Music Plugins malfunction with MediaMVP Server auto started

[TuckerTFT]

I'm using GB-PVR v96.12.

I have discovered that none of my installed music plugins (including the native "Music Library") work correctly when the MediaMVP Server is started "automatically" by the recording service (by setting "number of servers to autostart" on the MVP tab to "1", as you, sub, recommend).

The anomalies experienced are as follow:

(1) "Music Library" and "My Music" ==> The categories that I've defined show up in the list, but when I hit the "select" key on the remote when one is highlighted I see an empty list ( except for the [..] ) in "Music Library" and absolutely nothing happens in "My Music".

(2) "Music Library 2" (a really feature rich plugin) ==> (a) YELLOW remote key - will only add single tracks to the list (i.e., stuff from the bottom right list). It has no effect when pressed when something is highlighted from the title list (top right) or left side list. (b) RED remote key - A random list is not generated at all on the MVP ... i.e., nothing happens, period.

NOTE: ALL of the above is fixed if I set "number of servers to autostart" to "0" and start the MediaMVP Server manually. However, doing this brings me back to other problems that I reported in this thread.

Any advise ... can you replicate this problem with the default "Music Library" in your environment?

[sub]

Works fine here. Where is your music collection? Is it on a network drive, or in a directory that might have security permissions that would stop other user accounts from accessing it?

[TuckerTFT]

Is it on a network drive, or in a directory that might have security permissions that would stop other user accounts from accessing it?

Yep ... I think you nailed it here ... I have mapped drives set to the ADMIN shares (C$, D$, etc.) on the other computers that store the music files. These shares are only accessible by someone in the Administrators group.

So, when the MediaMVP Server starts in "auto" mode it is running as the local "SYSTEM" user (which cannot access the ADMIN shares on the other computers on the network). But, when I run the MediaMVP Server manually it is running under the account on which I am logged onto the GB-PVR PC. This account does have ADMIN rights to the other boxes, so there is no problem accessing the music files.

So ... since I would greatly prefer to not create separate shares (although I will if I have to) .. is there any way to force the "auto" start of the MediaMVP Server to use a specific account OR to at least use the account of the local currently logged in user?

Thanks for catching this.

[TuckerTFT]

Actually ... I thought of a way to get the MediaMVP Server to start using my local logon account. Since the GBPVR Recording Service is what "auto" starts the MediaMVP Server, I configured the recording service to run under my local logon account.

Next, I changed the config back to "auto" starting 1 MediaMVP Server. Upon clicking "OK" on the config app, the recording service restarted and ... voilà ... the MediaMVP Server now showed in the Windows Task Manager as running under my local logon account (same as the recording service).

Unfortunately .. this did not solve my problem. When I go into "Music Library" on the MVP and choose any one of my 3 named music libraries (ex: Dad's music point to Z:\MyData\MyMusic, where Z is mapped to \\<anothercomputer>\d$) all I get in the list is [..], and if I try to use a function on the menu on the left (like "Shuffle", or "Play All") I get a message stating that the directory cannot be found.

My next attempt will be to create an actual share directly to \\<anothercomputer>\d$\MyData\MyMusic and see if that resolves the issue .. although, I must say that I'm not overly optimistic as I cannot think of any reason why the MediaMVP Server cannot access the files under the ADMIN share (d$) when it is started under account that has full admin access to <anothercomputer>.

Will report back on my findings .. BUT, I 'd also like to know if you have any idea why my change in context for the user under which the service starts did not work.

[TuckerTFT]

My findings were that as long as I didn't point to shares on the root of a drive on the computers on which the music files were located, then both the default "Music Library" and "My Music" could read the shared locations when the MediaMVP Server was auto started. (NOTE: I'm now using the UNC .. \\<anothercomputer>\<sharename> ... as the pointer to the music locations, not mapped drives).

However, I still had a problem with Music Library 2 ... it would not play anything at all when I have the MediaMVP Server auto started. It would only work when I start the MediaMVP Server manually.

BUT, then I changed the recording service again to start using an account that had ADMIN rights on the networked computers on which the music files exist and that solved the issue for ML2. Not sure why I would have to do this given that all of the network shares on which the music exist have permission set for READ for EVERYONE (FULL for ADMINISTRATORS). I would have thought that READ permissions would have been enough.

I will add this specific issue to my post regarding ML2 in the plugins forum.

[HtV]

Maybe it needs write permissionn aswell for the playlists:confused:

[TuckerTFT]

Maybe it needs write permissionn aswell for the playlists:confused:

Thanks for your feedback.

I'm assuming that you mean to "Save" a playlist. I wouldn't think it should need write permission for this because I don't believe that ML2 saves a separate playlist file, but rather writes the playlist data to the ML2 database. As such, it will need write permission to the MDB on the "local" system, but the SYSTEM account has those permissions, so it should not need the MediaMVP Server started under an admin account.

[psycik]

Correct, playlist files are stored in the db. the only think i can think of is the ID3 library is needing it.....but My Music should have similar probs. since reven used the same library fo tag reading.

I'll have to test when I get home.