What does MP homeserver detection need at the client end, and what does the server need to transmit? (1 Viewer)

[Mr Whippy]

I'm running a server/client machine (which worked ok until I detached the server) on Win7, and a separate machine with a client install on Win10.

"Search for servers" results in a message saying there are currently no MP2 servers available in the network on both machines.

The service monitor is showing "connected to server" on the Win7 machine, and "disconnected from server" on the Win10 machine.


I have set both clients to look to the IP (using IP address bindings) of the server via the client config.

I have default inbound firewall rules, and open outbound firewall on both machines (totally default fresh install on the Win10 machine, so assuming it's my server Win7 machine that's at fault)

My Win7 machine firewall notifier isn't flagging up any blocked I/O connections so I assume everything is communicating as required.

I'm connecting everything via WiFi, but the client/server machine ran ok with standard loopback on 127.0.0.1

What network adaptor protcols should I be using for the connection? I currently just have IPV4 on the server.

Can't these settings be made explicitly anywhere? Should what I have set with the IP address bindings be sufficient?



Assuming you throw a server on a Win7 server box, and media on a NAS, then clients on Win10 connecting just to the server for TV, and NAS for media/timeshift/recordings, then you don't need anything else in the network protocols except IPV4?

Just getting a client to connect to the server IP over IPV4 clearly isn't enough.



Thanks for any advice

Dave

 

[Mr Whippy]

OK I just added all the standard windows networking protocols and still no joy with detection of home servers after resetting the server service, and both clients (local and remote)

Hmmmm

 

[BlueMax1916]

Hi,

Windows 10 is worse than any Windows before when it comes to networking. At least since Version 1709.

I found out that every Windows install here in my network had a different ssubset of network services activated than the other ones. Basically what you need to check is if following network services are running and also if they do start automatically:

Sorry, list is in German:

DHCP-Client                                                 aktiviert   Starttyp Automatisch
DNS-Client                                                  aktiviert   Starttyp Automatisch (Start durch Auslöser)
Funktionssuchanbieter-Host                                  aktiviert   Starttyp Automatisch (Verzögerter Start)
Funktionssuche-Ressourcenveröffentlichung                   aktiviert   Starttyp Automatisch
Netzwerkverbindungen                                        aktiviert   Starttyp Automatisch
NLA (network Location Awareness)                            aktiviert   Starttyp Automatisch
Peer Name Resolution-Protokoll                              aktiviert   Starttyp Automatisch (Verzögerter Start)
Peernetzwerk-Gruppenzuordnung                               aktiviert   Starttyp Automatisch (Verzögerter Start)
Peernetzwerkidentitäts-Manager                              aktiviert   Starttyp Automatisch (Verzögerter Start)
SSDP-Suche                                                  aktiviert   Starttyp Automatisch
UPnP-Gerätehost                                             aktiviert   Starttyp Automatisch (Verzögerter Start)
Verbindungsschicht-Topologieerkennungs-Zuordnungsprogramm   aktiviert   Starttyp Automatisch

It was a lot of trial and error on my side. Hope this helps.

Cheers

Blue Max

 

[Mr Whippy]

In this case I'm running Win7 for my server (where I think the fault is)

I've pretty much turned everything for UPnP back on, and defaulted my firewall, with appropriate inbound rules (as per base install of MP2)


Looking at logs, this seems to be a cause for concern:

server
[2019-06-29 20:48:16,570] [422 ] [Main ] [WARN ] - GENAServerController: Could not set IPv4 options
System.Net.Sockets.SocketException (0x80004005): An unknown, invalid, or unsupported option or level was specified in a getsockopt or setsockopt call
at System.Net.Sockets.Socket.setMulticastOption(SocketOptionName optionName, MulticastOption MR)
at System.Net.Sockets.Socket.SetSocketOption(SocketOptionLevel optionLevel, SocketOptionName optionName, Object optionValue)
at UPnP.Infrastructure.Utils.NetworkHelper.BindAndConfigureSSDPMulticastSocket(Socket socket, IPAddress address)

client
[2019-06-29 20:29:31,266] [536 ] [Main ] [WARN ] - GENAServerController: Could not set IPv4 options
System.Net.Sockets.SocketException (0x80004005): An unknown, invalid, or unsupported option or level was specified in a getsockopt or setsockopt call
at System.Net.Sockets.Socket.setMulticastOption(SocketOptionName optionName, MulticastOption MR)
at System.Net.Sockets.Socket.SetSocketOption(SocketOptionLevel optionLevel, SocketOptionName optionName, Object optionValue)
at UPnP.Infrastructure.Utils.NetworkHelper.BindAndConfigureSSDPMulticastSocket(Socket socket, IPAddress address)

Does anyone know if there are specific networking/UPnP debugs to help figure out where my fault lays?




More randomly, looking in the monitor logs, it seems to think the home server is an iPV6 address, despite me saying 'no' to ipv6 in the client config.

And more randomly, I set better client names (as I now have two clients, laptop client and desktop client/server), and the desktop client name is now 'mp client desktop', but it's still showing as the default 'mediaportal 2 client'


If I check in the client, the ipv6 is set to off, and the client name is as I've set it... but the server monitor is showing the default name, and the server monitor appears to be showing my client to be looking at an ipv6 address!?

I have ipv6 disabled on my win7 machine.


So yeah, pretty stuck here.



It'd be cool if there were a little EXE you could just run that ran through everything to check it worked as expected, and created logs to say what was/wasn't working.

Then at least end users could try fix their own issues. The documentation here is really lacking for MP2. And bothering developers for what might be a Win7 configuration that I can just tweak in 2 minutes, seems silly.


Thanks

Dave

 

[Mr Whippy]

Well I installed MP server and MP client (MP1) in the same config I had MP2, and everything just worked wrt networking connection between the two machines.

Only oddity is that upon first run of the TV server, it didn't ask for a password for the mysql database. So still not without issues when following the wiki guides.


MP1 has a lot of nice features asking about firewall configs, software dependency checks, UI for inputting/testing networking etc etc.


On the download page which sells MP2 as 'better', it really shouldn't. It's inferior in a lot of ways.

 

[BlueMax1916]

Hi,

MP2 is being developped on a more modern code base. Unfortunately there are only a few developers doing it in their free time. So the pace of developping is not as fast as it could be. There are features where it has its advantages. And there are missing features because no one would take over the job to develop them currently.

'Inferior in lot of ways' is not true in general. Every user has a different use case. If you feel so then it is not the product for you right now.


Cheers

Blue Max

 

[Mr Whippy]

MP1 worked here fine.

HD TV over WiFi on a laptop in another room, with my server machine (hardened Win7) with DVB-S hosting, from start to finish in 30 mins.

MP2. About 5 days of faffing around with every variable, and conflicting info/readouts/responses from the myriad ways you might try resolve issues.


I'd accept maybe my config is not playing nice with MP2 for some reason, but MP1 just went right on and worked like a charm.


There does seem to be a situation where with MP1 you can self-help and fix issues.

With MP2 it seems you can invest weeks in self-help and not fix issues which is hugely frustrating.

That doesn't seem to be reflected in the pros/cons presented before you download.


Cheers

Dave