Can No Longer Play from HGFS

[Guardian Hope 117]

I have Emby Server on an Ubuntu Server install and have ran into some trouble that I didn't have several days ago: Emby for Kodi doesn't play any content. I have verified that Emby Server is at least able to read and display the content by navigating to it via a web browser but Kodi can't. I have included two log files as I initially thought it was H.265 - one is h.265 and one is h.264:

 

H.264 (this one has gone through several computers):

05:48:49 T:9380  NOTICE: Creating InputStream
05:48:49 T:9380   ERROR: CDVDPlayer::OpenInputStream - error opening [/mnt/hgfs/EmbyMedia/TV Shows/Gossip Girl/Season 1/Gossip Girl 100 revealed.avi]
05:48:49 T:9380  NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::OnExit()
05:48:49 T:18204   ERROR: Playlist Player: skipping unplayable item: 1, path [plugin://plugin.video.emby.tvshows/48c2ad170e05d479a3543cfdad1f2381/?dbid=609&mode=play&id=071fee1aaac8dc4aea4edf6c775fe13b&filename=Gossip+Girl+100+revealed.avi]
05:48:49 T:18204  NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::CloseFile()
05:48:49 T:18204  NOTICE: DVDPlayer: waiting for threads to exit
05:48:49 T:18204  NOTICE: DVDPlayer: finished waiting
05:48:49 T:18204  NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::CloseFile()
05:48:49 T:18204  NOTICE: DVDPlayer: waiting for threads to exit
05:48:49 T:18204  NOTICE: DVDPlayer: finished waiting
05:48:49 T:167068  NOTICE: EMBY Player -> Clear playlist properties.
05:48:49 T:167068  NOTICE: EMBY KodiMonitor -> Method: Player.OnStop Data: {"end":false,"item":{"id":609,"type":"episode"}}

H.265 (The Last Ship):

05:56:47 T:152696  NOTICE: EMBY ClientInfo -> DeviceId loaded:
05:56:47 T:152696  NOTICE: Using Image Cache Thread Count: 0 -> 1
05:56:47 T:152696  NOTICE: EMBY PlaybackUtils -> Play called.
05:56:47 T:152696  NOTICE: EMBY PlayUtils -> Verifying path: /mnt/hgfs/EmbyMedia/TV Shows/The Last Ship/Season 2/The Last Ship S02E02 HDTV 720p x265 AAC.mkv
05:56:47 T:152696  NOTICE: EMBY PlayUtils -> Can't verify path, assumed linux. Still try to direct play.
05:56:47 T:152696  NOTICE: EMBY PlayUtils -> File is direct playing.
05:56:47 T:152696  NOTICE: EMBY PlaybackUtils -> Playlist start position: 1
05:56:47 T:152696  NOTICE: EMBY PlaybackUtils -> Playlist plugin position: 1
05:56:47 T:152696  NOTICE: EMBY PlaybackUtils -> Playlist size: 2
05:56:47 T:152696  NOTICE: EMBY PlaybackUtils -> Play as a regular item.
05:56:47 T:181876  NOTICE: DVDPlayer: Opening: /mnt/hgfs/EmbyMedia/TV Shows/The Last Ship/Season 2/The Last Ship S02E02 HDTV 720p x265 AAC.mkv
05:56:47 T:181876 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(player)::Put MSGQ_NOT_INITIALIZED
05:56:47 T:185824  NOTICE: Creating InputStream
05:56:47 T:185824   ERROR: CDVDPlayer::OpenInputStream - error opening [/mnt/hgfs/EmbyMedia/TV Shows/The Last Ship/Season 2/The Last Ship S02E02 HDTV 720p x265 AAC.mkv]
05:56:47 T:185824  NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::OnExit()
05:56:47 T:181876   ERROR: Playlist Player: skipping unplayable item: 1, path [plugin://plugin.video.emby.tvshows/c9348761b787eb1a352e6e9391053d41/?dbid=883&mode=play&id=b342c962850cb8de4cdda4d470505b41&filename=The+Last+Ship+S02E02+HDTV+720p+x265+AAC.mkv]
05:56:47 T:181876  NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::CloseFile()
05:56:47 T:181876  NOTICE: DVDPlayer: waiting for threads to exit
05:56:47 T:181876  NOTICE: DVDPlayer: finished waiting
05:56:47 T:181876  NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::CloseFile()
05:56:47 T:181876  NOTICE: DVDPlayer: waiting for threads to exit
05:56:47 T:181876  NOTICE: DVDPlayer: finished waiting
05:56:47 T:152316  NOTICE: EMBY Player -> Clear playlist properties.
05:56:47 T:152316  NOTICE: EMBY KodiMonitor -> Method: Player.OnStop Data: {"end":false,"item":{"id":883,"type":"episode"}}

