Online Services Plugin :: UPnP Browser

[dgeezer]

I had a problem where Pandora Radio wouldn't play. I contacted Playon Tech support. They suggested I uninstall Flash and re-install the IE Flash plugin. I tried this and found that it still didn't work. I went into IE and could still play Pandora, which led me to believe that the plugin wasn't uninstalled. I went into Tools and disabled Flash, shut down IE, and then uninstalled Flash again using this tool http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/141/tn_14157.html. Then I went to the Pandora Website in IE. Now it wouldn't work in IE but the site suggested I install the active X Flash plugin. With this installed in IE, Pandora now works in SageTV on my HD200!!

This plugin is a great addition to SageTV. Thanks.

[Zippster]

Originally Posted by dgeezer

I had a problem where Pandora Radio wouldn't play. I contacted Playon Tech support. They suggested I uninstall Flash and re-install the IE Flash plugin. I tried this and found that it still didn't work. I went into IE and could still play Pandora, which led me to believe that the plugin wasn't uninstalled. I went into Tools and disabled Flash, shut down IE, and then uninstalled Flash again using this tool http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/141/tn_14157.html. Then I went to the Pandora Website in IE. Now it wouldn't work in IE but the site suggested I install the active X Flash plugin. With this installed in IE, Pandora now works in SageTV on my HD200!!

This plugin is a great addition to SageTV. Thanks.

Same error I am getting on my HD100, I'll give this a shot, Thanks.

[Peter_h]

Originally Posted by robogeek

If you are trying to play Hulu content, go to your machine where PlayOn is installed, open Internet Explorer, and try to play Hulu content direct from hulu.com. If the browser prompts you to install any plugins to play the content, install them. Same goes for other web sites that PlayOn provides content for...go to those sites individually and make sure IE has all the necessary plugins to stream content from those sites. If Internet Explorer on your PlayOn machine doesn't have the necessary plugins and can't stream content from the sites PlayOn supports, then they won't stream through PlayOn either.

The other possiblity would be that your C: drive is full. I had that happen once where the .flv files weren't being cleaned up from the Windows Temp directory and eventually they filled my Windows Home Server C: drive, causing an error because new files couldn't expand as data was streamed to it.

Thanks, went to hulu in IE and it played everything without issue. Tried in firefox and I was prompted to install the flash plugin. Installed, tested in both browsers and hulu was working. Tried again in playon, still not working.

I then did some clearing out on the C: drive. I have 8 gigs free now (WHS) restarted playon and tried again and it's still not playing content through hulu.

Netflix works and CNN works. Hulu and CBS do not.

Any other suggestions?

[mzup]

Originally Posted by herrdude

Are there any network experts out there who might be able to shed some light on my and my buddy dinki's problem (sage not seeing playon on another computer on the same LAN)?

In my case, the two computers are in the same ip address range, they have the same subnet mask, they both belong to the same workgroup. Both computers can access shared folders and they can ping each other.

Any reason why sage can't see the playon server?

The only thing I can think of is a DNS issue. can you see the server thru network places? I would perhaps try to setup a host file with the ip address of the server on the sage system. hosts file is located at c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts There's no extension on file so make sure you save it with none.

[robogeek]

Originally Posted by Peter_h

Thanks, went to hulu in IE and it played everything without issue. Tried in firefox and I was prompted to install the flash plugin. Installed, tested in both browsers and hulu was working. Tried again in playon, still not working.

I then did some clearing out on the C: drive. I have 8 gigs free now (WHS) restarted playon and tried again and it's still not playing content through hulu.

Netflix works and CNN works. Hulu and CBS do not.

Any other suggestions?

The only other thing I can think of is to open the PlayOn Settings app on your PlayOn server, click the System Check tab, and click the Check Now button to be sure you are running the latest version of PlayOn. The last release was May 18th and included fixes for Hulu playback issues due to recent changes at hulu.com. Other than that, I'm not sure what else to check.

[Peter_h]

Originally Posted by robogeek

The only other thing I can think of is to open the PlayOn Settings app on your PlayOn server, click the System Check tab, and click the Check Now button to be sure you are running the latest version of PlayOn. The last release was May 18th and included fixes for Hulu playback issues due to recent changes at hulu.com. Other than that, I'm not sure what else to check.

Yeah, that was the very first thing I did. Just for good measure, I checked again and it says I have the latest version.

[Jfhar4]

While I'm not a developer, I have used Sage for several years and frequently read the forums. I'm using V7 beta now and formerly used SageMC. I use PlayOn and appreciate the desire for less menu clicks. I also see how it would be complex to implement dynamic menus. Alternatively, would Sage ever consider adding a Favorites option to the Main menu list? I hope that I could use this list of favorites to add custom links for: Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon VOD.

[herrdude]

Originally Posted by mzup

The only thing I can think of is a DNS issue. can you see the server thru network places? I would perhaps try to setup a host file with the ip address of the server on the sage system. hosts file is located at c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts There's no extension on file so make sure you save it with none.

