Help Request - How to share music between multiple users on same server

[Blue Kachina 12]

Hi All;

I've been using MB3 for quite some time now, and really like how it's been maturing.

When I first started using it though, I was able to share music between the various users defined on my server simply by creating a shortcut that points to an artist's folder that's defined as a subfolder of another user's library.

 

This doesn't seem to be working any longer.

Did I miss the changelog for one of the updates that explained why this should no longer be working?  If so, can you please point me to the details of it.

Is this a bug that's been introduced in one of the updates?  If so, then I'm more than happy to help test resolutions for this.

 

Please advise

Edited November 27, 2014 by Blue Kachina

[Luke 38980]

You do it all in the web interface. Add your music library in the Library section. Then go to the user accounts and configure their library access.

[Blue Kachina 12]

I have configured their library already, but for the most part, their library is VERY different than my library.
I want to include 2 of the artists found in my library within their library, but ultimately, I would like to avoid duplicating the music that should show up in both libraries.

Previously, copying an artist folder from my library, and then choosing "Paste Shortcut" in Windows Explorer when I was browsing the secondary user's library folder used to work for this task.

It no longer does though.

Edited November 27, 2014 by Blue Kachina

[ebr 15487]

Hmmm... I use this method still to create a limited view of things for certain users so it should still work - unless something changed very recently.

[Blue Kachina 12]

It's been at least a couple of months since those shared folders disappeared from the secondary users' views.  Think I should delete/rebuild the DB?

[Luke 38980]

the reality is all of these old ways are cumbersome and very costly for us to maintain. so all of our energy is directed towards using the web interface to set these things up. so to that end, the upcoming stable release will have one addition from the beta where you will be able to use tags to filter out content for parental control. i haven't really read all of the details here so i'm not sure if that will help or not.

[Blue Kachina 12]

That's interesting Luke.

Even though I'm not using shortcut links for parental controls right now, the new features you speak of might still pertain here... to some degree anyway.
If I understand what you're hinting at, then I'd most likely have both a HIS and HERS music folder, and tag some of the music in HIS as "HERS also".

Then, I'd be able to share HIS folder with her using a constraint to include "HERS also".

 

Sounds pretty cool to me.

[Luke 38980]

it will be used for exclusion. i have a feeling it will help you a little but might not replicate everything you're doing with shortcuts. but i guess we'll have to wait and see.

[Blue Kachina 12]

If there is an inclusion option for it, then it would work for me

[Blue Kachina 12]

@@Lee - Unfortunately, the UNC path repointing didn't work for me.

Here's what I did (in case I might have missed something).

 

1. Removed the old paths that were used in my various libraries
2. Added new paths using UNC ( ex \\192.168.1.10\E$\MEDIA\MUSIC\Blue Kachina )
3. Waited for the Scan Media Library to complete
4. Checked logs for errors - saw that my shortcut.lnk files were using Windows paths
5. Edited shortcut.lnk files to use UNC paths as well
6. Scan Media Library
7. Checked logs for "Unable to Resolve" errors

 

Did I miss anything?
These artists are still not showing up in the secondary user's listing.

[Blue Kachina 12]

Also - the shared artist is no longer showing up as an empty folder within the secondary user's search results

[Lee 210]

I browsed thru the network places to create my shortcuts. You could try that just in case your editing was inaccurate?

Other than that I don't know...

You could use genres above music and add them in your libraries instead?? I do this..

Server/music/pop/gaga

Server/music/rap/dr.dre

 

Etc..

 

Don't really know if that helps in your case as I don't really get what you're trying to achieve!! (don't mean to be rude btw!)

[Blue Kachina 12]

Unfortunately, still no luck. Any other suggestions?

[Blue Kachina 12]

I've scrubbed through my log files, and found a lot of errors in them with regards to .lnk files (shortcut files) as they were detected.
A lot of the errors seemed to be related to GameBrowser... which was a plugin for MediaBrowser that I used to have installed (but was not installed as of the "Scan Media Library" run being picked up by the log files.  

I got around those errors by re-installing, and then re-uninstalling the latest version of GameBrowser.