I have already tried resetting Kodi's database, clearing the cache, etc. It seems to be related to how its reading it from HGFS. When I use the file browser and just browse to the location on the RAID Array (actually formatted at NTFS) Kodi opens it up and starts playing the files with no issues.

[mellomade 140]

Search this sub forum for 'path substitution'. Your file paths are incorrect and need to be defined as network paths.

 

Ex. : \\YourServer\Share

[Guardian Hope 117]

Search this sub forum for 'path substitution'. Your file paths are incorrect and need to be defined as network paths.

 

Ex. : \\YourServer\Share

 

Wouldn't that be the case if it was Windows' Emby Server reading a CIFS network share and not a VMWare Ubuntu Server reading folders shared to it by VMWare Workstation 12?

 

Yes, it's true that it is also available as the Windows Network Share "\\ServerName\Share" since I used to use Emby Server for Windows until it stopped working (web server refusing connections) but the mount point of it on Emby Server running on Ubuntu Server via VMWare is that exact path.

 

(I saw the path substitution thing before making this post but didn't think it applicable given how Emby Server is supposed to be accessing the files through the VMWare Ubuntu Server virtual machine and that post was related to Emby Server on Windows rather than Linux)

Edited January 26, 2016 by Guardian Hope

[mellomade 140]

Kodi can't see mnt/hgfs/EmbyMedia/TV Shows/Gossip Girl/Season 1/Gossip Girl 100 revealed.avi because it only understands SMB or NFS shares.

 

From Server Dashboard go to Library - Path Substitution and try:

 

mnt/hgfs/EmbyMedia/TV Shows/

 

To:

 

\\EmbyMedia\TV Shows

 

Or enter the direct smb path to your library when you set up your library.

[Guardian Hope 117]

Kodi can't see mnt/hgfs/EmbyMedia/TV Shows/Gossip Girl/Season 1/Gossip Girl 100 revealed.avi because it only understands SMB or NFS shares.

 

From Server Dashboard go to Library - Path Substitution and try:

 

mnt/hgfs/EmbyMedia/TV Shows/

 

To:

 

\\EmbyMedia\TV Shows

 

Or enter the direct smb path to your library when you set up your library.

 

I had to make a few adjustments to account for the fact it was in reality accessing a drive on the client via the VMWare Virtual Machine as when I tried to mount either an nfs or an smb share (CIFS technically, now; regular smb was replaced by CIFS except on older systems) within Ubuntu Server from the HGFS mounts it couldn't "direct play" and fell back on Emby's web client according to Kodi's log.

 

Knowing I never removed the shares from Windows hoping that @@Luke and I would get to the bottom of what was going on with Windows' Emby Server not successfully starting up on Windows 10 Pro Redstone I simply used path substitution to specify the physical node rather than the VM's share which I subsequently had removed.

 

So rather than mnt/hgfs/EmbyMedia/TV Shows/ to \\EmbyMedia\TV Shows the solution was to map mnt/hgfs/EmbyMedia/TV Shows/ to \\AHMS\Media\TV Shows which is the actual windows share and do the same for all the others - substitute VMWare's HGFS share path for the Windows CIFS share path.

 

This is now solved even though I can't mark it as such.

Edited January 27, 2016 by Guardian Hope