(2022-06-11, 17:21)monkeylove Wrote: After installing Mezzmo, I just realized that it's similar to Plex and others!

https://kodi.wiki/view/Syncing_and_sharing#Local_network

For some weird reason I missed Mezzmo when I was trying Plex and Emby with Kodi plugins. Also, Jellyfin isn't mentioned.

I got some interesting quirks with some of them, like one not progressing while scanning folders, and Kodi slow if I try to read from the server database directly instead of integrating it. For Mezzmo, I found that if I try to install it in drive D: and configure it to put the data and log folders there, the program crashes.

I take it that they all have similar processes, i.e., create databases and then stream the media through HTTP with options to disable transcoding, and so on?

(2022-06-11, 14:28)monkeylove Wrote:

(2022-06-11, 10:16)jbinkley60 Wrote:

(2022-06-11, 02:26)monkeylove Wrote: I wanted to buy a NAS but it's expensive; I think a 12-bay will cost me almost $2k. So I settled for using my present PC and just attaching enclosures to it. Also, everything is cabled, and Gigabit as well.

Around a month ago, users were experiencing those hiccups even with FTP, and then they disappeared and everything's working fine. I'm guessing something took place with a Windows update.

I'm thinking of buying a used laptop for less than $100 (I just realized that I lack space for a PC) and then installing Conceiva or Linux and see what happens. Before that, I'll experiment with Conceiva in the present PC.

I rolled my own servers a number of years back leveraging low cost Norco chassis and low cost Highpoint Raid controllers.  The nice thing about that approach is that I was able to slowly grow my expenses vs. buying a packaged solution but it does require a certain amount of hardware knowledge and patience.  In the beginning there were some hard drive shortages and a few times I bought external drives, opened the cases and put the drives in my server chassis    

If you need help with Mezzmo their support forums are here .   

Good luck,

Jeff

Thanks for sharing that. We have a similar setup: I have fewer drives but also around 18,000 video items (of varying video quality). That means, following what you did, something that can still use Windows but with Mezzmo and a server chassis with racks to put in drives. Given that, I'll wait for the enclosures to give up before trying that.

Meanwhile, I'll try Mezzmo.

(2022-06-14, 05:25)monkeylove Wrote: but FTP and SMB don't seem suitable for streaming.

(2022-06-14, 05:40)Klojum Wrote:

(2022-06-14, 05:25)monkeylove Wrote: but FTP and SMB don't seem suitable for streaming.

Plenty of Kodi users are using SMB for playing their videos. Just because only a few of your folders aren't being scanned for whatever reason, doesn't make that protocol unsuitable. If most of your folders on your Windows PC are being shared and processed correctly, then the SMB protocol itself works. A file protocol isn't picky by itself, SMB or FTP or any other, it either works or it doesn't. There is surely a different reason why some folders on your share not seen or not scraped, be it Windows user/folder file rights on your PC 'server' or badly named movie / tvshow titles.

(2022-06-14, 05:25)monkeylove Wrote: To everyone, thanks once more for the support. I tried Mezzmo, but it kept crashing when I configured it to use drive D. I then tried Jellyfin, which needs other devices in the network with video sources to be mounted, then Emby, which wants files renamed in a way it wants in order to read already-present metadata, so I went back to Mezzmo, which doesn't crash as long as I use drive C, can gather local metadata from a variety of name formats, and can also load shares from other devices in the same network. I'll let you know how it goes.

It looks like my conclusion is that most hardware should work fine with a few users, but FTP and SMB don't seem suitable for streaming. That means setting up a database in the server using HTTP or similar, and then letting the Kodi clients sync from that.

(2022-06-15, 00:41)jbinkley60 Wrote:

(2022-06-14, 05:25)monkeylove Wrote: To everyone, thanks once more for the support. I tried Mezzmo, but it kept crashing when I configured it to use drive D. I then tried Jellyfin, which needs other devices in the network with video sources to be mounted, then Emby, which wants files renamed in a way it wants in order to read already-present metadata, so I went back to Mezzmo, which doesn't crash as long as I use drive C, can gather local metadata from a variety of name formats, and can also load shares from other devices in the same network. I'll let you know how it goes.

It looks like my conclusion is that most hardware should work fine with a few users, but FTP and SMB don't seem suitable for streaming. That means setting up a database in the server using HTTP or similar, and then letting the Kodi clients sync from that.

Mezzmo can use drive D but that is best handled over in the Mezzmo forums.  I actually place the Mezzmo database and artwork files on my M drive.  Out of curiosity, are you running the Mezzmo Kodi addon ?


