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PostPosted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 6:00 pm 
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Hi All -

Trying to get my MediaSmart Home Server to collect media. I get the following error in the log on the target PC:

Aggregating at 5:04:00 PM on 7/17/2009
Aggregating for user Karl on DESKTOP
ServerName is MSERV
Getting last run time
Loading configuration
|DESKTOP| == |DESKTOP|?
Trying \\MSERV\Photos\testAccess.tmp
Trying \\MSERV\Music\testAccess.tmp
Trying \\MSERV\Videos\testAccess.tmp
Should we collect media now?
Creating client type: Music
Created client type: Music
Adding client type: Music
Creating client type: Playlist
Unhandled exception during aggregation
Exception: System.ArgumentException: Illegal characters in path.
at System.IO.Path.CheckInvalidPathChars(String path)
at System.IO.Path.GetFileName(String path)
at System.IO.Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(String path)
at MediaManager.PlaylistClientSide.LoadItunesPlaylists(String serverName)
at MediaManager.PlaylistClientSide..ctor(MediaConfigRecord cfgSetting)
at MediaManager.ClientCreator.CreateClient(MediaConfigRecord cfgRec)
at MediaManager.MediaManager.Aggregate(String serverName)
at MediaManager.MediaManager.Run(Boolean startup)
Completed aggregation


HP Support recommended I search all directories for all types of media to look for 'strange characters' but given that I have 16,000+ MP3 files alone, I'd rather gnaw my own leg off. I did start this exercise but I'm trying to decide if I want to keep the unit at this point. This server is supposed to avoid science projects like that! If I wanted to parse 16,000 files manually I would've bought something completely different... like a stack of floppies.

So, anyone see this before? Have an idea on how to solve? In particular, anyone have insight into what the media server is doing at this point? Is there an event log with more helpful information about the problem (i.e., the specific path that has the illegal characters)? Please help.

Thanks!


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PostPosted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 7:58 pm 
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First, welcome to the World of MSS/WHS! We'll try to help you out on this! I'll let others comment on the actual error but I would like to point out that if a name or directory is malformed ("illegal characters in path"), or a file is corrupt, you can get errors reading them! While this is the Media Collector, it can happen when running a backup or a copy to a Shared Folder. It is most likely the problem is at the source, not with the MSS. Giving up on the MSS may not be solving the problem!

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Lrak
PostPosted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 7:58 am 
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JohnBick,

Thanks for your reply and welcome! It may be worth pointing out that I've successfully performed a full backup of the system with no issues (yay, something works!). It is likely a problem at the source yes, but I guess I find myself wishing for some more informative errors or logs to help me investigate. Or, maybe there is something wrong with the MSS software itself. I don't know... but I did want to use the media features, otherwise I could've just bought a big hard drive for backup and left it at that. Thanks again. Hoping for more replies!

Karl


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:09 am 
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If you or someone else can identify a specific failure case that I can use to repro this issue, I will commit to writing an Add-In that checks for this and reports errors to the user to make it a lot easier to resolve this issue.

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PostPosted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:22 am 
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yakuza wrote:
If you or someone else can identify a specific failure case that I can use to repro this issue, I will commit to writing an Add-In that checks for this and reports errors to the user to make it a lot easier to resolve this issue.

To do this you will need to determine what constitutes "Illegal characters in path."

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PostPosted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:26 am 
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Lrak wrote:
... It may be worth pointing out that I've successfully performed a full backup of the system with no issues (yay, something works!). It is likely a problem at the source yes, but I guess I find myself wishing for some more informative errors or logs to help me investigate.

It is POSSIBLE that the collector disallows a character that is legal in Windows -- which would be a bug in the collector methinks.

You might try copying your media to a temporary Shared Folder -- you could do it in groups -- to see it you get any error(s) in the process. It also may be a bit easier to spot the error with a copy...

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PostPosted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:30 am 
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JohnBick wrote:
yakuza wrote:
If you or someone else can identify a specific failure case that I can use to repro this issue, I will commit to writing an Add-In that checks for this and reports errors to the user to make it a lot easier to resolve this issue.

To do this you will need to determine what constitutes "Illegal characters in path."


This is why I'm asking for a repro case.

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PostPosted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:51 am 
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JohnBick wrote:
Lrak wrote:
... It may be worth pointing out that I've successfully performed a full backup of the system with no issues (yay, something works!). It is likely a problem at the source yes, but I guess I find myself wishing for some more informative errors or logs to help me investigate.

It is POSSIBLE that the collector disallows a character that is legal in Windows -- which would be a bug in the collector methinks.

You might try copying your media to a temporary Shared Folder -- you could do it in groups -- to see it you get any error(s) in the process. It also may be a bit easier to spot the error with a copy...


Can you elaborate on what you propose? Copy to a shared folder in the MSS? Or to a temporary folder on the target PC? I guess I'm not sure what to do. But thanks for the ideas and the offer to write a plug-in. I'm also in the process of rebuilding my iTunes playlist to see if that helps. It SEEMS like the collector software is trying to compile data from the iTunes playlist... so it SEEMS logical that the illegal character is in the path/filename for the playlist. But, that seems odd and the path to the iTunes playlist looks very straightforward.


