As I mentioned in the previous post, the files are not on a Windows PC, they are on different RPi2B, running Raspbian (Debian Linux v7.11 with Samba v3.6.6). Although I do have a couple of Windows 10 machines (including with the Anniversary Update), surely that is nothing to do with the SMB Shares issue, as the Windows PCs are often not switched on, but the problem persists.
I have tried a couple of suggestions which I found in some posts on the subject (including using hostname\username (and hostname/username) instead of just the username but that doesn’t work either. I’ll try hostIP\username when I get the chance. I will also search for other possible solutions.
If the two RPis are running different versions of SMB you may still have the issues that happened in April which centered around permissions changes.
If you could post a complete set of log files as per the post linked by @fzinken and also the contents of your smb.conf file on the machine which is the server then we can investigate in more detail for you.
Here is the smb.conf file as per the RPiV2B (PDC-SRV node2) which holds the media data files. smb.conf.zip (1.3 KB)
I will post the full logs tomorrow, as at the moment I have reverted to the November 2015 release of OSMC so that I can continue to use it. I wasn’t able to locate any previous posts or answers which solved the issue, but I will re-institute the problematic latest release and get the logs, and investigate further. Not being able to resolve this is embarrassing: I built my first computer in 1978 (soldered 2,500 joints, designed & etched boards etc), have written and sold dozens of commercial programs (in C) built massive databases (Oracle/SQL Server), been an independent IT consultant for 20 years and can’t configure a Raspberry Pi as a media centre!
You should upload the config on our official Pastebin. No one is really keen on downloading ZIP files.
It’s probably better to stay more up to date on OSMC releases, that way you are in for less of a ‘shock’ when you update a year later. I’m guessing it’s a case of if it ain’t broke that left things for so long, but eventually everyone tries to update , so it’s better to do it as updates are released.
I’m chuffed that our update system allowed you to install 11 months of updates without any apt problems.
Don’t be ashamed - samba is unfortunately more of a “black art” than something which follows any kind of logic.
Reading your smb.conf file, you have a rather complex Samba setup too, which won’t make troubleshooting any easier, but will make the process much more interesting.
Before we go any further, can I clarify that RPiV2B(PDC-SRVnode2) is your Samba PDC and your OSMC installation is on another Pi accessing data from this device as a client? Also are you mounting these shares on your media centre Pi in /etc/fstab as CIFS file systems or adding to kodi using the GUI?
If you are currently using the GUI then, especially given the complexity of your Samba installation, you may have better results mounting the shares in /etc/fstab although that won’t work if your library currently refers to the samba paths.
It would be interesting to see the log files and see whether kodi is is simply not sending the password or whether the credentials are being rejected by the server. You might also want to check the contents of both /home/osmc/.kodi/userdata/sources.xml and /home/osmc/.kodi/userdata/passwords.xml and verify that they contain the correct details for your shares.
I would suggest if you can, cloning your OSMC installation to a spare SD card so that you can use one for testing with all the updates installed and leave one on the Nov 2015 version so that you can use it until we get this sorted. That way you won’t encounter possible problems from repeating the upgrade/regression process.
See the bottom but about network shares, I had to create a password.xml file in userdata and manually add the passwords there to be able to access SMB shares.
Indeed the PDC-SRV / node2 RPi 2B is the Samba PDC. It holds a variety of data accessed by several Windows PCs, and by the RPi 2B (node4) running OSMC, and by another RPi running Apache2 and hosting three websites, one site having quite a lot of video and audio relating to Virtual Pipe Organs (one of my my other hobbies!). But the PDC copes excellently with the workload, except when copying NNNGbyte files across the LAN or when people download large music video files from one of the websites.
All media data files for OSMC are set up in the OSMC GUI. That is really necessary because the various media types are held in a set of directories in just one of the Samba shares (NoBackup_N).
Unfortunately I was away all day today and so haven’t been able to send the log files. I am also out all day tomorrow, but on Friday I will be able to send them. I will also examine the sources.xml and the passwords.xml files and see what they offer.
SNAP: I have already created a fully working OSMC on the November 2015 issue, and that is fine. It has updates disabled, so it is safe. I shall be working on the KODI 16.1 version on Friday.
I shall look at the details of the post which you kindly supplied on Friday.
Thanks for your help. If you are ever in West Wiltshire (England) I’ll get you a pint of Wadworths 6X in our local pub!
All: Sorry about not yet having posted the logs - I will have more time tomorrow (Monday), and will do so then. In the meantime, some further comments:
using hints from the earlier posts on this issue, I have examined the passwords.xml.
