.
I tested this on both machines in each direction.
This is despite using a different port for communication with XBMC on one machine.

I'm wondering if they are creating some type of conflict over the network. Either directly from machine to machine or at the tuner level, although the tuner is able to correctly identify that they are coming from different IP addresses. I have both set to prestart the tuner.

[krustyreturns]

Please explain again (simply), why you want two instances of ServerWMC running? And what are they sharing?

just fyi, serverwmc is meant to only run on one machine, I am having trouble wrapping my head around why you would want two.

[KenV99]

I have a work machine upstairs that is used as a normal computer. Heavy photo editing. It's the faster computer. I also test everything out on this machine before I put it on the HTPC to make sure I don't break anything there. The HTPC is only hooked to the plasma and is difficult to troubleshoot on. It's only used for XBMC related stuff. Rarely WMC for Netflix. That machine is connected to the HDHomerun directly through an unmanaged gigabit switch.
Since that machine would be the primary user of the tuners, I would want to try to keep the heavy traffic between the two from clogging up the rest of the network. So that machine needs to be running swmc.

For testing and occasionally if there is a show on while I am working, I would want to be able to view TV on my work machine. I guess it could access the server on the other machine in order to receive the stream from it rather than having the server run separately on the work machine and access the tuner directly.

Neither machine is sharing anything.

---

I guess I was under the wrong assumption that it would work similar to the way it would if I was running WMC on two different machines. That each would independently access a free tuner without causing conflict.

[krustyreturns]

Thanks for explaining. To be honest I can't think right now why what you are trying to do is failing.

However its not meant to run this way, only one version of serverwmc is supposed to be on your network, and all other machines are clients of it. Two separate swmc's, with networked tuners, won't be able to arbitrate the tuner use. Also the scheduled recordings between the two different machines are different, recordings are different, etc.

It seems it would be the same with wmc. Suppose you have only one networked tuner and you scheduled two different recordings on the two different machines but at the same time. They have to conflict, since the two wmc databases don't share information, only you won't know about the conflict until recording time.

[KenV99]

I guess since my box provides three tuners, I thought that it would dynamically allocate a tuner to whichever server requested access to one. For myself, I would want to record the stream on the HTPC if all I was intending to do was watch it. But if I planned to edit and share a recording with a friend, I would want to record it on my work machine where I have the Adobe Creative Suite installed. This actually came up today when I wanted to record a show about the food renaissance in Harlem for a friend that lives in Harlem.

The good news is after configuring my firewall and setting the correct permissions, I have the upstairs machine talking swmc on the HTPC and everything works as expected. I can just move the files upstairs after they've been recorded.

Thanks once again for all of your help.

[scarecrow420]

I guess the way I look at it is that these networked tuners are sort of a convenience thing - ie you can move it between PCs without having to actually move a USB deviuce (or worse, a PIC card). But are they designed for multiple devices to use them simultaneously? Does it work properly with 2 different WMC accessing the same networked tuner? Id be interested if you could test that out...

I would have to slightly disagree with krusty's statement that you should only ever have 1 ServerWMC installation on a network. You can have as many ServerWMC as you like, as long as each one has exclusive access to a tuner device/s. For example in my case I have a "dev" PC running ServerWMC and it's own USB dual HD tuner... then I have a "production" HTPC that the family use, with it's own dedicated USB dual HD tuner. I also have a couple of client XBMCs that hook up to the HTPC (although for testing purposes, I can point them at my dev server instead). This means I can develop in isolation without affecting the families viewing/XBMC etc. Sort of similar to how you are wanting to test things out in your work/study, before deploying them to your lounge room (where the wife/family expect things to "just work"). But yeah, if you really wanted to do this I would reccomend getting yourself a dedicate tuner for the work machine. And of course as krusty mentions, you are then not sharing recordings or anything between those 2 environments. It sounds like for your usage though (wanting to video edit the odd recording) that you should just be using the one HTPC server, and copy the recordings to your PC when you want to edit them etc. When it comes to updating to new versions, schedule some downtime with the family (or burn the midnight oil) and deploy the new version and do some basic testing, before you have irate users the next day

These network tuners are interesting... I dont have one but would love to play with one, I dont even know if they work for australian broadcast stuff or if they are only for american cable cards etc? Perhaps if they had support in their drivers/setup program, to only present certain tuners to certain PCs you could set up something. It also would be interesting if there was a way to flag at the device level that you took a tuner and what the usage is for (eg when we take a tuner we flag that ServerWMC has it, and we also have access to know when WMC has a tuner etc, so then when we are later searching for a spare tuner we can make some decisions based on this). I guess from what krusty said this information is stored in the WMC database and not on/in the tuner itself, so if you have different WMC setups you presumably cant tell that another owner has taken a tuner. Also if you had prestart tuners turned on on either of your ServerWMC installations, that would complicate things since they would always be tying up a tuner (so turning this off and rebooting would be an idea).

[krustyreturns]

You are right of course, I am running two serverwmc's too - the same way you are. Occasionally I'll point the devel machine to the main media server and then forget to switch back. Which usually doesn't cause a problem, unless you are debugging file deletion.. my son eventually forgave me.

[KenV99]

I think that both models make sense. There is not much configuration that can be done at the tuner level via their software. But having a way of assigning a tuner to a device or have a way of making certain requests a priority would make things much better. Kind of like a QOS system.

It looks like SiliconDust is planning a release for the European and Australian market this quarter: http://www.silicondust.com/forum2/viewto...b&start=60

[charleslam]

http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=129569

Having same error. problem is, my set up is simpler still. only one swmc directly connected to cable box via capture card. PVR client connects to itself (127.0.0.1) tried uninstalling both pvr and swmc to no avail. as for the recordings, i get a "recording deleted" message in xbmc. in wmc, streaming comes in fine. the only thing that is out of the ordinary was it was working on my old tv tuner card *RIP*...asus mycinema, you served me well. and i had to do the wmc setup all over again with a hauppauge 1250. everything is functional in wmc. xbmc no likey the new card.

[scarecrow420]

We need to see your ServerWMC log rather than the XBMC log if you could upload it to pastebin... There is info on how to do this in the forum stickies and wiki for ServerWMC, if you need more guidance

[charleslam]

reinstalled xbmc altogether. functions now. me thinks something still sticks around when uninstalling serverwmc or the pvr.wmc plug in. just reporting in and giving you guys more pieces to the puzzle.

[krustyreturns]

Thanks for following up. just fyi, on the swmc side, the config.xml file is let over when reinstalling.

[JWise1203]

For anyone that has this issue, it turns out for me that I did not have enough free space for my recorded storage drive. Once I fixed that issue I was able to use ServerWMC just fine.