Sudden problem with xbox extenders

[leerph 4]

I had mb3 installed and working fine for a couple weeks. Now all of a sudden when I use my xboxes to connect I can connect and log in fine and I can see the list of all the movies fine. However, when I select a movie to try and play it it will do nothing for about 60 seconds or so and then I get an error on the screen that says "WARNING- Could not directly access media. Will attempt to stream. Use UNC paths on server for direct playback. All my movies are located on a NAS server and I did use UNC paths to set it up in the configurator. I can play them fine from the HTPC in the living room. Also, this started right after I set up multiple user accounts on the server but don't see why that would cause it. Also strange is that after several reboots, etc. I got it to work once but now it is right back to not working again. Any ideas what the cause could be?

[ebr 14913]

The windows user that the extender uses does not have access to your network paths.  The creation of the new accounts on the server changed the way the permissions were handled.

[leerph 4]

So how do I fix it? Do I need to add those new accounts names to the windows users list on the HTPC and then give them full admin rights? 

[ebr 14913]

Not the HTPC, the server where the media is.

 

You pretty much have to give everyone rights because there is no way to know the pw for the hidden extender accounts.

[leerph 4]

OK. I'm not super savvy with this kind of stuff so maybe you can help me a little further. Currently I have a NAS box connected to my network. I don't have any user accounts set up for it except for the admin and guest which it came with automatically. On the HTPC or any of the other computers on my network I simply mapped the NAS as a network drive and I had full access to it from any computer on the home network. I do see where I can go in and add user accounts and I attempted to do that. However, 1 of my accounts is my "kids" account which I wanted to have no password so that my kids can log into MB3 via xbox and watch movies without having to put in a code. When I attempted to add a new account called "kids" to my nas box it is forcing me to put a password there. I cannot leave it blank. How do I go about getting it to work properly? Like I said, when I didn't have multiple users set up in MB3 my xboxes could connect to the NAS drive and stream the movies without issue. I can't figure out how adding multiple users to the MB3 server has stopped my xboxes from now being able to access the NAS. Like I said, I am not super network savvy so if you could please walk me through the steps that would be great. I have a Javelin brand NAS box if that is helpful in any way. Thanks.

[ginjaninja 536]

difficult to put into ley man terms..you might have to experiment...consider the following.

The client on the xbox runs in the security account of the MCX1-##### account on the HTPC (auto created account when you 1st add extender).

This MCX1 account is the account that is accessing the media through the paths published in the mb3 collection configuration when you play media.

Your MB3 collection configuration should reference the NAS shares (where your media is stored) via UNCs (\\nasboxname\sharename) if possible...not via drive mappings on the MB3 server..i think this is best config (c. mb3 configuration).

MB3 server will access the collections in the security context of the logged in user on htpc running the MB3 server call this 'HTPCAccount' by way of example.

So there are two users which need access to the UNC shares MCX1-##### and HTPCAccount...ie the security configuration on the nas needs to support these two users..

usually you add access in an unmanaged network (where the nas, htpc and xbox are not sharing directory services (username and passwords)) by ensuring the same username and password pairs exists on the nodes(within their local users database) that need to support 'pass-through' authentication.

because you dont know the password for the auto created account MCX1-#### you will need to add 'everyone' to have access to those nas shares which contain collection content.you would do this through the nas config tool.

 

in summary use the nas config tool to add group 'everyone' [or similar] to the collection shares. if you cant add a catch all group without a password then report back. NB on windows nodes you may have to specifiy file and share permissions. check for two types on nas if applicable. nb i think you can use internal mb3 permissions to limit your kids access to shares with everyone access that all xbox people (adults and kids) use.

 

 

note if you can log into htpc with a newly created random account, unspecified on the nas box by name..and still access the nas content via unc, then you must be authenticating through the 'everyone' security designation, which is what you want...ie confirms 'everyone' access is working from pc 1st, as you will get easier feedback/troubleshooting.

