Smart TV and connecting to usb on xbmc
#1
Hi again,

i have 2 tvs. One in bedroom where i also have raspberypi and one in livingroom.

before i had xbmc frodo and i could easily browse from my smart tv in livingroom to raspberryPi and on to the usb drive.
Now that i have kodi i cant. I can get into the tv shows library and movies library, but i also have unsorted stuff on
usb and i dont have a library for. And when i want to open "Files" and my usb drive it says "error connecting to server"
(best translation from my language). Is there a permission problem or something?

Regards,
HEki
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#2
How is your TV trying to access the Pi? It may need samba enabled on the Pi for it to work. What operating system are you running on your Pi?
/ OSMC on Raspberry Pi 3 / Kodi 17 RC / FireTV Stick /
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#3
Hello,

i have samba enabled ... i used NOOBS to intsall "KODI XBMC 14.2" i think.

Thank you for your answere.
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#4
(2015-05-05, 12:17)HEki Wrote: Hello,

i have samba enabled ... i used NOOBS to intsall "KODI XBMC 14.2" i think.

Thank you for your answere.

Without more information on exactly what you're trying to do, not sure how much help we can give you.

You can use NOOBS to install OSMC. I've found OSMC works really well out of the box. You might want to give that a try to see if it works better for you.

Here's images you can write to your SD Card if you'd like:
OSMC Disk Images
/ OSMC on Raspberry Pi 3 / Kodi 17 RC / FireTV Stick /
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#5
I am not sure to what informations you are reffering Sad I am sorry.

I will try to explain again what i am trying to do Smile
I have Pi connected over network in my bedroom (utp cable). On this Pi i have an external HD over usb. Lets call it HEki.

Before when i had "frodo" i was able to watch movies on my smart tv in my living room over netwrok directly
from the HEki (not from libraries, but was able to browse the HEki ...). All i had to do was go into media center on my smart tv
and search for Pi and there i could select HEki.

Now with "kodi" i see Pi in mediacenter, i also see the libraries (music library and tv library) and i can watch/listen to
everything that is in this libraries. The problem is that i have a directory on HEki, that is not linked to any library ... and
now i cant access that directory, because everytime i try to select HEki i get error "Cant connect to the server" or "server
refuse the connection".

Hope this clears what i am trying to achive Sad.

Regards
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#6
(2015-05-05, 13:37)HEki Wrote: I am not sure to what informations you are reffering Sad I am sorry.

I will try to explain again what i am trying to do Smile
I have Pi connected over network in my bedroom (utp cable). On this Pi i have an external HD over usb. Lets call it HEki.

Before when i had "frodo" i was able to watch movies on my smart tv in my living room over netwrok directly
from the HEki (not from libraries, but was able to browse the HEki ...). All i had to do was go into media center on my smart tv
and search for Pi and there i could select HEki.

Now with "kodi" i see Pi in mediacenter, i also see the libraries (music library and tv library) and i can watch/listen to
everything that is in this libraries. The problem is that i have a directory on HEki, that is not linked to any library ... and
now i cant access that directory, because everytime i try to select HEki i get error "Cant connect to the server" or "server
refuse the connection".

Hope this clears what i am trying to achive Sad.

Regards

Try going into System > Services And turn on everything in UPnP, Zeroconf, and AirPlay.
Your TV might be using one of these services to access media.
/ OSMC on Raspberry Pi 3 / Kodi 17 RC / FireTV Stick /
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#7
Ok ty man,

ill give it a try today when i get home!!
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#8
Sadly that didnt work eather ...?
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#9
Well i found out 1 more thing ... even if i go with windows explorer to the device via name, the Mybook shows no content ... if i go over ip everything works like a charm ... hope someone can help me out.
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#10
(2015-05-13, 16:12)HEki Wrote: Well i found out 1 more thing ... even if i go with windows explorer to the device via name, the Mybook shows no content ... if i go over ip everything works like a charm ... hope someone can help me out.
It's very difficult to understand what exactly you are doing. That's not entirely your fault: now-a-days computers "hide" certain information from users because terms like "IP address", "Samba" and "protocol" confuse people. Computer users aren't forced anymore to know what exactly they are doing, unless it goes wrong, like in your case.

For instance, I do not know what you mean by "Mybook". Is that the directory on the Pi's hard disk in your sleeping room that you'd like to access? And you say:
Quote:If i go over ip everything works like a charm

Do you mean that when you type in the IP address of your Pi that everything works like you're used to? Remember that the so called "host name" of a computer, that is used by a "protocol" to share files and folders, is not always the most reliable way to connect to a computer. One had better use IP address. I don't know why, but remote host names are sometimes "remembered" by your computer and then they are displayed even though your PC does not "see" the actual remote computer anymore. And sometimes host names cannot be seen in the network whereas IP addresses always are visible. Confusing isn't it?

Anyway, I'd start by jotting down IP addresses of all computers in the network (including the TV if thats possible). I'd set my router so that every MAC address (i.e. every computer) has a fixed IP address (i.e. that IP addresses are NOT dynamically assigned). Not that that will solve your problem instantly, but it'll help dressing the bottleneck.