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:54 am 
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yakuza wrote:
If you or someone else can identify a specific failure case that I can use to repro this issue, I will commit to writing an Add-In that checks for this and reports errors to the user to make it a lot easier to resolve this issue.


Thank you! Would you be willing to consider writing something that simply exposes the strings shown in this:

Exception: System.ArgumentException: Illegal characters in path.
at System.IO.Path.CheckInvalidPathChars(String path)
at System.IO.Path.GetFileName(String path)
at System.IO.Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(String path)
at MediaManager.PlaylistClientSide.LoadItunesPlaylists(String serverName)
at MediaManager.PlaylistClientSide..ctor(MediaConfigRecord cfgSetting)
at MediaManager.ClientCreator.CreateClient(MediaConfigRecord cfgRec)
at MediaManager.MediaManager.Aggregate(String serverName)
at MediaManager.MediaManager.Run(Boolean startup)
Completed aggregation

Forgive me for being presumptuous but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask!


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 11:57 am 
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Lrak wrote:
yakuza wrote:
If you or someone else can identify a specific failure case that I can use to repro this issue, I will commit to writing an Add-In that checks for this and reports errors to the user to make it a lot easier to resolve this issue.


Thank you! Would you be willing to consider writing something that simply exposes the strings shown in this:

Exception: System.ArgumentException: Illegal characters in path.
at System.IO.Path.CheckInvalidPathChars(String path)
at System.IO.Path.GetFileName(String path)
at System.IO.Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(String path)
at MediaManager.PlaylistClientSide.LoadItunesPlaylists(String serverName)
at MediaManager.PlaylistClientSide..ctor(MediaConfigRecord cfgSetting)
at MediaManager.ClientCreator.CreateClient(MediaConfigRecord cfgRec)
at MediaManager.MediaManager.Aggregate(String serverName)
at MediaManager.MediaManager.Run(Boolean startup)
Completed aggregation

Forgive me for being presumptuous but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask!


Exactly my intent, however I need an example of a failure case in order to do this. It also won't happen over night, so understand that this likely won't be able to help you with your specific issue but rather I would use what you find to develop a tool that will help others in the future.

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Lrak
PostPosted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 4:17 pm 
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An update for those who care to follow along...

1. Rebuilt iTunes library by deleting and reimporting the .xml file.
2. Ran into an issue trying to do this as I have my music files in 2 places: in the iTunes folder on the internal drive and in a folder on an external, USB mounted drive.
3. Subsequently rebuilt the iTunes library and allowed iTunes to copy ALL files into the iTunes folder. Now they are all internal to the PC in the iTunes folder.
4. Tried aggregating again. Got the same error. Changed settings to aggregate 'My Music' instead of 'iTunes Libraries'
5. Tried aggregating again. Process seemed to take off and started copying music files according the log. I now have about 3GB on the MSS. Holy cow!
6. New issue. Process stops mid-copy. It copies a file (or makes that entry in the log) and then there's nothing. After waiting an hour for it to move on to the next file, I stopped the aggregation and re-started. The process got stuck again at the same point, same file.
7. Since it got stuck at the same song, I tried renaming the song (this song happened to start with an apostrophe so I thought maybe that was the problem...?)
8. The next time I tried to aggregate, it got stuck on a different song entirely, and didn't seem to be aggregating in the same order as it was now copying a different folder etc.
9. Keeps getting stuck on the same file again. Tried renaming that one, now it's getting stuck on a different file. It looks like it only collects 6 files before getting stuck again.

Ideas? Feels like progress but I still feel like taking a hammer to something too.

Thanks.


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 6:01 pm 
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Sounds like you need a script that searches all your mp3's for file names with special characters in them.


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 7:36 pm 
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Goldfinger wrote:
Sounds like you need a script that searches all your mp3's for file names with special characters in them.

Yep, would love one. But it does seem like I've gotten past the whole "illegal character in path" issue. I'm now experiencing all kinds of other problems. These MSS boxes really don't seem ready for the average user to, well, use. But I'll keep working at it for awhile longer before I pass judgment.


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PostPosted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 8:01 am 
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I'm dead in the water now. The only thing I get in the log when I try to run media aggregation is:

Aggregating at 9:11:42 PM on 7/21/2009
Aggregating for user Karl on DESKTOP
ServerName is MSERV
Getting last run time
Loading configuration
Should we collect media now?
Creating client type: Music
Creating client type: Playlist
Synching client type: Music


I let it run all night and it never ended the job, never posted anything else to the log, and never aggregated anything to the MSS. Would appreciate thoughts on where to go from here. Thanks to all who have responded to this thread so far...


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PostPosted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 10:56 am 
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I've seen people deleting and rebuilding their iTunes library files, as well as cleaning off the Media Collector .xml files on the server to force a full new collection.

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