[johnny1987]

Hi guys,

First time poster. I just set up my first HTPC using an Intel NUC and Kodi on Openelec. For the most part its all running great but im having one problem which is making the experience painful. Ive searched for solutions and there seems to be a lot of conflicting info about this so id like to try and clear it all up if i can and get to the bottom of the problem.

Basically my setup consists of the HTPC in the lounge connected via Ethernet to a 'Netgear R8000' Router. I have a hard drive connected directly to the USB port on the router to share my media files. Kodi detects this no worries on the network and was able to add all my movies and tv shows to the library using SMB via the file browser. All files play flawlessly after the library is set up.

The problem im having is when i either reboot, or if the HTPC is suspended for and extended period of time, Kodi seems to lose connection to the media folder and when i try to play any file it tells me that 'File is no longer available. Would i like to remove it from the library.'
To fix the issue i either have to choose the network drive again and re-scrape, or wait and extended period of time and it may detect it again.

I have no idea why its doing this as the network drive is clearly available.

I also have a folder of music and pictures on my windows desktop which id like kodi to detect whenever my desktop is swiched on. This also seems to have issues with detecting the drive if kodi is running before i boot my desktop.

Any help would be much appreciated guys. This issue is really ruining the experience and i dont want to have to update the scan folder every time i want to watch something.

Cheers.

-Johnny

[Prof Yaffle]

Just as a test... before you wake up/boot the HTPC, get another PC and navigate to the shared hard drive. List something - anything. Then wake up the HTPC and see if you have the problem.

My guess would be that something's going to sleep, and thus the file(s) aren't available when Kodi goes looking for them.

[johnny1987]

Thanks for your reply Yaffle.
Unfortunately this doesnt seem to be the issue. I played a movie from the drive on my desktop and then switched on the HTPC and had the same problem. I knew this would be the case anyway because as soon as i restart the HTPC i get this issue. So it could be working one minute. then as soon as i restart it will fail to detect the drive.

[johnny1987]

Just to update....Left it for 5 minutes and now its detecting the files. Id really like to get to the bottom of why there is a delay though.

[Prof Yaffle]

Hmm. It still feels like a timing issue to me - the question is 'timing of what'. Not sure if a debug log would give a view or not....

Other things I'd look at:

1. Can you use NFS instead of SMB?
2. Can you mount the remote share in OE rather than using Kodi's SMB client?
3. Can you use UPnP to share the files from the router rather than using either SMB or NFS?

If you get the problem every time you restart the HTPC then that suggests that the fault's at the client, not the server - so it's not the remote HDD going to sleep, for example.

OE has options to wait for network, so is it that... how are you getting an IP address for the OE machine, could you use a static or pre-assigned address (i.e. fixed DHCP allocation), what does that do.

[johnny1987]

upnp as i understand it doesn't allow library mode? Ill look into the other options you mentioned in the morning thanks again. I didnt even realize you could add folders through open elec. the settings i saw for that were only basic.

[Prof Yaffle]

UPnP does provide a degree of library sharing IIRC, though it's not as good as a 'real' library - but it would help isolate the problem, in that if a video plays immediately then you've eliminated the hardware (though not whether there's some delay in the SMB response of your router - for that, you'd need to share it from some other device).

OE can mount from the command line, so (and I'm remembering earlier versions here) you could use an autostart script to mount a remote share so Kodi sees the files as genuinely local. That would eliminate Kodi's SMB/NFS clients, but not the router's, although it would perhaps start the timeout clock (assuming it's that) ticking earlier in the boot process, which might buy you something; add a few seconds delay in and you'd be working. Hardly a seamless experience, granted, but it might be good enough.

Sharing the same drive from another system using the same protocol would be another test. Likewise, check to see if the RSS ticker is live on Kodi as you boot - that's a good indicator of whether your LAN connection is up and running or not.

[johnny1987]

Okay thanks mate what ive done is go into the open elec settings and tick the box that says 'wait for network before booting' and it seems to have fixed the issue. Ill keep you updated if anything else goes wrong. Thanks again!

[shadow]

I recommend using autofs to mount the shares on demand I started using it to fix the same problems you were having and it is great.

Here is some documentation
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Autofs

[johnny1987]

Thanks for that mate ill see how it works over the next few days and if i have any more issues ill look into autofs