Hey all, I did a search of the forums and saw some vaguely similar posts but nothing quite on the nose. I am using my Zidoo wired to the router to play SMB shares from various external hard drives connected to my upstairs laptop (also hardwired ). At this point, I am up to quite a few different drives and all has mostly gone well and play is solid even of my ripped blurays. Recently, I've begun encountering the consistent problem of the various SMB share folders disappearing upon restart and showing as "invalid" in the Home Theater sources. However, a quick move to the separate media center browser, and I can navigate to those very same folders just fine under "SMB" . The kicker: Once I access a file from the respective folders in the media center browser, I then come back to the Home Theater app and those sources are no longer showing invalid and have re-populated the films in poster wall erc. This isn't really a feasible workaround to navigate to three different drives to get them recognized every time I fire up the z9x. Anyone got any insight or similar experiences on how to get HT to auto recognize the shares and stop showing them as "invalid" sources. not entirely understanding why this is an issue. I have an htpc media setup alternative with all the same SMB files. This never happens. Thanks in advance!
at a guess, I would suggest you may not have fixed IP addresses on your Zidoo and/or laptop? When things are re-booted the router can often apply a new IP address. Over the years, I have found this messes with NAS', printers, TV's and certainly media players. I did have "invalid" sources for some NAS drives (whilst one was ok) when my internet was changed to fibre-to-the premises and the router was moved. The same happens if a NAS is not powered on in time (as they are slower than the zidoo to boot). Sometimes re-booting the modem, router and PC/laptop can fix networking address issues as well.
Yes I had the same problem, turn off the Zidoo and the next time I turned it on all the shares were gone. I assigned all IP addresses above 200 as fixed and allowed the router to do the assigning below that figure. Problem went away. In the fixed group are my TV, PVR, Zidoo, AVR, NAS and principal PC
Your not the only one having this issue, it's the main reason my zidoo z9x is sitting on the shelf unplugged right now. I just got tired of it working fine for a month or two and then one day I go to add some new movies and it will tell me it can not find my smb drives. I will then have to reset everything and start over. All my equipment has fixed ip addresses and over the years I have had no issues with the other equipment plugged into my nas drives. Once I find another device that can play a dolby vision with mkv I will be purchasing it.
Thanks for all the replies. I figured it wasn't just me. I haven't tinkered much with assigning fixed IP addresses to devices as it just works with other things. I'm sure I can just Google it and it likely involves getting into the router settings. Is there a dummy's guide to how exactly I do this?
This has happened to me several times too. I'm pretty sure this happens when you change the contents of the hard drive and Home Theater doesn't run. I have done a lot of tests to verify and the result is 100%.
