Kodi Community Forum

Ok guys, here's my setup:

1. I'm using a Windows 2008r2 Domain.

2. A Windows 2008r2 server with shared folders that have subfolders containing iso images of movies. The advanced sharing options are set correctly and the server and all its shares can be seen on the network.

3. A Windows 8.1 Pro PC that has Kodi 15.2 installed. The advanced sharing options are set correctly here as well.

All machines are current on patches and windows firewall is disabled on the server. I have tried this on two Windows 8.1 machines; one with Outpost Security Suite Pro and the other with Outpost Antivirus Pro; both show the same results.

Here's the problem:

When I try to add a source in Kodi and select SMB, I can see all the machines on the network EXCEPT the machine hosting the iso images. The workaround is to manually add the SMB:<UNC path> in the sources.xml file in order to see the share. If I map a network drive to the share I am also able to see the share as a drive letter, which is what I expected to see. What I don't understand is why can't Kodi see the server when Windows has no problem whatsoever seeing it.

Here's a snippet of the sources.xml file:

<video>
<default pathversion="1"></default>
<source>
<name>General</name>
<path pathversion="1">smb://WINSRV01/SHARED/VIDEOS/GENERAL/</path>
<allowsharing>true</allowsharing>
</source>

Can anyone assist me in figuring out what's going on here?

I can't be sure exactly when this problem started occurring but I can say it didn't occur with an xbmc 12.2.

Thanks,
Jonny

I'm not using 3rd party firewalls on Windows systems since XP-SP3, because since then M$ REALLY makes a good job in implementing a REAL software firewall into their OS's, so 1st idea would be to make sure you DON'T have a third party firewall running. AV-scanners should be ok, though.

I always use the built-in firewall in Windows, all one has to do to make sure it allows smb (File- and Printersharing) inside your private network is to try browsing this local network for the first time using the built-in network explorer and to answer this Explorer's initial question how to handle this (new) network as private/business as soon as it sees it.
Make it 'public' and Windows refuses any smb connections.

Also, if Kodi cannot see certain shares, than that may be because the used firewall was not yet instructed to allow this certain app to do so.

Nonetheless, my preferred way to populate my shares to my clients really is to manually copy my sources.xml and passwords.xml (hope you have one, cause there you should find your Domain-User being (in plain text, sadly) allowed to see and access your shares) over to my new clients (my advancedsettings.xml as well, because I'm using a MariaDB for all clients), and simply let them read it - worked well for a few years now on any OS, including iOS, Android, Windows, OpenELEC, RaspBMC/OSMC - that really always worked 'out of the box' (although all Windows machines needed to be manually taught to open up to their private network as described above...).

You say that your advanced sharing options are set correctly - how are they set, though?