Kodi Community Forum

Gentlemen,
it all started with me replacing my router, and having issues with configuring external USB disk plugged into router as a samba share, like I did before. After all, I made my external disk visible as FTP share using software supplied with the router. The disk content is unchanged. Hardware/software I use for Kodi: Intel based PC with fullscale Ubuntu 14.04
Now for the problem - I used to watch VIDEO_TS folders by highlighting (aka selecting) them and clicking Play. I can't do it anymore. Individual video files still played Ok.

Initially I thought that the problem is caused by me also updating my Kodi from Frodo to fresh Jarvis stable release. But I also have some old Kodi installed on FireTV stick, and after re-mapping source for videos from old SAMBA share (which does not exist anymore) to a newly established FTP share, I have same issue on FireTV stick - can't play VIDEO_TS folders. The file content itself is visible, if I descend inside VIDEO_TS I can play individual video files.

So I think the issue may be in switching from SAMBA to FTP, not in Kodi update.
LAST UPDATE: I plugged external disk straight to my Ubuntu PC, to exclude remote share from consideration - and Kodi can play VIDEO_TS folders this way!
So the question - what is wrong in having external disk access configured via FTP? Do I absolutely need it as SAMBA or some other protocol?
Thanks!


Just in case, a small extract from the log:

20:06:19 T:140096630073344 NOTICE: DVDPlayer: Opening: ftp://USERNAME:PASSWORD@<MY FTP SERVER>.asuscomm.com:21/sda1/Boris/Videos/Movies/<MY MOVIE NAME> (2013)/VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.IFO
20:06:19 T:140096630073344 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(player):ut MSGQ_NOT_INITIALIZED
20:06:19 T:140094786762496 NOTICE: Creating InputStream
20:06:20 T:140094786762496 ERROR: CCurlFile::Stat - Failed: FTP: couldn't retrieve (RETR failed) the specified file(19) for ftp://USERNAME:PASSWORD@<MY FTP SERVER>.asuscomm.com:21/sda1/Boris/Videos/Movies/<MY MOVIE NAME> (2013)
20:06:20 T:140094786762496 ERROR: Error on dvdnav_open
20:06:20 T:140094786762496 ERROR: CDVDPlayer::OpenInputStream - error opening [ftp://<MY FTP LOGIN>:<MY FTP PASSWORD>@<MY FTP SERVER>.asuscomm.com:21/sda1/Boris/Videos/Movies/<MY MOVIE NAME> (2013)/VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.IFO]
20:06:20 T:140094786762496 NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::OnExit()
20:06:20 T:140096630073344 ERROR: Playlist Player: skipping unplayable item: 0, path [ftp://USERNAME:PASSWORD@<MY FTP SERVER>.asuscomm.com:21/sda1/Boris/Videos/Movies/<MY MOVIE NAME> (2013)/VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.IFO]
20:06:20 T:140096630073344 NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::CloseFile()
20:06:20 T:140096630073344 NOTICE: DVDPlayer: waiting for threads to exit
20:06:20 T:140096630073344 NOTICE: DVDPlayer: finished waiting
20:06:20 T:140096630073344 NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::CloseFile()
20:06:20 T:140096630073344 NOTICE: DVDPlayer: waiting for threads to exit

Meanwhile, while this thread is quiet, small update:
I switched external disk to SMB from FTP, and - hooray - VIDEO_TS folders are played fine again. Does it mean there's a bug in Kodi?

Still, there is one thing about SMB that throws me off, and that's why I chose FTP at first:
if I set up login and password for FTP share access, I can access the share fine from Ubuntu file manager and Kodi, using those credentials.
if I set up login and password for SMB share access, I can not access share using those credentials. Neither from Ubuntu neither from Kodi. It is definitely not a Kodui problem, though.

So, after all, I proceeded with SMB drive with open access. It works. But I don't like it, because I still don't understand why login/password aren't accepted for SMB.

If you only use the share "local", i would go with smb, as for ftp not working what if you change [ftp://<MY FTP LOGIN>:<MY FTP PASSWORD>@<MY FTP SERVER>.asuscomm.com:21/sda1/Boris/Videos/Movies/<MY MOVIE NAME> (2013)/VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.IFO]
to
[http://<MY FTP LOGIN>:<MY FTP PASSWORD>@<MY FTP SERVER>.asuscomm.com:21/sda1/Boris/Videos/Movies/<MY MOVIE NAME> (2013)/VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.IFO]

does that make you able to watch, the video

(2016-11-24, 22:09)barber76 Wrote: [ -> ]if I set up login and password for FTP share access, I can access the share fine from Ubuntu file manager and Kodi, using those credentials.
if I set up login and password for SMB share access, I can not access share using those credentials. Neither from Ubuntu neither from Kodi. It is definitely not a Kodi problem, though.

So, after all, I proceeded with SMB drive with open access. It works. But I don't like it, because I still don't understand why login/password aren't accepted for SMB.

Can you connect to the share from the command line using smbclient when you have set up username/password ?