Now I think I'm making SOME progress towards a resolution of my shortcut problem.

 

I no longer get errors pertaining to my .lnk files in my logs.

They're still not being displayed how I would expect them to though, so perhaps someone can offer a little guidance.

I haven't been able to find much documentation on using these shortcut links, so perhaps I'm just not setting it up properly.

 

Here's what I've been doing:

• Browsing (using Windows Explorer) to the location on my HDD where my artists live
• Right-clicking an artist's folder, and picking "Copy" from the context menu
• Navigating to a secondary user's artists folder, and choosing "Paste Shortcut"

 

Here's the result that I'm getting:

While logged in as a secondary user using the web client, I proceed to search for one of the artists that should be present via shortcut link.  They do not show up as an artist in the results list, but they do show up with a folder.  When I click on the folder however, it shows the artist's image and Last.FM description, however, no content is present for this Artist.  Does this mean that I also need to use a shortcut link to all of the albums? All of the songs?  Please advise... as the technique that I'm currently using... used to work for me!

 

Best Regards

[Lee 210]

Are you using unc path shortcuts thru the network?

Shortcuts wouldn't work for me when it was actual folder shortcut..

[Blue Kachina 12]

@@Lee - Thanks again.

 

I've just made some more tweaks inspired by your comment.

 

I followed this guide for making sure that my eSATA drives were shared and had the proper permissions

http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.php?/topic/703-how-to-make-unc-folder-shares/

 

Then, I once again repointed my libraries (also following that guide).

 

Then, I copied artist folders using "My Network Places", and pasted shortcuts from there.

Hopefully this will do the trick (Just waiting on my media library scan to complete)

[Blue Kachina 12]

Good question.
I had my libraries defined with standard Windows paths, but Metadata Manager was showing the paths to the shortcuts using UNC paths.

 

I'll try repointing them and letting you know if that works.

Thanks for the suggestion

[ebr 15487]

Maybe this is specific to how we discover music.  Can you please try a test with a TV show and see if that works okay with a shortcut?

[Blue Kachina 12]

@@ebr - You just might be onto something.

In order to test as you had requested, I used one of my users who had access to none of the TV Shows libraries that I have defined.

These are the steps that I successfully used in order to get a shortcut to a TV Show Series appear in this user's view:

 

1. I created a new library called "TV Shows - TEST"
2. Pointed it to the proper folder using its UNC path
3. Browsed to the TV Shows folder of another user (using My Network Places)
4. Copied the entire folder of a TV Series
5. Browsed to the "TV Shows - TEST" folder
6. Pasted a shortcut

 

Now, when I login as that user, that TV Series does appear properly.

Just how I'd expect the musical artists to work (and how they used to work for me).

 

Should you want me to do any further testing, provide any logs, upgrade to development build of server... I'd be happy to oblige.

It's a busy day for me today though, so it might not be as quickly as I normally respond on here.

 

Thanks again for your help, and best regards

Blue

[Luke 38980]

I would try the new tag based parental controls before this. We are not going to tear things apart for this old feature. The cost is very high, e.g. it has the potential to break a lot, and it is only serving a very small handful of people who actually know that it exists. So if there's a simple oversight and it can be fixed easily then that's fine, but anything more than that and we are probably just going to have to cut our losses and say use the web interface like everyone else.

[jj12345 25]

@@Luke - I use this feature of putting shortcuts in media library folders for sharing TV shows and while not done via the web interface it's a great way to share content without having a ton of libraries for various purposes.  Based on your message I fear if that breaks some day it won't ever be fixed.  I like the new tagging but the only control is to block content with certain tags.  I wonder if there could be a new feature added that would only allow content with certain tags either at the user level under parental controls or even better tied to the user library selection (e.g. user gets all of library 1 but only content with a certain tag from library 2).

[Blue Kachina 12]

Well put JJ.
I had also requested an 'include' option

[Luke 38980]

Yea, we don't like magic features If they're not in the web interface, then yes you are right. I would open a separate request about a tag include vs exclude

[jj12345 25]

What is the correct venue for making a feature request?

[ebr 15487]

Feature Requests