SOLVED-Timeout when browsing SMB files for longer than 60s

[m_earendil]

Hi,

I’m having a tiny issue with WiiMC that I can’t figure out. I use wiimc to play files over my wireless network via smb. While playing a file via smb it works flawlessly every time. The problem is if I press the home button and I take to long (60 seconds or longer) to start playing another file, then I will get the message “error loading file”. And any video I click after that will give the same “error loading file” message. If I press B on the wiimote to back up and try to open the smb share again, I will get the message “error opening smb1:/”. The only way to get it to connect again, is to press Home again and start wiimc again. Then it will work fine again as long as I select a video in less than 45 seconds.

This only happens when you are viewing the list of files and take longer than 60 seconds to select your next video. If you pick your next video in under 45 seconds, it will play all day without issue.

I’m have this issue using version 1.1.0 and 1.1.1 (I didn’t go back to see if the issue went away with really old versions, but I can if that helps). I’m loading wiimc using IOS58.

Thanks in advance. This is a fantastic app.

[aka107]

Give us info about your samba server
Windows 7?
XP?
Linux?
NAS?

I guess that your samba server close connection by inactivity but I think that wii samba client is able to reopen the connection.
The best way is debug the network traffic installing wireshark in your samba server and show us the log when the error happen.

[m_earendil]

The samba server is Visa Home Premium x64. I’ll do some searching to see if I can find the timeout value. I didn’t think of that before because i never had a problem from my other windows PC’s that use the same share.. But I bet the other windows PC’s send some kind of keep alive signal or something.

I’ll do some searching. I bet there is a registry value for the timeout, and i bet it’s set at 60 seconds right now.

If I don’t figure it out, i’ll post back with a wireshark log. If I find the timeout value, I’ll post it here in case others have this issue in the future.

Thanks for the tip.

[aka107]

@teefer22 wrote:

The samba server is Visa Home Premium x64. I’ll do some searching to see if I can find the timeout value. I didn’t think of that before because i never had a problem from my other windows PC’s that use the same share.. But I bet the other windows PC’s send some kind of keep alive signal or something.

I’ll do some searching. I bet there is a registry value for the timeout, and i bet it’s set at 60 seconds right now.

If I don’t figure it out, i’ll post back with a wireshark log. If I find the timeout value, I’ll post it here in case others have this issue in the future.

Thanks for the tip.

I guess you want to say Vista. It’s very strange, windows samba server works pretty fine because we test smb client with windows, maybe is a router problem, I had to change my wifi router because my wii didn’t like it and had a lot of disconnections

Try to change channel & fix the ip address in the wii, there is a problem with some dhcp servers, something about DHCP NAK broadcast read this: http://code.google.com/p/mplayer-ce/issues/detail?id=582

[m_earendil]

Thanks for the tip.. I’ll play with my router settings and let you know if I solve the problem.

[m_earendil]

SOLVED. I just wanted to post back with my results.. I have an ASUS N13U router and I had tried 3 different ASUS firmwares on it in hopes to resolve this issue but could not get it fixed. I then tried 2 different versions of DDWRT firmware on this router and still didn’t get it resolved. But Installing the latest DDWRT firmware on my router resolved this issue for me. I no longer have to race the 60 second timeout to select a file.

Thanks so much for pointing me at the router as the source of the problem, I wouldn’t have figured that out without some help.

[Waldespast]

I am having this very same problem. WiiMC connects to the net/SMB fine on startup but should I not touch my Wiimote for ~60 seconds the connection is killed for some strange reason. This prevents me from watching more than one YouTube video at a time or listen to more than one SMB streamed audio file at a time without rebooting the app and simultaneously turning on/off my Macbook Pro’s AirPort (WiFi).

Those of you who have fixed this problem seem to have replaced your router or installed custom firmware. My router (a Medialink wireless-N) doesn’t support Tomato or WW-DRT so there’s little I can do there. Is this is a WiiMC bug or is this truly a router issue that I need to address by replacing it with another brand? It’s beyond annoying having to restart the app and my laptop’s WiFi every time I want to play a new file because the WiiMC loses/drops its Internet connection… 👿

[m_earendil]

I just wanted to post back that your problem sounds a little different than mine (I”m not saying it’s not a router issue, I have no idea on that).. But mine would act a little differently. I could watch an 2 hour movie without touching the wii remote and it would work fine. And the wii remote would reconnect without any issues at any time. Even if you left it at the menu for 60 seconds and it would timeout, you could still use the wiimote, change to music or pictures (but they would not reconnect to smb). All you had to do to get it working again was press “Home” on the wiimote to get back to the wii menu and then relaunch wiimc and everything would be back and connected again. (no rebooting of the computer or router required)

My problem didn’t have anything to do with what you did with the wiimote..

If you have a usb thumbdrive or usb hard drive, put a few video’s on it, and only play back from usb and see if everything works properly. If it doesn’t, then you problem probably isn’t router related..

Hope that helps.

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