"Refresh" & "Add" item causing TVersity to "Stop Sharing"

#1

First off, thanks in advance to anyone that can solve my issue. When I add media or refresh a folder, TVersity goes into stop sharing.

I have tried breaking the multiple folders down to smaller folders and its become hit or miss. For example, I am able to add a folder with about 8 gig of pictures but keeps going offline on a different folder with 3 gig of music.

I have tried re-installing, updating, going back to an older version.

In the end, even if I get all my media added to the library, when it does a refresh at midnight, I wake up to find TVersity in a Stop Sharing state.

Box Specs - P4 2.93Ghz HT, 2 Gig of Ram, Windows XP SP3,

Let me know if anyone has run into this.

Warmest regards,
JD

#2

Using Virtual OS for Windows XP Pro, I made Tveristy (sharing is running, if not you can’t access the library nor any options in the settings tab) open 3 types of folders: one with 200 files in 5 sub folders with less than 1 gig of data(Folder A), another file with with 6 files in one subfolder with over 160 gigs of data (Folder B), and another folder with 723 files and 9 gigs of data (Folder C). Interestingly, both folders A and B failed to open, however, both only had video and audio files, while folder C had only photos. So it’s not because of the file/folder size, but probably because of the subfolders and/or the file extensions (.avi and .mp3 was all I had). Tversity is not supposed to open these files without a decoder, just add them. So, either Media Server.exe is corrupted or it’s the fact that ffdshow is corrupted (have you ever noticed how the ffdshow icons sometimes disappear on the taskbar, when you restart the sharing service?). both applications work together in some way, even if you shutdown Tveristy you can restart the sharing service from Start Menu --> Programs–>Tversity Media Server–>Tversity Tools.

#3

Why not set your refresh settings to refresh your library every minute, instead of having it to refresh at midnight only. That would be more reliable, and you can check to see if any problems occur.

#4

Edit
Looks Like the bug for that issue is related with FFDSHOW, but when the library refreshes, MediaServer.exe times out; however, if the programming for Tversity’s Iibrary Refresh feature were to intentionally restart the sharing service (as it’s tide to showing and updating any media in the Library), then the time out would occur if you were streaming media or transcoding media during that time. If not, this is just a bug in the program itself. Probably very few people don’t even bother refreshing there library—maybe that’s why there hasn’t been so much to complain for a bug-fix on this issue…

So, the best advice is to update FFDSHOW to the most updated version, and try to avoid refreshing the library at a specific time. Instead, set it to refresh to a certain amount of hours and under the specific time settings leave it as the default settings, which is 00:00

#5

Interesting actually. I think I figured out the possible cause of the issue. I am still doing some investigating but it will probably take a few days. If I do an MShare -R to remfresh the library, it will error out on the same files. I keep removing those files to see if it is an issue. So far, 3 different files in different folders have caused a problem. Once I get through the whole thing without erroring out. I will test to see if it still an issue.

#6

I have added media and waiting for it t error out. I recall it generating an error report to send to Microsoft about 50% of the time. The other 50% it just stops sharing. I am waiting for it to error out now.

EDIT: Just errored out. It did not generate an error report. All it did was stop sharing. No message or anything.

#7

Where would Tversity store the error report if it generated one?

#8

Don’t worry about that, just tell me if you ever got an error from what I mentioned right now.

#9

Yup, I guess I didn’t my original comment clear. Yep, I understand that it only updates it with data th is missing. It does not recreate the library. After reading my response, it does sound like it ends up missing stuff.

Well, at this point, I can only confirm that the entire library does not appear to be visible. However, so about the only thing that tells me is that it fails somewhere during the add process.

Does that mean that if I set the service to always on, and refresh the library every hour lets say, it will eventually get all the items in?

If that is the case, please fill me in on the way to get tversity to always be on. As in turn on sharing every time it fails.

[quote=“JRM75”]Do you know what the actual function of refreshing the library is? It’s to update the current file/folders in the library.For example, instead of having to recreate the library or add/remove items seperately as “Files” and not “Folders” to just keep everything updated, you can just use the refresh feature in the Tversity GUI.

So, if you ever have problems updating your library, you can always recreate it; however, even if the sharing service stops during the refresh period, just restart it manually and check if your library actually does get updated. I mean I need you to actually verify this for me by adding/removing items in your library and setting the refresh time to 1 minute ahead of the current time as of now, before we can proceed to the next step in order to fix this problem. Once, you have confirmed that the library does update itself even if the sharing service stops, then I will tell you what must be done to ensure that all your media doesn’t fail to show up in your library nor for the Tversity Media Server to stop sharing when the library refreshes.[/quote]

#10

No, your on the right path. The thing is that I found a way to reproduce the same problem, except now I found a bug in the program that might be related with your problem. Alright, now for this test I want you to restart the sharing service and then click the Library tab. Once your there go to Files and then click Add Item. Now, browse to the folder with your movies and/or where most of your media is kept (has to be over 8 gigabytes in size). Does Tversity shutdown and generate an error report?

