XBox Extender can't see shared libraries

[RSaunders]

In the past week something happened to my XBox 360 extenders. My Windows 7 Media Center PC has a Ceton infiniTV and a couple TB of RAID storage. The MCPC works exactly as expected. I have two XBox 360's as media extenders. Two weeks ago, they both worked just fine. Last weekend, the XBox my kids play games on malfunctioned. You can watch Live TV, and watch any channel you want, but when you go to Recorded TV you get "Windows Media Center could not find any shared libraries on your network or there is no content in those libraries. For information about using shared libraries, see Windows Help". When I go to W7MC Settings on the XBox, all the folders on the RAID drive are shown, with check marks next to them, so I can't add therm. This XBox plays online games and isn't usually watching TV. Two days ago, the power went off in a thunderstorm. Now even the dedicated XBox in the den, which only runs Media Center, does the same thing.

I've restarted everything, and restarted the network. There is a good, hardwired, network connection between all these machines. The Live TV works great, in HD, on the MCPC and both XBoxes. The Recorded TV, of which there is quite a bit, works great on the MCPC, but nothing shows up on either XBox.

What happened? How do I fix it? How do I prevent it?

[RSaunders]

Two months I've had this problem, not even a suggestion from TGB?

[RSaunders]

OK, I've tried some other things, and changed from the previous problem to an all new problem. First I opened an administrator CMD window and ran

sfc /scannow

No problems. Second I removed both of my xBox extenders from Control Panel > Devices and Printers. Then I went to the xBox and disconnected it from the Media Center. Then I rebooted both the W7MC PC and the xBox. On the xBox I went to Media Center settings and told it to connect. Carrying the 8 digit number over to the W7MC PC, I went through the "connect an extender" dialog. When I got the the "install" pooint, I got an error saying I needed to be logged in as an admin to complete this command. Very odd, but I logged out of the Media Center's default account and logged in as Admin. Then I could complete the install process for the first xBox.

Now, when running from the normal Media Center account, which in NOT and Administrator account, everything still works fine on the W7MC PC. Plus, the Library of recorded shows appears on the xBox. Definite progress. However, when I select a recorded show on the xBox and click "play" the W7MC PC crashes. No error message on the screen; just no video signal followed by the bios startup splash and "Windows didn't shut down properly ...".

Has something changed that requires W7MC to run as admin?? Does everybody else do that?? Seems like a security problem.

Any other suggestions for what to try next? What logs should I look at to figure out why Windows is crashing/rebooting??

[newfiend]

Have you run a Memory Diagnostic program on your HTPC?
There is one built into Win 7.. Click Start, in the search box type Memory.. The Memory Diagnostic will be in the list of results.. Run that and see if you get any errors. (A reboot may be required.. let the Diagnostic Complete.)

I would also run a check with Memtest 86+ here just to be sure the memory is good. http://www.memtest.org/

It's strage that the PC would crash.. Extenders require a bit of memory and If you have some bad memory a crash could happen. Since you already Ran sfc/Scannow and it came back with no corrupt files that is a good sign for the HDD/SSD.
If the Memory Diagnostic comes back ok I would then run a check on the Hard Drive Right click the system drive (c:) and select Properties, Tools tab, Under error Checking click the check now button. You may need to reboot to check the drive.

As far as the issue with the XBOX goes try turning off UAC. Just make sure you have an antivirus program installed like Microsoft Security Essentials.

I have seen Issues where User accounts and permissions get messed up. Some have had good luck by creating a new Admin User account and then deleteing the old account.
I would try this.. Remove all Extenders from the HTPC. Read to Uninstall Xbox 360 and remove the Extender connection here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/wind ... der-device
Make sure you follow all the steps to completely remove the connection from the Xbox and Media Center PC.

Make a New Administrator Account. Reboot the PC, Log into the new Admin Account. (Make sure you save any files you want prior to deleting it.) Delete the Old admin account.

Turn off UAC. Open Media Center and set it up the way you like. Including Libraries. Etc..
Then Reconnect the Xbox(s) as extenders.
Hopefully this will solve the problems you are having.

Since you had a thunderstorm and now the PC crashes when connecting an extender I would almost bet you may have some Damaged Hardware..(RAM possibly).. But I could be wrong..
HTH,
newfiend~

[RSaunders]

Ran memory diagnostics, no problem. Hard Drive diagnostics on boot drive, no problem.

This is not a random, or intermittent crash. It is completely reproducible. The Event Viewer system log shown no error messages before the "Critical" message saying that the system didn't shut down properly. I have always had UAC off.

I'm ready to go through the remove/install process again, but I have a question about the "Make a New Administrator Account" section. Is it necessary to run Media Center as admin? What's the reason that this is needed?

[newfiend]

It sounds to me.. And I could be wrong here but it sounds like your Administrator privalages may be corrupt or damaged somehow..(see edit below) I do not know why MC needs an administrator account, but it seems to allow you to get things working that otherwise aren't.. As a Test you could create a new admin account and see if things return to normal using that account. If so that would be an indicator of a corrupt Admin account.

Does the PC crash on just the "same" recording each time? Have you tried other recordings to see if maybe you just have a corrupt recording?

Also try logging into the regular Admin account. Open MC go to Tasks / Settings > Media Libraries > Select Recorded TV> and then Remove the default recording location Library, Save and exit MC.
Reboot the PC and go back in and Re-Add the location. see if that fixes it.

If not.

Try and create a new Recorded TV folder on one of your HDD... Go back in to MC Tasks/Settings > Media Libraries and add the new location for Rcorded TV you just created. Move all your recordings into the new location and delete the old recorded TV directory.

See what happens then.. Hopefully one of these steps will fix the privalages and allow the extender to play the files.

Let me know how you get on..
EDIT: Some more information on why Media Center Requires and Administrator account to add extenders is explained well here:
http://experts.windows.com/w/experts_wi ... nders.aspx

"Windows 7 Media Center

In Windows 7 Media Center, things are a bit different. The Windows 7 developers decided not to simply add the MCX accounts to the local Administrators group. During the extender installation, the right to log on remotely is granted directly to the MCX user account through the local security policy. You can see how this is done in Windows 7 by looking at the user rights assignments in the local security policy.

Unlike previous versions of Windows, where file permissions are inherited by being a member of the Administrators group, in Windows 7 permissions are directly added to files and folders. This is an improvement over adding the MCX accounts to the Administrators group; however, a scheduled task is created which runs under the context of the user that is logged in during the install. This scheduled task re-applies permissions to allow access to files and folders by the MCX accounts. If you have ever tried to change the default file permissions for MCX1-<computername> account under Windows 7, you will notice that eventually the access you set gets changed back, again allowing the extender full access. I will discuss this more a little later in this article, but this is the behavior that needs to be stopped to successfully use security groups to simplify the process of defining access permissions to content."

newfiend~

[nuclearxp]

This may be a grossly oversimplified suggestion, but have you tried just removing and re-adding the shared libraries from the WMC computer via the UI?

[lawson23]

I just had a very similar issue and found your post but then found the answer for me at least.

http://experts.windows.com/frms/windows ... 36363.aspx
"Make sure when you are looking for shows in the Recorded TV window that you have selected either < date recorded >, < title > or < original air date > and are not on the selection < shared >, which would show that error."

Hope this can help you too.