MediaPortal over Internet (2 Viewers)

[4Fred]

I have everything setup and a-ok at home, things are just fine in my MP 1.1 multiseat setup. That is not the problem, I want to be able to watch TV at work

Here is what I’ve done.
Firewall on the HTPC is disabled, it has never been on. Like I wrote above I have a multiseat setup at home and use this PC for lots of things, so the firewall would just be a Swiss cheese anyway.

Added the FQDN HTPC-computername/IP-of-my-home-firewall to my HOSTS file (I have added it correctly, I know how to do that).

I use SmoothWall as firewall, started opening individual ports but things didn’t work so I opened all tcp+udp ports from “my-workplace-ip” to “my-htpc-ip”.

Starting MP on my computer at work I got the error “Unable to connect to database” got bummed about it so restarted MP. Now I get no error but when I press channels in TV the Mini EPG is empty.
If i press TV Guide, I get the box telling me to specify the master tv service name or ip, I just hit change and then done and then I get a box telling me: Connected to tvserver, unable to connect to database, all ip ports seem to be fine. So what to do?

Edited the HOSTS file, connected my workplace PC to my home network using VPN and things just ran MP and things are fine. Problem is that I cant be connected using VPN all the time cuz that would restrict work related stuff

Is there a guide or something “how to run MediaPortal over the internet to you TVserver at home” or something like that. Yes I know about security concerns and blah blah blah.

 

[Eeyore]

Try to rule out the routers by putting the TV Server in a DMZ.

I'm wondering if the problem is purely the speed of the connection between your work and your home.

 

[pilehave]

Is TV-Server and your remote client running the same MP version?

 

[4Fred]

I use SmoothWall as my firewall. I simply opened ANY TCP Port and ANY UDP port, and after that nothing is logged as blocked in the firewall log, so it's not blocked therefrom what I can tell. The speed of the Internet connection is 100/100 and using VPN it's as smooth as running it on my LAN at home.
MP is the same version on both sides, if not it would not work when I connect using VPN, right?

My guess is that it is something in the configuration of the MySQL database, maybe it responds with just the name of the computer and not the FQDN name of the computer, that would explain why it works when I'm on the same network and not over the internet. The name of the computer is HTPC, and the FQDN name of the computer over internet is htpc.mydomain.net... is there a test tool for MySQL that I can use?
I specify the TVServer name as htpc.mydomain.net in the MP here at work, so I've done my homework

Got it to work!
As I suspected it was name resolution issue. When editing the HOSTS file you must add both the FQDN (Fully qualified domain name) and the NETBIOS name of the computer. In my case like this:
<external ip adress> computername.domain.net
<external ip adress> computername
The reason for this MUST be how MySQL responds to requests from MediaPortal... my guess is that during install it takes the name of the computer and add it somewhere to MySQL configuration and this name is used in all response, on a LAN there is rarely a need for the FQDN but in my case it was.

Thank you for reading and responding to my post : )