Local UNC Paths Need Network Connection?

[peternm22]

I recently started using a SageTV network client and noticed that none of my commercial skip EDL files were showing up. I did a bit of research and discovered I needed to either map the drives to the network PC, or use UNC paths. Upon more research I discovered I couldn't use mapped drives with the SageTV service, so UNC paths were my choice.

I changed over my recording directories and everything worked beautifully, the network client could see the .edl files, everything was recording properly. Now the problem...

Yesterday while I had SageTV recording 2 shows (I have 2 tuners), I was changing some settings on the router which required the router to reboot. I've done this many times before with no problem. However, I later noticed that both of my tuners halted at exactly the same time causing a bit of a blip on the recording. The time that they halted corresponds to when I rebooted the router.

Do UNC paths need a network connection even if they are recording to a local drive? Is there any way around this?

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by peternm22

Do UNC paths need a network connection even if they are recording to a local drive?

yes.

Is there any way around this?

I seem to recall seting up a loopback adapter as a workaround.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by peternm22

I recently started using a SageTV network client and noticed that none of my commercial skip EDL files were showing up. I did a bit of research and discovered I needed to either map the drives to the network PC, or use UNC paths. Upon more research I discovered I couldn't use mapped drives with the SageTV service, so UNC paths were my choice.

I changed over my recording directories and everything worked beautifully, the network client could see the .edl files, everything was recording properly. Now the problem...

Yesterday while I had SageTV recording 2 shows (I have 2 tuners), I was changing some settings on the router which required the router to reboot. I've done this many times before with no problem. However, I later noticed that both of my tuners halted at exactly the same time causing a bit of a blip on the recording. The time that they halted corresponds to when I rebooted the router.

Do UNC paths need a network connection even if they are recording to a local drive? Is there any way around this?

I think there is misinformation about using a Client with non UNC paths.. You can record to local drives without using UNC paths with SagetvService... It is at the client pc that you would map the drives using administrative shares.

My setup example.

I record to
m:\sagem
n:\sagen

my clients are mapped as follows

m drive mapped to \\myserver\m$
n drive mapped to \\myserver\n$


If you want to keep using UNC paths then you need to add new hardware loop back adapter


XP Loopback

more

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

I record to
m:\sagem
n:\sagen

my clients are mapped as follows

m drive mapped to \\myserver\m$
n drive mapped to \\myserver\n$

While this works, I would not recommend as good practice. For one thing, it requires that the drives be mapped identically on all clients, and that all clients know the physical drive letters where the recordings are stored. This can make it difficult to reconfigure the server later, since all clients would have to be updated to match the new config. UNC paths don't have that issue, since knowledge about the physical configuration is limited to the server; clients need to know only the logical share names.

Also, those $ administrative shares give unrestricted admin access to those drives, so that one of those client machines could potentially run amok and do damage to the server's file system. Best practice is to give clients only the access privileges they actually need. In this case that would be read-only access to just the folders containing the recordings. Again, with UNC paths this is easily controlled from the server.

[peternm22]

Thanks for the help everyone.

My Sage recording drives are multipurpose drives, and I don't really feel like sharing the whole drive just for one folder. I'll give the loopback method a shot when I get home.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

While this works, I would not recommend as good practice. For one thing, it requires that the drives be mapped identically on all clients, and that all clients know the physical drive letters where the recordings are stored. This can make it difficult to reconfigure the server later, since all clients would have to be updated to match the new config. UNC paths don't have that issue, since knowledge about the physical configuration is limited to the server; clients need to know only the logical share names.

Also, those $ administrative shares give unrestricted admin access to those drives, so that one of those client machines could potentially run amok and do damage to the server's file system. Best practice is to give clients only the access privileges they actually need. In this case that would be read-only access to just the folders containing the recordings. Again, with UNC paths this is easily controlled from the server.

UNC paths might be working great for you it doesn't for me I get corruped files etc... Since moving away from UNC my sage system has improved cosiderably. Also what I am saying is that you do not need to use UNC paths to use comskip.


see this thread others have had problems.

[scoful]

I too have had issues with using UNC paths for recording.

What I really wish Sage would do is have a server recording path configuration and a client playback path configuration.

The server would typically record to local paths, while clients would use UNC paths for play back.

[Fuzzy]

To be honest, Sage doesn't need the UNC paths at all, so nothing they really need to change. The Sage Client will function properly without the server sharing any files, as sage will stream the media through it's server-client connection. What DOES need the shares are 3rd party plugins like comskip playback. It would make more sense would be to do the local to UNC path translations there.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

The Sage Client will function properly without the server sharing any files, as sage will stream the media through it's server-client connection.

This is almost correct. If the client thinks it can access the files directly, it will try to do so. So for instance if the server stores recordings on drive D, and the client has a local drive D, it will try to read the files from that local drive, and get an error when they aren't there. So using drive letters really only makes sense when you can guarantee that those letters are not already in use by any client.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

This is almost correct. If the client thinks it can access the files directly, it will try to do so. So for instance if the server stores recordings on drive D, and the client has a local drive D, it will try to read the files from that local drive, and get an error when they aren't there. So using drive letters really only makes sense when you can guarantee that those letters are not already in use by any client.

correct.. I was just pointing out that the performance issue that some have recording to UNC paths isn't something that sage really NEEDS to fix, as there product never really needs you to do so.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

This is almost correct. If the client thinks it can access the files directly, it will try to do so. So for instance if the server stores recordings on drive D, and the client has a local drive D, it will try to read the files from that local drive, and get an error when they aren't there. So using drive letters really only makes sense when you can guarantee that those letters are not already in use by any client.

correct that is why on my server I use high drive letters for my recordings. I start with the m:... and if I want to keep something for a while I move it to a nas using unc paths.

[peternm22]

Just an update: Using the loopback adapter worked, but I've discovered some other issues using UNC paths on my setup.

I've been getting a few video "glitches" in my R5000 recordings since switching to UNC paths. Essentially, the video pixelates for a second then returns to normal. I checked the R5000 application and noticed that it is getting quite a few buffer overflows, and the status bar is a lot closer to "Pushing It" then it was before. I reverted back to local paths, and these problems seem to have gone away.

I guess I will do without comskip on my network client

[Fuzzy]

the client can used mapped drives just fine. You don't NEED to use UNC paths for comskip to work, it just removes a step to do so (that step being mapping the server's recordings drives to the same path on the client).

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by peternm22

Just an update: Using the loopback adapter worked, but I've discovered some other issues using UNC paths on my setup.

I've been getting a few video "glitches" in my R5000 recordings since switching to UNC paths. Essentially, the video pixelates for a second then returns to normal. I checked the R5000 application and noticed that it is getting quite a few buffer overflows, and the status bar is a lot closer to "Pushing It" then it was before. I reverted back to local paths, and these problems seem to have gone away.

I guess I will do without comskip on my network client

Peter did yo read my post above?
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...56&postcount=3

[peternm22]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

Peter did yo read my post above?
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...56&postcount=3

Sure did, but then I read this post and saw there were some issues mapping the entire drive letter instead of a mapping single folders:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...84&postcount=4

one of those client machines could potentially run amok

The above quote kind of scared me away from mapping the whole drive, since the recording drives on my system are used for more than just recordings.

-Peter

[Fuzzy]

Ideally, you shouldn't be sharing it using the admin shares ($D, $E, etc). However, if you add a share of the drive itself (from my computer, right click on the drive and choose Sharing), it doesn't have those potential problems.