Just to be clear, did you mean modify the hosts file on the sage server or on the computer with playon server?

I did modify the hosts file of the sage server to include the ip address of the playon server and no dice.

I will try doing the same on the playon server...

[evilpenguin]

FYI, i'm hard at work on out a bunch of improvements and fixes to most of the complaints/problems, should be ready by the weekend.



Also, quick question: has anyone tried the Linux version yet? People have downloaded them, but I haven't gotten any confirmation that they actually work yet

[Peter_h]

Looks great EP. Would you be able to take a quick glance at my posts above and help me out? Plugin hasn't been working for me.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by Peter_h

Looks great EP. Would you be able to take a quick glance at my posts above and help me out? Plugin hasn't been working for me.

If some PlayON videos work and others don't then that's most likely a PlayON issue, try playing back one of the videos and then submit a but report to them.

[mzup]

Originally Posted by herrdude

Just to be clear, did you mean modify the hosts file on the sage server or on the computer with playon server?

I did modify the hosts file of the sage server to include the ip address of the playon server and no dice.

I will try doing the same on the playon server...

It would be from sage server as you did. Can you ping the playon server from sage server? You should be able to since you modified the hosts file. Very odd. Nothing has changed with your network?

[dinki]

Originally Posted by herrdude

Just to be clear, did you mean modify the hosts file on the sage server or on the computer with playon server?

I did modify the hosts file of the sage server to include the ip address of the playon server and no dice.

I will try doing the same on the playon server...

Try downloading 'Device Spy' from http://www.playon.tv/tools . In my case I can see the PlayOn server just fine but UPNPBrowser can't see it (well sometimes I can get it to make cache files for the PlayOn server). This will at least let you know if the problem is only with UPNPBrowser or if your PC as a whole can/can't see your PlayOn server. I'd be interested in hearing what you find.

[dinki]

EP, me again. I was able to get the plugin to detect my remote PlayOn server (running on a pc on my wired lan) by resetting my router and then navigating the plugin. The plugin generated a cache file for my PlayOn server. I was able to browse the PlayOn server for quite some time after I was able to initially connect.

After exiting to the main menu I was unable to get the plugin to 'see' the PlayOn server. I kept the logs from the successful connection and noticed a portion that talks about parsing command line switches. Just for fun I tried:

UPnPBrowser.exe "/device" "PlayOn (Office)" "/uid" "0" "/path" "PlayOn (Office)" > commandline_with_options.txt

This produced a 13k text file that appears to have an rss feed of what's on my PlayOn server.

I then tried this:

UPnPBrowser.exe > commandline_without_options.txt

This produced a 1k text file that looks like a blank rss feed.

Can you tell me if there is a chance that something is screwy with the plugin not using the cache file to find the server? I've been able to 'see' the server over and over again by using the commandline options above. Is there a way that I can shoehorn the commandline parameters in some how to see if this fixes my problem with not seeing the server?

I'm attaching the two output files I created as well as the log file from the commandline_with_options run. The output from the log file looks a lot like the successful debug output troubleshooting from v6.

Thanks again for your help.

[evilpenguin]

Yeah, turns out the .cache files weren't being used like I intended. I've got that fixed and will be doing a new release this weekend.

[dinki]

Excellent! Looking forward to the release.

[infocus13]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

FYI, i'm hard at work on out a bunch of improvements and fixes to most of the complaints/problems, should be ready by the weekend.



Also, quick question: has anyone tried the Linux version yet? People have downloaded them, but I haven't gotten any confirmation that they actually work yet

EP - that looks awesome, having direct access to the feeds through the top level menu is fantastic!

[barney B.A.]

Great work EP
Can't wait!

[comedian999]

Great plug-in EvilPenguin; worked right out of the gate on my first try.

The one question I have is: is there a graceful way to exit the player on conclusion of a video? I'm having a two part "problem" (quoted because things are generally working, so there are worse issues to have):

1) On conclusion of a video, the player just stops. Pressing Back doesn't do anything; I need to hit Menu to go all the way back to the main Sage menu and navigate all the way back through Online Services to select another video via the browser. Granted, this will be somewhat alleviated by your new version and its higher-level nav, but...

2) When I bang out to the menu with the uPnP player in this state, my performance navigating around drops significantly - Eye Candy effects drag in a noticeable fashion. I checked the VJM Heap size after playing and it wasn't even on the high end of out of the ordinary. It's not the end of the world - a quick putting Sage to sleep and waking it back up cures it - but if there's a graceful way I can back out of / close out the player, it might make a difference.

Again, these are small nitpicks. Thanks again for a great, easy-to-use plugin!

[trini0]

EP. Excellent plugin.
I got it up and running in no time flat.
The significant other was *highly* impressed that we were streaming Netflix via Sage's interface.
We were up till 2am this morning looking at movies
Can't wait to see your enhancements to the plugin..