#11

Oh it does update itself automatically. It just fails during the update process and turns off sharing.

[quote=“JRM75”]Do you know what the actual function of refreshing the library is? It’s to update the current file/folders in the library.For example, instead of having to recreate the library or adremove items seperately as “Files” and not “Folders” to just keep everything updated, you can just use the refresh feature in the Tversity GUI.

So, if you ever have problems updating your library, you can always recreate it; however, even if the sharing service stops during the refresh period, just restart it manually and check if your library actually does get updated. I mean I need you to actually verify this for me by adding/removing items in your library and setting the refresh time to 1 minute ahead of the current time as of now, before we can proceed to the next step in order to fix this problem. Once, you have confirmed that the library does update itself even if the sharing service stops, then I will tell you what must be done to ensure that all your media doesn’t fail to show up in your library nor for the Tversity Media Server to stop sharing when the library refreshes.[/quote]

#12

Do you know what the actual function of refreshing the library is? It’s to update the current file/folders in the library.For example, instead of having to recreate the library or add/remove items seperately as “Files” and not “Folders” to just keep everything updated, you can just use the refresh feature in the Tversity GUI.

So, if you ever have problems updating your library, you can always recreate it; however, even if the sharing service stops during the refresh period, just restart it manually and check if your library actually does get updated. I mean I need you to actually verify this for me by adding/removing items in your library and setting the refresh time to 1 minute ahead of the current time as of now, before we can proceed to the next step in order to fix this problem. Once, you have confirmed that the library does update itself even if the sharing service stops, then I will tell you what must be done to ensure that all your media doesn’t fail to show up in your library nor for the Tversity Media Server to stop sharing when the library refreshes.

#13

Main problems:

  1. Will not complete refresh and therefore all media does not show up during sharing.
  2. When it errors during refresh, the server goes offline and needs to be manually restarted.
  3. Auto library refresh scheduled for midnight so if it remains this way, I will have to start it back up every morning.
  4. Depending on what point it errors out, will depend on how much of my library will be shared.

Auto restart would be nice but it wont really help since if it fails shortly after it starts the refresh, then the shared library would be tiny.

[quote=“JRM75”]Alright, let’s get technical…Let me ask you something: Is you main problem to just refresh the library? Or, is it that Tversity stops sharing during transcoding and/or when it’s not in use? Or, is it both…?

I know a way to fix the Tversity Media Server Sharing part to recover when it fails by autmatically restarting again on it’s own ( by a specified command in your computer)…This requires applying certain settings/options in Administration Tools (in the Services console) in Control Panel of your computer.[/quote]

#14

Yep, checked power options. The box is always on. No hard disk off during inactivity, no monitor off during inactivity (although it is physically off 95% of the time. I usually remote into the box to manage it.)

Long fileames, thats a tough one. Way too many files to go through. However, it did not have this problem in the past that I can remember observing. Most of the files are the same and any additional files are the same naming convention (I am absolutely anal about process and procedures) so I know I haven’t deviated from past naming conventions.

Here is a kicker, I regenerated all of my m3u playlists. I know for sure that there is no issues with the m3u playlist. They are brand spankin newly created. I basically take the itunes library that I have which has a smart playlist setting for each genre and creates the genre accordingly. I rescanned my entire library then converted the playlists to m3u. So I know it is 100% accurate and none of the files are missing from the folders. This error’s out as well. Go figure. The reason why this is a good test to me is that I know the file is good and not corrupt.

There is no pattern as to what file or what folder. One folder might work now, but will error out on a refresh. One playlist might work now and error out on a refresh. So I am certain that it is not tied to a specific file or folder.

Any tweaks perhaps or logs embedded into the software that would explain why it goes offline?

[quote=“JRM75”]
Also, have you checked the Power Options in Control Panel for you computer to see if it’s not scheduled to turn off hardisks, Hibernate, and/or to go into Standby after a certain amount of idle time/inactivity.

Last thing to mention: Did you know that sometimes a file that has a very long filename sometimes won’t work, or just won’t work at all and give an error message of somesort? Yup, it’s true and many people have argued about that in other forums that I’ve been to. An easy fix is to just rename your files and folders with shorter names. Another thing, is that when you refresh the library you must not be accessing (removing/adding/moving) any of the files and folders at the time, nor be decoding/transcoding them. On some rare occasions Tversity Media Server can just crash, because of that.[/quote]

#15

I just edited my first reply, see if you notice anything that might help… But, I’ll see if I can reproduce the same problem that your experiencing.

#16

Alright, let’s get technical…Let me ask you something: Is you main problem to just refresh the library? Or, is it that Tversity stops sharing during transcoding and/or when it’s not in use? Or, is it both…?

I know a way to fix the Tversity Media Server Sharing part to recover when it fails by autmatically restarting again on it’s own ( by a specified command in your computer)…This requires applying certain settings/options in Administration Tools (in the Services console) in Control Panel of your computer.

#17

OK everything is fixed. Thanks for your help.

Here was the solution. Keep in mind I have 40K plus files so to actually go through each file would have been a nightmare.

