WebRemote plugproblems with MediaJukebox and mini-itx system

[sockmonsterhenry]

I'm not sure this is a MJ, WebRemote or hardware problem, but when I connect through Netremote on my Axim (or any browser, IE in this case), MJ will serve up part of the media library, playlist or playing-now data and simply hang. Prior to 0.99rc6, I'd have to reboot the Ax, but this appears to be fixed. I've applied the modified plugin from this site, but to improvement.

This is running on a media PC I put together on an VIA mini-itx board (6000M). An identical system works fine on my big PC, so I'm at a loss to determine what the cause of the problem is. Anyone seen this on other systems? Are there methods to debug the data stream coming from the WebRemote plugin?

I'd have a sweet, simple system if I could get this one bug fixed.

Thanks.

[Cocophone]

I'm thinking about building a smilar system.

What case are you using for your Mini-itx?

Also, how quiet is the 6000M? Is your system completely fanless?

Thanks,

==Cocophone==

[Ben S]

Hi Henry,

Do you notice any other networking related problems? It looks like there may be something there, as if IE won't even get the data correctly it sounds funky.

Does it always stop on some song, part of the library, etc.?

Can you try using the non-problem MJ server to connect to the problem MJ server? Same problem? No problem?

If there is no problem, you'll need to get some sort of telnet client for the PPC in order to connect directly and "watch" the stream.

[sockmonsterhenry]

To Cocophone, I use the Chyang Fun E-Note case, which is stylish but has its issues (you can't add a normal sized PCI card without a riser and some case-modding). The MB itself is silent, however, the fan on the case's PS runs loud. I modded the case to add a rheostat and that helps somewhat. The fan also seemed to run fine at 5 and 7 volts.

To WickedEwok, I sense no network problems - 100 mbps, and everything else network-related runs fine. It could indeed be related to the amount of data transferred from WebRemote; as a test I loaded MJ's library with a just a few songs and that appeared to work. When I did a full import, I get to about 60% (judging from IE's progress bar) before hanging. This is WebRemote, not Media Server, so I'm not sure of your question. However, since I have the same problem fetching data with IE on my big PC, I could use telnet there if I knew the protocol.

Thanks to both for your replies.

[Ben S]

How many albums do you have added? As a side note you could "group" the albums in Media Center, and I'm pretty sure Media Jukebox had a similar feature.

Anyway. On your main PC, if you go to a command prompt and type "telnet [itx server ip] 8080"

And then type "NRPI S[return]" you should see it send you a bunch of stuff, including some data that looks random. It should end with "BATCHCOMPLETE".

Now type

GTN "Media Library\Audio\Album"[return]

The "Album" part may be different. It should basically be the path of all of your albums in Media Jukebox.

You should see it send all of the album names, and end with TNC "0".

You can disconnect by typing "close[return].

I know that's ugly, but if you don't mind trying it, it will help us figure out what's going on.

[sockmonsterhenry]

Right on! I did try it quicky - "telnet <host> 82" - hit <CR> and got a stream of data. Knowing the proto statements will help a lot. I'll post my discoveries.

[sockmonsterhenry]

Ok - I followed WickedEwok's suggestions and here is what I saw. when I telnet'd into MJ both at work and at home and entered "NRPI S<CR>", I saew a repeating stream of BATCHSTART...V MP.Playstate "0"...BATCHCOMPLETE. When entered on the problem machine, all I get is BATCHSTART...<hang>. It appears IE is not getting anything either, as it continues to display "Waiting for reply" after hitting the same port. Maybe this tells you something.

FYI, this is MEdiaJukebox v8.0.399, and Webremote v1.0.6.

[Ben S]

Can you possibly download the MC9 trial and see if it works any better? This sounds very -very- flaky.

[sockmonsterhenry]

The MC9.0 trial work exatly the same. My opinion now is that it is from insufficient memory. the media pc has 128mb DDR, so it might be running low. That's all I can image at ths point. I intend to swap out some memory to verify when I get the chance.

[sockmonsterhenry]

Upgrading MJ to MC9 didn't fix it.
Doubling the amount of RAM didn't fix it.
The newest version of NetRemote didn't fix it.
Just as I was about to give up on ever using NR from my Minit-ITX meida PC, I install Win2K SP4. That fixed it!

I never though Microsoft could make me so happy...

[Ben S]

Great! Were you running SP3 before? Should I make a note of that (upgrade from SP3 to SP4 if problems on Win2000)?

[sockmonsterhenry]

YEs, I had SP3 installed prior.

[sockmonsterhenry]

YEs, I had SP3 installed prior.