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**scott967** · (This post was last modified: 2014-11-25, 00:47 by scott967.)

I didn't notice this before, but since updating to 1174 (on Win 8.0), whenever a XBMC/Kodi client starts, the Server (I assume) keeps trying to access my floppy drive (Windows drive A: ) which is kind of noisy. It does it pretty much continuously when the client gets the channel list, recordings, and EPG, and then about once every 5 seconds no matter what is being done on XBMC/Kodi. Nothing shows up in server log suggesting why it is trying to access the floppy.

I watched it in procmon, and couldn't see that it was actually attempting to read from drive A (neither any other process) so I can't figure out what is going on.

scott s.
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scarecrow420 · 2014-11-25, 04:22

One of the features implemented in build 1174 is providing the drive space remaining/free back to XBMC/Kodi as it is now displayed on the Kodi System Info page.

The code to do this loops through each drive on the system which in hindsight seems a bad way to do it as it seems a fair bet that this is causing your floppy to "ready up". I dont have a floppy drive these days so I didnt see this in testing. Unfortunately there is no way to disable this from occurring so for now if it's annoying you, and assuming you dont just want to disconnect the floppy for the time being, you should probably roll back to an earlier build (noting that 1171 had an issue for certain channel lineup problems, so perhaps the one prior is best).

I will make some changes to retrieve the drive space usage in a different/better way, perhaps I'll also include an option to switch it off in the config file.

The only confusing thing about what you're saying is that what I implemented will only loop through the drives no more than every 30 seconds and only when there are clients online and sending in "Heartbeat" messages. If no heartbeats are received from clients then it would be even less frequent than 30 seconds. Certainly not every 5 seconds

krustyreturns · 2014-11-25, 06:13

Floppy drives in 2014? I think you can just go into device manager and disable the floppy drive (rather than disconnecting it), until we get a fix out.

scarecrow420 · 2014-11-26, 03:21

also if you make the drive letter higher than your recorded TV drive. EG if recorded drive is D, you could make flopper E or greater, then we shouldnt spin it up

Also krusty found a doofus mistake I made with the 30 second backoff not working, so actually it would be spinning up as frequently as a client heartbeat comes in, rather than only ever 30 seconds

**scott967** · 2014-11-26, 03:38

I suppose like some folks I have re-purposed old PC as HTPC. Have to admit I don't know when the last time was I used a floppy. I think I will go into the BIOS and turn off the controller (I assume Win 8 won't mind -- maybe using device manager is a better idea). BTW -- how to you get that drive space available on the client side , can't figure it out?

This may or may not be related, but I am also getting client problems:

Code:
DEBUG: AddOnLog: PVR WMC Client: ReadResponse ERROR - recv failed, Err: 10060

ERROR: AddOnLog: PVR WMC Client: Socket::GetVector> error getting responses

DEBUG: AddOnLog: PVR WMC Client: Socket::GetVector> Retrying in 1000ms

I'm seeing this both Kodi 14 Beta 4 client 0.3.106 and XBMC 13.1 client 0.2.99 (running on same remote PC). It seems to retry and sort itself out and I don't see any issue, only from going through logs, so might not be server 1174 related.

scott s.
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scarecrow420 · (This post was last modified: 2014-11-26, 05:18 by scarecrow420.)

It seems to be a long standing problem that affects only some of us. Way back when I first came on board, I found pvr.wmc/ServerWMC to have connectivity problems on my home setup, often getting a Connection Refused 10060 socket error and thus not getting the response to the message it sent. I added in the retry logic on pvr.wmc which I suppose is a bandaid but generally it masks the problem so well that nobody except you has even mentioned it as far as I know. Alot of debug XBMC logs I see posted, dont exhibit the problem, so it seems to only be certain setups. The problem lies on the ServerWMC side I think, since it is a connection refused error, but since it doesnt really have much impact with the retry logic in place, I havent pursued it further

In relation to how to see the drive space, you need pvr.wmc 0.3.107 which unfortunately didnt get included in Kodi Helix because they were only accepting crash fixes and that is more an enhancement, so we will probably have to build our own version of it and make available on the download page. Once you have 0.3.107 you can see the used/free drive space info on the System Info page, and also I believe those fields are available to skinners to present wherever they feel like it

**scott967** · 2014-12-05, 13:17

Just to close the loop server 1175 works great and I turned my floppy back on -- everything nice and quiet. I've been working on MODs to Aeon MQ 5 for Helix, and with 0.3.108 client I added support for the disk space. Works great:

scott s.
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krustyreturns · 2014-12-05, 17:57

Thanks for following up. That looks awesome, are you going to share the mod?

**scott967** · 2014-12-05, 23:18

My Aeon MQ 5 mod for Helix thread is here:
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=208801

Current release is 6.1.3 which is mainly compatibility fixes and some stuff left over from Gotham to work in Helix (tested in RC2). I plan on a 6.1.4 release with new Helix features (mainly, the EPG views I think that need skin support) but don't expect to release until after Helix goes final (my impression is that will be very soon).

I did find one bug that might be of interest in this forum. In the PVR views Helix now has the ability to show channel number as ATSC virtual major.minor channel if "use backend channel numbers" is selected in the settings. I don't know if I did anything in the past in WMC or ServerWMC but just turning on that setting gave me the new channel numbers. The bug is in the channel group manager, where you can create or edit groups of channels. When channels are not members of the selected channel group, instead of getting major.minor as the channel number you see 0.minor for those channels (in-group channels have correct major.minor). A fix has been developed but it is going to be post-14.0 I guess. This only affects the group manager dialog, and it's really a display issue (not functionality) so isn't a big deal. Separately I think there was a PR committed that will cause Helix to remember the current selected channel group and that will be used on next program start.

scott s.
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krustyreturns · 2014-12-06, 02:53

Thanks for the info Scott.