Share Media Command Prompt using MShare -R

Basically by doing this, it will rescan the library and FAIL at the problem file. So it pinpoints the files that have issues with them. I was able to identify 5 to 6 files that had issues. Some of them was just an issue of ID3 tag. I wiped the entire tag and recreated them and voila, doesn’t error out anymore. I did look at the tag and since I use a lot of my mp3’s for DJ software, so a lot of tags were specific to the DJ software. So in my case, the specific tag on was just too much of an issue.

Once I corrected all the files. No more issues.

As far as rescan every minute. To do a rescan of my library takes about 5 minutes by itself and runs the cpu at about 80%. I don’t make too many modifications so I can live with media refresh every 24 hours.

Thanks again to JRM75. You gave me a lot of ideas to look and that in turn helped me along.

#18

Thanks for the reply JRM75.

I have tried the Recreate Library Option. I have gone even as far as deleting everything and starting from scratch.

I have about 380 gig of media that I am trying to get tversity to serve up. No movies or video’s. Mostly pictures and music. All pictures are jpg and all music is mp3. Due to to its size, I have to keep them separated. I also ran older versions of Tversity without any issues in this same configuration. It ran without issue when I had it on Windows Media Center with XP SP3.

Once I migrated to just Windows XP SP3, its been problematic.

I have read a lot of people having issues with XP SP3 but I just can’t get myself to roll it back right now due to the risk of running into issues with other software that I have installed on the box.

I like the tweak option and have programming experience so I have no issues doing that. What files do I need to look at? The other thing I have tried is increasing the priority level of tversity.exe and mediaserver.exe. The results were mixed so I cannot say for sure if it improved the issue.

Let me know what else anyone can come up with.

[quote=“JRM75”]Have you tried the Recreate Library option (it resets the library)? I had this problem once, the fix to it is to put all your videos, photos,etc. in a single folder or directory. Then, when your about to add the item make sure the “search for” settings is checked for Video, Photo, and Audio. If you know how to program Tversity Media Sever (not the GUI itself) to take a higher priority for resources, you won’t need to do this. I have a folder named “My Media” in my Tversity Library with over 60 gigs of movies, audio, and few photos. Also, I heard that the Always Transcode option lets you transcode things on the fly automatically when you access an item and suspend them, it will keep transcoding the rest of the file while you’re streaming other stuff. Although, I think the Max amount files it can transcode simultaneously is 2-3 files, then the rest depends on your computer and network’s performance/speed.

Another thing, you should not use Service Pack 3. If you compare the service pack with Windows Vista (w/ it’s SP1,etc.), you will notice incompatbility problems with third-party software/programs. Note: if you uninstall Service Pack 3, you will probably have to reinstall any Internet Explorer Updates (this includes IE7, if you have it installed), and in some rare occasions you computer’s video driver and/or motherboard chipset software.[/quote]

#19

Have you tried the Recreate Library option (it resets the library)? I had this problem once, the fix to it is to put all your videos, photos,etc. in a single folder or directory. Then, when your about to add the item make sure the “search for” settings is checked for Video, Photo, and Audio. If you know how to program Tversity Media Sever (not the GUI itself) to take a higher priority for resources, you won’t need to do this. I have a folder named “My Media” in my Tversity Library with over 60 gigs of movies, audio, and few photos. Also, I heard that the Always Transcode option lets you transcode things on the fly automatically when you access an item and suspend them, it will keep transcoding the rest of the file while you’re streaming other stuff. Although, I think the Max amount files it can transcode simultaneously is 2-3 files, then the rest depends on your computer and network’s performance/speed.

Another thing, you should not use Service Pack 3. If you compare the service pack with Windows Vista (w/ it’s SP1,etc.), you will notice incompatbility problems with third-party software/programs. Note: if you uninstall Service Pack 3, you will probably have to reinstall any Internet Explorer Updates (this includes IE7, if you have it installed), and in some rare occasions you computer’s video driver and/or motherboard chipset software.

*Edit:

Also, have you checked the Power Options in Control Panel for you computer to see if it’s not scheduled to turn off hardisks, Hibernate, and/or to go into Standby after a certain amount of idle time/inactivity.

Last thing to mention: Did you know that sometimes a file that has a very long filename sometimes won’t work, or just won’t work at all and give an error message of somesort? Yup, it’s true and many people have argued about that in other forums that I’ve been to. An easy fix is to just rename your files and folders with shorter names. Another thing, is that when you refresh the library you must not be accessing (removing/adding/moving) any of the files and folders at the time, nor be decoding/transcoding them. On some rare occasions Tversity Media Server can just crash, because of that.

#20

It appears that I may have found another cause of this:

I am transcoding an MKV into a smaller MP4 (to play on an XBox360). When the refresh reaches that file it fails, and knocks out the sharing service.

Question:

Is there any way to refresh, but skipping that file?
(I started the transcode about a day ago, it won’t finish until tomorrow)

Or is there a way to make the refresh skip files it fails on?

  • Timeout on attempt to add file?
  • Catch error and log, then resume?

Cheers,
Dems :)