It seems to be in line with the suggestions;
as above I also examined sources.xml, but that seemed fine too;
there were changes suggested to the smb.conf file on the KODI client, but they made no difference;
I have been trying NFS shares in fstab (and at the command line): the share is found but the network is not accessible.
I have been doing a little more work on this “SMB/Security” issue this morning.
I decided to install LibreELEC and see how that behaved - the version I acquired was the same as OSMC: namely Jarvis, 16.1.
It was an interesting exercise, because once I completed the LibreELEC Settings dialogue, which includes just a limited security configuration question and username/password entry, I was able to connect with no problems, and to add all my music, videos, films and photographs. So I suspect that the little connection dialogue provides key information which in OSMC has to be added manually to the SMB configuration files.
When I work out how to start LibreELEC to a command line (it doesn’t seem to like any methods I’ve tried so far), I’ll examine the files and look at the differences between them in OSMC and LibreELEC.
When I get back onto OSMC Jarvis 16.1 this afternoon I’ll try to post the logs as promised.
OSMC uses Samba 4.x. They behave very differently after the Badlock CVE. I am not sure if the version LE uses has been patched against this vulnerability.
One of the other main issues is that Kodi still targets an old version of Samba. This is partly because new versions of Samba use WAF as their build system, and Kodi’s depends system is not adapted to handle this.
Given your system I wouldn’t have thought LibreElec would be a permanent option for you as it doesn’t really include a full OS, just enough bits to run kodi, so it is very limited as to what else you can use it for: there is no real command line or ability to install other linux packages.
OSMC shouldn’t require anymore samba configuration at the client end than LibreElec - they both use the same version of kodi to generate the same sources.xml file.
It would be interesting to compare the log file between OSMC and LE and also to compare sources.xml & passwords.xml between the two also.
Your use of LE has at least proved that your samba server config is ok.
Videos
Files
Add videos…
Browse
Add network location…
Choose:
Protocol: Windows network (SMB)
Server name: IP Address
Username: enter share credentials
Password: enter share credentials
OK
Choose the location you’ve just created.
Please feedback as there’s a load of SMB threads at the moment, I’ll write a how to guide once we know what works for everyone.
Thanks Gavin … indeed I wouldn’t want to use LibreELEC permanently - it is quite a bit slower than OSMC anyway and took ages to create the libraries. But the fact that it is Jarvis and worked straightaway was interesting, at least!
I tried changing the content of the smb.conf file of OSMC to that if LibreELEC but that didn’t do much good! There were a few differences to do with LanMan Auth.
Then I copied the data from passwords.xml and sources.xml from Libre to OSMC, but that didn’t do any good either. There were several differences.
I have now just done a new installation of OSMC to clear the air as I have been fiddling with the old installation for quite a while.
Thanks Martin - I will try your approach later this evening with the new installation - my wife is making a very nice stew at the moment so I’ll be off to eat it!
Hello Martin, and thanks for the idea. Unfortunately, I’m afraid it gave the same end result: cycling through the Lock Settings dialogue repeatedly asking for the password. That in itself rather bemuses me because Lock Settings is disabled in the Configuration options.
Gavin: I posted the logs earlier, using MyOSMC, but I’m not sure where they went! I sent them once as an upload, and once to the SD card, but in neither case am I exactly sure what happened to them. Maybe I should download the log poster add-on, if that’s what people use rather then the MyOSMC option.
This is quite outdated, and I believe it is intentional in the latest version of Samba not to connect to insecure shares. Security is essential for OSMC. OSMC uses Samba 4 with Badlock CVE patches.
I think you may need to upgrade to a newer version of Samba (Raspbian Jessie is recommended). I’m not sure Debian Wheezy’s LTS improvements have been continued to Raspbian.
I did not see you were using Samba 3.6 as a server. LE will connect as it also uses 3.6, but this is not ideal.
I will probably go quiet on this thread for a while. Following Sam’s recent comment, I shall investigate possible upgrades of the server OS, and Samba to later versions.
At present, and for a long time, everything (except KODI Jarvis/16.1) has worked faultlessly, and any new configuration of the server will need to continue to support three websites (hosted on a further RPi) two of which sites involve significant traffic in large files (music video files and virtual pipe organ sample set data) provided from the server. A new configuration will also probably involve an update of WebMin 1.8, and LDAP Account Manager 3.7, which also run on the server.
, so it’s better to do it as updates are released.