Finding an external hd connected through my pictures

[Robinsons]

i have just bought a t3 and I can't access an external hard drive that have my movies on it. When searching for that computer it doesn't find that drive. The drive is shared. In fact it only shows that computer & I can't drill down to any folders or connected hard drives. Can you help?

[MrQuade]

Just to avoid confusion, an "external drive" is a term usually reserved for a hard drive that is attached to the T3 externally via USB or eSATA. What you are referring to is a network folder or a shared network drive etc....

Firstly ensure that the permissions for your shared drive will allow anonymous user access. Failing that, when you browse for folders on that PC from your T3, try entering the login details (user name and password) for a user that has full read access to that shared folder. When you are in the T3's network browser, the color buttons will allow you to enter those login credentials.

[Robinsons]

Thanks for that information. I am reasonably good with computers & when I had my FV-L1 I was able to connect to it. So what is the difference here. I know I have only had the T3 for a week but I would have thought these things would be easier. I can access the T3 from my computer but not the reverse. I am unsure how to make sure the account is shared completely. I wish there was a YouTube video on connecting. The whole business with mounting etc is not addressed anywhere that I can see. Are there any links regarding this?

[prl]

The first step is to try using MENU>Setup>Network>Network browser. This is as close as the T3 gets to scanning for network shares as in the FV-L1 (or any DP series unit).

If you see your PC in the list that generates, almost all the work will be done for you. Move to your PC and press OK. You'll be asked if you want to give a username and password: use a username and password that you know would give the access you'd want to the share if you were connecting to it using Windows "Connect as...". If you don't give a username/password it will try to connect as Guest.

Once that's done, move to the share you want to connect to and press OK. If you didn't give a username/password in the firest step, it will ask for one again. Same usage as before. Once you've done that you'll be presented with a setup screen for the share, but with all the fields pre-filled. You may want to change "Local share name", that's the name the share will appear as on the T3. Otherwise, everything else should be set up correctly. It may be useful to check whether the username has been set correctly, as a check to make sure that the username/password you entered earlier has carried across. If it hasn't, enter it again.

Then press GREEN Save, and it will try to connect to the share.

Good luck!

One reason why there isn't a single "how to do it" video is that the exact steps needed vary depending on what kind of share you're trying to connect to (Windows, Windows share on OS X, NAS, etc), and even, with Windows, what version of Windows you're running.

[Robinsons]

I tried that but it takes ages to find anything after I press ok. Then eventually it doesn't open any folders that are in the computer. It then it appears as if it didn't do anything at all. I have attached a pic. I tried accessing the Newcomputer with no success

[Robinsons]

I tried that but it takes ages to find anything after I press ok. Then eventually it doesn't open any folders that are in the computer. It then it appears as if it didn't do anything at all. I have attached a pic. I tried accessing the Newcomputer with no success

[prl]

Attachment?

[peteru]

I tried that but it takes ages to find anything after I press ok. Then eventually it doesn't open any folders that are in the computer.

If your computer does not allow anonymous browsing of exported shares, you need to login first.

Select the computer that should have the shares, then press the green button to login.

However, from your description, it sounds like your home network is misconfigured to begin with. It should not take ages to find all the local machines - only about 30 seconds for a typical /24 network. What is your network address, network mask, broadcast address and default route? Are you by any chance on a 10.0.0.1/16 network? If so, that is certainly a cause for concern.

[Robinsons]

TV Screenshot

My network is on 10.1.1.1/16 as you can see. Why is that a problem? The Netcomm is my modem & the Newcomputer is where my files are stored.

[MrQuade]

It's a problem mostly because of the /16. That means you have a 16 bit netmask (255.255.0.0), meaning that your network has a potential 65535 IP addresses on it.

When the T3 goes searching for computers on your network, it tries to scan through 65534 addresses. In a more usual home arrangement, you have a /24 subnet (255.255.255.0) which means the T3 only has to scan through 254 addresses which takes far less time.

Ever since Microsoft moved on from Windows XP, they have started to make sharing of folders a complete mess. It is apparently easier to share between Windows hosts, but from any other OS, it is a bloody nightmare. They fell into Apple's trap of making everything idiotproof, but end up hiding important features that let you get around slightly non-standard setups.

Just now, I actually tried accessing my Windows PC shares this way and have been defeated as well.