Jeff

(2022-06-15, 03:21)monkeylove Wrote:

(2022-06-15, 00:41)jbinkley60 Wrote:

(2022-06-14, 05:25)monkeylove Wrote: To everyone, thanks once more for the support. I tried Mezzmo, but it kept crashing when I configured it to use drive D. I then tried Jellyfin, which needs other devices in the network with video sources to be mounted, then Emby, which wants files renamed in a way it wants in order to read already-present metadata, so I went back to Mezzmo, which doesn't crash as long as I use drive C, can gather local metadata from a variety of name formats, and can also load shares from other devices in the same network. I'll let you know how it goes.

It looks like my conclusion is that most hardware should work fine with a few users, but FTP and SMB don't seem suitable for streaming. That means setting up a database in the server using HTTP or similar, and then letting the Kodi clients sync from that.

Mezzmo can use drive D but that is best handled over in the Mezzmo forums.  I actually place the Mezzmo database and artwork files on my M drive.  Out of curiosity, are you running the Mezzmo Kodi addon ?


Jeff

I installed Mezzmo in drive D and then set the configurations to put the database, etc., in d:\mezzmodata and logs in d:\mezzmologs. I ran and closed the program a few times, and it worked fine, but after I started adding to the library, it would crash randomly. I think the logs referred to a runtime error. I did an sfc /scannow and there were no problems.

I was impatient, so I decided to uninstall, re-install, and just use the default settings, and it ran fine. I checked the scraping options, and it looks like it doesn't need the metadata to be renamed in a particular format, and would add anything missing from the 'net, so I didn't change anything.

After Mezzmo scanned, I tried the addon, and the videos scanned into the library appeared incomplete, with no data on actors, etc.

I searched for the naming convention and found this:

http://www.mezzmo.com/wiki/doku.php?id=supported_filenames

What I use is the one followed by Kodi, scraped and renamed by Tiny Media Manager:

F:\Movies01\Movie Title A (2010)\Movie Title A (2010).mkv
F:\Movies01\Movie Title A (2010)\Movie Title A (2010).nfo
F:\Movies01\Movie Title A (2010)\Movie Title A (2010)-poster.jpg

G:\TV01\TV Show A (2010)\Season 1\TV Show A - S01E02.mkv
G:\TV01\TV Show A (2010)\tvshow.nfo

H:\Others\Video.mkv

(2022-06-21, 03:24)monkeylove Wrote: Sometimes, an "operation not permitted" error would take place as I added or accessed a shared folder. The Kodi log states that the folder doesn't exist. If I tried again after a few minutes, I could access it.

(2022-06-21, 07:18)Klojum Wrote:

(2022-06-21, 03:24)monkeylove Wrote: Sometimes, an "operation not permitted" error would take place as I added or accessed a shared folder. The Kodi log states that the folder doesn't exist. If I tried again after a few minutes, I could access it.

Perhaps one of your 'server' drives in your Frankenstein media server setup is taking too much time to wake up from suspend and spinning up, so Kodi's scanning times out?

By the way, your initial topic question "What hardware setup do you recommend" doesn't really seem to be applicable when you stick to your current setup.

(2022-06-21, 14:27)monkeylove Wrote: Get a rackmount with 12 bays or so, which I think will cost me around $2-4,000.

(2022-06-21, 16:56)Klojum Wrote:

(2022-06-21, 14:27)monkeylove Wrote: Get a rackmount with 12 bays or so, which I think will cost me around $2-4,000.

I don't know the entire size or extend of your media collection, but I'm looking at replacing HDD drives myself. Their prices are slowly coming down to normal levels.

I now use a couple of 2, 3 and 4TB drives (not fully loaded yet). I'm thinking get two of these ( Toshiba MG08 SATA (512e), 16TB ) and possibly put them in a RAID-1 setup in a simple PC with Linux, or add them to my Syno NAS. And keeping the older drives for backups.

That Toshiba HDD now costs some 259 euros here, so 520 euros for the next couple of years should be okay. Two drives instead of seven saves me quite the hassle, and save on some electrics in the end.

(2022-06-22, 04:28)monkeylove Wrote: I've similar: a mix of 2-to-4 TB drives spread out among the PC

(2022-06-22, 04:28)monkeylove Wrote: For now, I get this feeling that the problem is caused by hardware, i.e., all drives used for sharing need to be internal, either in a NAS or a PC server.