[mozzis]

OK, as I described in a previous thread, I had WMC with ServerWMC on Windows 10 build 1512 running and talking happily to several Kodi clients on my Windows domain network. Then I foolishly allowed Windows 10 to update to build 1703 (the real why is a long story) Setting up WMD on Windows 10 was simple enough. But I am having trouble getting my ServerWMC functionality back. There was a previous issue related to leftovers from an old Ad-Aware installation, that was causing ServerWMC to crash completely. This has been resolved, but I still cannot get streaming live or recorded TV to work.

I am recording TV into "F:\Recorded TV" just as before. When I launch the ServerWMC UI, it tells me "Window's Media Center's Recorded TV folder is not shared.
Now I have checked many times, and "F:\Recorded TV" is shared with "Everybody" and both share and file system permissions for the Folder are Full Control.
The UNC for this folder's share is detected by ServerWMC as "\\MEDIAPC\Recorded TV" and I can access that UNC from the Kodi client file manager. When doing so, I can even click on a recording file and play it on the Kodi client.
However, launching a recorded show from the Kido TV menu item does nothing; after the click there is no visible effect on the screen.
Trying to tune to a live TV channel results in the "Working" spinner for several seconds, then nothing.

I have tried creating a new share for the recorded TV folder with no spaces in the name "RecTV" wth Everybody R/W permissions with no improvement.
I tried adding a local account with permissions to that folder and share and entering those credentials in the ServerWMC UI with no improvement.
I have reviewed the procedure on this forum and looked at other threads but so far no one has suggested anything reasonable that I have not already tried.
Any ideas?

[krustyreturns]

Post the log file from serverwmc after it fails to play a live stream would be helpful. Its best if you post the entire log file, so you should restart serverwmc just before trying to play the stream to keep the size of the file down. Put the log on pastebin.com or equivalent and place a link to it here.

But working without a log file...I'm assuming your clients are not windows machines. If so, you need the login credentials entered, but they need to be for the account that serverwmc is being run under, not just any account. Also try replacing the computer name in the UNC path with the IP address of the server machine instead (see 'folders' tab of serverwmc).

[mozzis]

Windows Media Center is recording shows (successfully) to F:\Recorded TV.
F:\Recorded TV is shared. as both "Recorded TV" and as "RecordedTV" (in case your filename handling code can't tolerate a space)
The folder F:\Recorded TV file permissions include Everyone and Domain Users, both with Full control. (see screenshot)
The shares \\mediapc\RecordedTV and \\mediapc\Recorded TV permissions include Everyone and Domain Users, both with Full control (see screenshot)
ServerWMC is configured with the \\mediapc\RecordedTV share along with the domain user domainname\mediauser and password.(see screenshot)
ServerWMC claims that "Window's" recorded TV folder is not shared.
A Kodi client on another Windows box says that the PVR WMC Client Recorded TV folder not found.
That same Kodi clent can list channels and see the Guide but cannot stream live or recorded TV.
From that same Kodi client I can use the File Manager to browse to the \\mediapc\RecordedTV folder and play a recorded TV show.

The logfile and screenshots are at:

https://1drv.ms/f/s!AmmXn9IB42Fa5Hm_AGqW00VeP6KU

[krustyreturns]

Have you seen this thread, last post:
https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid...windows+10

[mozzis]

One of the main reasons I have a domain running at home is that it makes accessing shares more convenient, while maintaining a desirable level of control and security. It seems that either the ServerWMC service, or the PVR WMC Kodi plugin, or both are not utilizing any SMB networking security features, or at least not using them consistently or correctly. Can anyone explain why there is an entry field in ServerWMC for username and password if the system doesn't work unless security is effectively disabled? I know that Kodi, at least has access to Samba or some similar library, since I can easily set up File manager sources that access shared folders in my domain properly.

I currently have this working on build 1703 (Creator's Update) of Windows 10. To do so I did two things in addition to what I have described above:

1. I went to into Advanced Sharing Settings under Network and Sharing Center and turned on the options for All Networks that says "turn on sharing so anyone with network access can read and write Public folders.
   
2. I entered the domain username for mediauser into ServerWMC *without* the domain prefix.
   

It did not start working until after I did the 2nd thing, so I am not sure whether the first thing is necessary.

So it is working and for that my thanks to the developers and others who contributed bits and pieces of lore about this or that tweak that may or may not, in the end, be needed. I would still like to have an answer to the question above, if possible. And even more so, a bit more of an explanation as to how the settings on the folder tab get used.

[scarecrow420]

Not many people (and certainly not most ServerWMC users) have a windows domain at home, nor do Krusty or myself... so we typically haven't encountered many people trying to use domain credentials nor developed ServerWMC specifically with this in mind. However that doesnt mean you have to have security disabled in order for it to function. Domain level security is just a higher layer of security but it ultimately all boils down to windows file/share permissions and there really is no reason you can't have a "minimum permissions" setup if you desire. The level of knowledge of windows server administation etc is above that of most casual users but if you know what you're doing it should be possible

FYI, in terms of "how things work:
Kodi (pvr.wmc plugin) communicates with ServerWMC over TCP and retrieves all the metadata/listings (channels, recordings, timers, etc). But to actually watch live or recorded TV, Kodi is told to access files via SMB. ServerWMC simply tells Kodi "open this file" and the path is an smb:// path. So this means the SMB access/protocol is using the exact same/default SMB access that Kodi uses for everything SMB including the File Manager and so on.

ServerWMC takes the specified UNC path and credentials and builds up SMB paths. eg "\\MyServer\Recorded TV" with username "kodi" password "4eva" becomes "smb://kodi:4eva@MyServer/Recorded TV" and Kodi is simply told to "Open this file path".

What I can see is causing some difficulties in your log file is that when you specify username as "domain\user" the resulting smb path is potentially invalid (note the backslash turned to forward slash in the username field): "smb://domain/user@server/Recorded TV". As you later found, if you dont specify the "domain\user" and just use "user" (and since your client and server are on the same domain) this worked OK (because there was no backslash getting converted to forward slash).

So definitely I think your number 2 above is "the fix" you needed.

If you want to do some debugging for us, you can possibly try escaping the backslash with "%5c" eg "domain%5cuser" and see if that works. If it does work, we can make ServerWMC perform this sanitisation when generating the SMB path and that would then stop future users running into this problem, when including the domain in the username.

Also ServerWMC may warn that your share isnt setup "properly" because it only checks if "Everyone" or "*HomeUsers" have share permissions... it doesn't understand domains and other more complicated security setups. As long as you can get your Kodi client playing recordings and watching liveTV, you can safely ignore the warning from ServerWMC if it says the share isnt setup properly. Whilst we could make ServerWMC check if the shar epermissions have an entry for the configured account, we really didnt want to get into the territory of having to think about domain groups etc as well, so it still wouldnt cover every possible setup scenario. We also didnt want to try and actually "impersonate" the account in question and access the share... so it really is just meant to be a "heplful" check of the share permissions, looking for the most common setup that users run with. Perhaps we can change the wording on the message to say something like "if you know what you're doing and have configured a more secure share then this warning may not be accurate" or whatever?

Spaces are definitely supported in paths, so there is no need to setup the share without spaces

I'd also suggest confirming whether you really needed that 1st setting change you mentioned ("turn on sharing so anyone with network access" etc) because obviously it'd be nice to know whether that setting is required or not. I dont see any reason why it should be required - as long as the user youve told Kodi to use (via the setting in ServerWMC) has access to the share (and you dont have the backslash), everything should be OK