This info is for the PeterU:
From a command prompt on the T3, I can use
smbclient -L <pcname>

and it results in:

Code: Select all

Domain=[<domainname>] OS=[Windows 7 Professional 7601 Service Pack 1] Server=[Windows 7 Professional 6.1]

        Sharename       Type      Comment
        ---------       ----      -------
cli_rpc_pipe_open: cli_nt_create failed on pipe \srvsvc to machine <pcname>.  Error was NT_STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED
Error returning browse list: NT_STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED
Anonymous login successful
Domain=[<domainname>] OS=[Windows 7 Professional 7601 Service Pack 1] Server=[Windows 7 Professional 6.1]

        Server               Comment
        ---------            -------

        Workgroup            Master
        ---------            -------

Which is fair enough....Windows anonymous access is completely brain dead these days.

however:
smbclient -L <pcname> -U <validusername>

results in:

Code: Select all

Password: <i entered my password here>
session setup failed: SUCCESS - 0

Whereas the same command from one of my other Linux machines results in a proper listing of my network shares. (the anonymouse listing from the other Linux machine also fails on permissions btw).

What could be missing from the T3's Samba setup that is not affecting my other Linux PCs?

I found the following article listing the same error:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1501633
which takes me here:
https://bugzilla.samba.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7577

My other Linux box is running Samba 3.6.23-14 (CentOS 6.5)
It looks like the T3 is running 3.0.37.

[MrQuade]

Ahh, of course an easier partial fix is here:
http://fixx.co.za/smbclient-and-windows ... success-0/

I too uninstalled Windows Live Essentials and boom, I am able to list the shares from the T3.

Even though Windows Live essentials only seems to install 4 innocuous utilities, I think it also installs the Windows Live ID assistant in the background, which messes everything up.

Note that you still need to enter your valid user and password login details in the T3 to allow it to browse your Windows shares.

In order to allow anonymous access, you must go into your "Network and Sharing Center" in Windows, go to "Advanced sharing settings", and select "Turn off password protected sharing".

Note that you still need a user name and password to access your Windows shares, that setting just allows you to use an anonymous user when you need to. It is misleading and quite stupid.

[prl]

...
My network is on 10.1.1.1/16 as you can see.

There's nothing on that screen to indicate whether your network is /16 or /24 (or /8 for that matter). In either case, 10.1.1.1 isn't the address of your network. It's the address of your network router. The address of your network is either 10.1.0.0 if it's a /16 network address or 10.1.1.0 if it's a /24 address.

The easiest place to find our whether your network is /16 or /24 is in MENU>Setup>Information>Network, in the Netmask field. If the network is /16, then netmask will be 255.255..0.0. If it's /24, the netmask will be 255.255.255.0.

This is what the network info screen looks like on my test T3 (with a /24 network address):

Why is that a problem? ...

An Internet (IP) address is made up of two parts: the network address and the host address. The network address is used by the broader Internat to find out how to get data to your network. The host address is the local address of computers on your network. The /N says how many bits of an IP address are in the network address.

IP v4 addresses are 32 bits, so a /16 network has 16 bits of network address and 16 bits of host address, while a /24 network has 24 bits of network address and 8 bits of host addresses.

When the T3 does a scan for Windows sharing servers, it tries every legal host address to see whether there's a Windows server at that address. In each network, two addresses are reserved, the one with all 0 bits and the one with all 1 bits; 0.0 and 255.255 in a /16 network and 0 and 255 in a /24 network).

That means that for a full scan on a /N network, 2^(32-N) - 2 addresses need to be checked. That's 254 for a /24 network, but 65534 for a /16 network. It'll take over 250 times longer to scan a /16 network than a /24 network.

The 254 addresses in a /24 network are normally far more than enough for most home networks. Most ISPs set up their modem/router devices to use a /24 local network in the home. That may change if/when the Internet of Things takes off and all your light switches have an internet connection and your toaster runs a Web server

BTW: you can get a screenshot from your T3 without a camera. Just use Open Webif by sending your browser to http://beyonwizt3/. If that doesn't work, http://10.1.1.3/ will work in your current setup. It has a Grab Screenshot function. It also has a remote control emulation, so you can control the T3 from your browser. If you use that, it's also a good idea to tick the Grab Screenshot box under the Open Webif remote control. Then the screenshot updates after each remote command. Then you can simply save the image to your computer and attach it to a post without messing about with a camera. The quality is also usually better (especially if you switch on High Resolution under the screenshot). That's how I captured the screenshot above.