Video Archive Question

[nightwalker]

Jeff:

I've been trying the test version and i have to say it's a big improvement over past versions. I have a couple of questions if you don't mind.

In the setup for VA you set directories for recordings, archives, DVDs some if not all of these directories would be repeated with the config for GBPVR itself. Should they all be? Should some be? None?

The reason i ask is I'm having trouble getting some things listed in VA that do just fine in the standard Video Library.

Recordings seem OK, where it gets weird sometimes is mostly the DVD directory.

Within the DVD directories. I keep one directory on the machine that GBpvr is on and that directory is just fine. When i point VA to a different machine it gets weird on me.

On the PC i can see, play etc any of the video files on those drives and they are merged into VA like they were all on the same directory, what i would have expected.

On the MVP it's a far different story, sometimes they show, other times they only show until i try to play one, then they all disappear like they were never there.

Most times though they never show up at all.

Am i doing something wrong here or is VA not quite ready to pull videos from other machines yet? Just so you know this isn't a new thing, the old version pretty much did the same thing.

Oh and by the way, time for VA and weather to have their own folders on here?

[nightwalker]

Jeff, buddy, you out there somewhere?

[Jeff]

Yes. Life has just been busy of late. The only folder used from gbpvr is the recordings folder. All the others have to be specified in the VA plug-in's config screen. You should be able to see videos on other machines. The issue on the MVP may have to do with windows permissions. If the account the MVP instance is running in doesn't have access to those directories the files will disappear or not show up at all. You should be able to see what is going on if you look in the archiver-MVP log file.

Jeff

[nightwalker]

Yes. Life has just been busy of late. The only folder used from gbpvr is the recordings folder. All the others have to be specified in the VA plug-in's config screen. You should be able to see videos on other machines. The issue on the MVP may have to do with windows permissions. If the account the MVP instance is running in doesn't have access to those directories the files will disappear or not show up at all. You should be able to see what is going on if you look in the archiver-MVP log file.

Jeff

I understand about the directories, that makes sense.

I'm not getting the permissions thing here, the machine that runs GBpvr is able to go in and play those files directly. What i see in the archiver log is that it's an invalid directory. I looked in the services section of winxp and the GBpvr recording service is listed as a local service as are most things. That machine has no password or different users other than the administrator. I'm going to make a leap here and assume that if i can see the other machines directories and play files from the GBpvr machine that i have permissions set correctly, but i did say I'm making a leap here.

One other thing that is odd. In the logs you'll see a video called "beast with a million eyes" That video is in reality in the DVD directory of the GBpvr machine, however in Video Archiver it shows up in the regular video directory, not with the DVDs. Very weird! My DVD directories are not the usual, in that they are videos slated to be put on disk, when i get a chance, not burned from a disk. I don't know if that makes a difference, i wouldn't think so, a mpg file is an mpg file.

I've noticed that this version is a lot more stable then the last 2 have been, before i was having trouble deleting either watched recordings or a scheduled recording. This version has been very good to me, except for some of the weirdness above.

Logs attached. Thanks for taking a look.

[Kevina]

Hi Nightwalker,
I thought I would pass along my experience with mapped drive letters in the hopes that it might give you some ideas on what's going on with your setup. I have a total of 4 drives in my GBPVR "server", and then two additional drives that reside in my domain controller/file server. All of these drives are used primarily for either video, music or picture storage.

What I found was that my local drives worked fine, and the mapped drives worked fine from the GBPVR system itself, but not from my two MVPs. On a tip from Tipstir, he suggested that mapped drive letters were a problem for the MVP's, but that UNC paths seemed to work just fine. Well, after exhausting all other possibilities, I tried it but still had some problems. The ultimate fix was to use the UNC paths along with a change to GBPVR's user credentials.

The reason for this is simple, once you understand how GBPVR accesses the files. If you are trying to access files from a remote computer and are doing so via an MVP, you are not using the credentials that you are logged on to the GBPVR computer with, as you might suppose. The MVP accesses these files as the GBPVR recording service, which by default, will attempt to access these files as the local system account. You can change this by changing the logon properties in the Services applet of the Control Panel. You should set this to the ID and password of the user with access rights to the network drives.

Even after doing this, I still recommend changing the paths in VA to point to UNC paths (i.e. \\server name\share name) because this has proven to be much more reliable for me and eliminates all requirements for having a mapped drive letter.

I hope this helps. Let me know how it turns out for you.

Kevin

[nightwalker]

Kevina:

I appreciate your response but i think I've already done at least most. I already am using the unc paths. When you use the browse button in the GBpvr config or the VA setup and go outside of the local GBpvr machine it seems like it's already using unc paths, or am i wrong in that?

The GBpvr machine has one user, administrator, and no password. I can't see how the recording service could log in as anything else, there isn't anything else, at least that's my thinking. There is an account that i didn't put in, assuming that it was done by .net somewhere along the way. It's called "asp.net machine a..." and has a limited account. I am hesitant to change that to administrator without really knowing what I'm doing here or if it will effect something else. The GBpvr recording service logs in as "local service" as does almost everything else, with the exception of a few "network service" log ins that I'm assuming are using that limited asp.net account. I'm a little out of my element here so forgive me if I'm not using all the right terms.

Hi Nightwalker,
I thought I would pass along my experience with mapped drive letters in the hopes that it might give you some ideas on what's going on with your setup. I have a total of 4 drives in my GBPVR "server", and then two additional drives that reside in my domain controller/file server. All of these drives are used primarily for either video, music or picture storage.

What I found was that my local drives worked fine, and the mapped drives worked fine from the GBPVR system itself, but not from my two MVPs. On a tip from Tipstir, he suggested that mapped drive letters were a problem for the MVP's, but that UNC paths seemed to work just fine. Well, after exhausting all other possibilities, I tried it but still had some problems. The ultimate fix was to use the UNC paths along with a change to GBPVR's user credentials.

The reason for this is simple, once you understand how GBPVR accesses the files. If you are trying to access files from a remote computer and are doing so via an MVP, you are not using the credentials that you are logged on to the GBPVR computer with, as you might suppose. The MVP accesses these files as the GBPVR recording service, which by default, will attempt to access these files as the local system account. You can change this by changing the logon properties in the Services applet of the Control Panel. You should set this to the ID and password of the user with access rights to the network drives.

Even after doing this, I still recommend changing the paths in VA to point to UNC paths (i.e. \\server name\share name) because this has proven to be much more reliable for me and eliminates all requirements for having a mapped drive letter.

I hope this helps. Let me know how it turns out for you.

Kevin

[nightwalker]

just as a follow up, I had to bite the bullet and make a new user account just for GBpvr recording service, on all machines i'm pulling files from. Now the MVP is able to access them instead of just the server machine.

It did screw up my auto login screen but i'm in the middle of reading an article from Microsoft about how to change the registry to get auto login in this situation. Many thanks for the tips and suggestions.

[kurbel]

Hallo Jeff,
please have a look at your PN.

Thank you in advance.