Edited December 3, 2013 by ginjaninja

[leerph 4]

I think I understand but I am still at a road block. First off, let me add that I have UNC paths set up for my movie collection inside MB3 server config. I did NOT use mapped drives to do it. To start with I logged into my NAS interface. There is an admin and guest account in there. I added an account called "parents" and gave it the same password I used in the MB3 server when I set it up. I went to 1 of my 4 xboxes and logged in with that account and lo and behold it worked. I decided to try my other 3 xboxes and none of those worked. So upon further testing, it appears that 1 of my xboxes is accessing the nas fine but the other 3 aren't. (but they did before I created multiple user accounts in MB server). In fact, the "kids" account that I created with no password even works on the 1 xbox. As a side note, I can access all media fine on the HTPC using either of my accounts "kids" and "parents".

 

I agree that like you said the HTPC has separate accounts called MCX1####, etc for all my xboxes and that it would be using those to access the nas and that really setting up the username and password on the nas is probably not going to work. In my NAS setup page I have the folders that my movies are stored in as "read/write" access for both the admin and guest accounts. 

 

The answer would appear to lie in the permissions of the HTPC accounts associated with each xbox. This is where I need some guidance. When you go into user accounts in control panel, those accounts don't show up there. I remember a long time ago that there is some other way to access them but I can't remember or seem to find it now. Any guidance on where to go from here. Thanks for all the help!!!

Edited December 3, 2013 by leerph

[gthrift 57]

Try This using this tool.

[ginjaninja 536]

note: accounts in control panel then users on HTPC are possibly the least relevant for now..ignore this....its the 'control panel' for your nas that you need to concentrate on... Currently your nas understands guests and admin. guests is probably a good approximation to 'everyone'...so give 'guests' access to your collection and see if you can access the media from htpc with a newly created account (not using name - admin)..if you can access content without challenge for authentication then 'guest' (aka everyone access..must be working.

 

the new;y created account on htpc prevents cached accounts in the users profile from clouding the issue...confirming you are accesssing the nas unchallanged via 'guests'

[godbodian 54]

Its really simple. 

Go to the locations where you are holding your files and click PROPERTIES.
After clicking properties, click SHARING.

In the sharing prompt click SHARE.
In the FILE SHARING PROMPT choose (THE COMPUTER'S NAME WHERE MB SERVER IS LOCATED) or EVERYONE (its your choice of which based on what level of security you're looking to have) from the pull down menu.

Click ADD and make sure the options are read and write.

You should be good. This is what I did.

Edited December 3, 2013 by godbodian

[moviefan 184]

He can't follow the instructions that were just posted if he is hosting his files on a Javelin NAS which is what was indicated.  These are instructions for setting windows file permissions.

 

From reading through this thread, it would appear that he does have the guest/everyone/anonymous access setting enabled on his NAS.  Otherwise the various HTPCs in his house would not work unless he was running them as a guest or admin account which I doubt.

 

It almost seems to me like the NAS does not know how to handle improper authentication credentials and relegate those sessions to guest access instead of just straight out denying access.

 

So the xbox is sending invalid credentials across the network ( as they were never setup) and the Javelin is immediately rejecting the session.

 

If you follow the instructions that ginjaninja suggested with testing out a new account in windows to verify that the guest access is working that would confirm this hypothesis.  How to fix it beyond that I am not sure unless you can enable a setting on the NAS to enable guest access for failed authentications.

Edited December 3, 2013 by moviefan

[godbodian 54]

I understand what you said initially as I missed the fact he was talking about an NAS. So it's nothing the TOBIAS script tool can help?

[swhitmore 781]

I think you are getting confused with the MB3 user and the Windows/extender user. The MB3 user has little to do with how Windows accesses your network shares. I'm not 100% what has changed, but I'm also using an extender, and to get it working I was able to give 'Everyone' read access to my network shared folders on my file server. This is easy to do on a Windows machine, but since you're using a NAS, you will have to investigate how to give 'Everyone' read access to the shared media folders on it.

[leerph 4]

tobias login script did the trick. thanks for all the help guys. i had forgotten about that tool. i used it when i first set up media center to access the nas but once i set up profiles it had to be re ran. perhaps this might be something for the admins to add to the setup guide so others with nas devices won't run into this. thanks again.