I personally do not share files that are on my Pi, but I'd like to hear from somebody who knows more about the inner workings of Kodi how they are shared per default. Because when I myself hook up an USB hard disk to my Pi then I can "see" it when I connect to my Pi via SSH. It's in the directory /media/disk_name/ like it should be. But is it also shared via NFS? Is it per definitin also shared w/ the Samba protocol? And if so: what's the password? When you've got the answers to those questions then you can use said protocol on your Smart TV to "look" for the disk that is shared by your Pi. Again: confusing isn't it?

Chances are that the Pi shares said disk/folder via Samba (i.e. CIFS) and that that's the protocol which your TV uses. If a Windows computer can "see" a folder on the Pi then it's probably shared w/ Samba.

[edit] I use Linux on my desktop PC and to determine what sharing protocols are used by the computers in my network I use the following command:
Code:
sudo nmap -sS 192.168.0.100-120

Using that command I see that my Pi (which always has the IP address 192.168.0.104 in my house) uses SSH (i.e. SFTP) to share it's files (and something named "Zeus", dunno what that is). No Samba/CIFS. So maybe your Smart TV used SFTP in the past to connect to the Pi or you used to have Samba enabled on your Pi somehow.

Good luck Smile
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#11
Thank you for your reply.

What i am trying to do is to watch movies on my SMART TV from an usb disk that is connected to the PI (not what i have in the movie library!). Smart TV and PI are in the same network ... 192.168.0.101 smart tv 192.168.0.102 pi. This worked in the past (Frodo xbmc) without a problem. Now (kodi xbmc) i can only watch what i have in the xbmc libraries ...

All my "computers" (smartphones, tablets, pi, notebooks, computers) have static IP addresses. I never liked dhcp ...

In kodi, there is an option in SAMBA section "Auto share external drives" and i have this selected.

MyBook is the name of my usb hard drive connected to the PI.

I think KODI shares stuff diferently than FRODO does.


I tested this with windows this way:
1. I opene explorer and i already see the device KODI. If i open it, i get movie library and music library. If i select movie library i see MyBook usb and
when i click on that i get an error "Error connecting to server". Same as if i use \\kodi\ to get to the device ...

2. I enter in explorer the ip address of the kodi (x.x.x.110) i get all the data (directories on sd card, MyBook, etc) shown and i can select MyBook. Than
it shows everything i have in MyBook.
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#12
I think that's the difference between a UPnP share and a Samba share.

What protocol is your TV trying to use? Samba or UPnP?
/ OSMC on Raspberry Pi 3 / Kodi 17 RC / FireTV Stick /
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#13
(2015-05-15, 13:37)HEki Wrote: I tested this with windows this way:
1. I open explorer and I already see the device KODI. If i open it, i get movie library and music library. If i select movie library i see MyBook usb and
when i click on that i get an error "Error connecting to server". Same as if i use \\kodi\ to get to the device ...
That I do not understand. If you see a computer (the Pi is a computer) in Window's (file) Explorer then it has so called "shares" on it. However, if you enter one of those shares then you do NOT see "a library" or something. You see files and folders. The Library or whatever Explorer shows you will probably be the UPnP share thingy that Leetwanker talks about. I got UPnP working once, but since I've no use for it I did not read up on it.

(2015-05-15, 13:37)HEki Wrote: 2. I enter in explorer the ip address of the kodi (x.x.x.110) i get all the data (directories on sd card, MyBook, etc) shown and i can select MyBook. Than
it shows everything i have in MyBook.
Now THAT's a (proper) old fashioned share! But since you don't know if it's a Samba or an UUPnP share I cannot help you anymore. It seems to me that Leetwanker knows more about UPnP, I hope that he'll help you out.

P.S. Don't you have ANY idea what sort of sharing protocol your TV uses? Isn't it in the manual or something?
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#14
I will look into it! Thx guys i owe u a beer!
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#15
The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that your TV uses UPnP to look for shared stuff on your network. So I'd try to add said external hard disk folder to your library since this site says UPnP on the Pi will only share your library.

1. Settings
Since you mentioned it yourself I take it that jou have installed Kodi 14.2 code name "Helix", just like me. I use the same version. Go to: "System > Settings > Services > UPnP" and enable everything there!

2. Share external HDD via UPnP
Say, for instance, that the folder on your external HDD contains video's you'd like to see on the YV in your sleeping room. In OSMC (i.e. Kodi) go to: "Video's > Files > Your_USB_hard_disk > folder_with_videos". On that folder press "C" for "context menu" on your keyboard. Now use the "Set content" dialog window to set the content of said folder to Movies. On my OSMC/Kodi version my Pi asks then: "Do you want to refresh info for alle items within this path?". I answered "Yes".

Now wait a while for the library to update.

Go to your TV and search the library of your Pi for said movies on the external hard disk of your Pi. And pray that it works.

If you added some new content to the hard disk then, on your Pi, browse to that folder (in "Video > Files") press "C" and choose "Scan for new content" to update the library.

Good luck Smile

P.S. My Pi crashes like a led zeppelin when I try to access the library. Ha ha. I never use the library myself. I always browse files. What a useless piece of junk: that library!
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