How to get MM Server running on XP SP3

[captain paranoia]

I've spent the last four evenings trying to get the MediaMonkey server (4.1.5.1719) running on my very recently updated XP Pro SP3 machine.

I've read

http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... 20&t=62906 and
http://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index.p ... ervers/4.0

and have tried a whole raft of the usual things; uninstall, registry clean, MMW re-starts, PC restarts, firewall settings, etc, and have a huge logfile of the things I've tried. To no avail.

I can get the server to run when MMW UI is running, but I cannot get the MM Server to run as a Windows Service without running MMW UI. When MMW UI is running, I can play music from the server under MMA and on an iPad.

As a last resort, I have a completely clean install (regedit to delete keys, install to a fresh directory, no legacy information). The only thing I've done is add the database location (a NAS drive external to the PC) to the .ini. MMW UI finds this database and the associated library.

The symptoms I'm experiencing are:
i) MM keeps touching the floppy A: drive (once every 30 seconds or so). There's no disk in it, and it's not selected as a music location.
ii) Task Manager doesn't show MediaMonkeyService.exe, whether or not the Server is enabled using Tools/Options/MediaSharing; the only MM task running is MediaMonkey.exe. MediaSharing options shows the Service and Library.
iii) If I install the Service (and give it my user (admin) password), a second copy of MediaMonkey.exe appears.
iv) if I then shut down MMW UI, Task Manager shows two copies of MediaMonkey.exe (MM.exe) and a MediaMonkeyService.exe (MMS.exe)
v) if I re-start MMW UI, the Service task disappears, but a third MediaMonkey.exe task appears. MMA can see 'MediaMonkey Server' and I can play music from it.
vi) if I shut down MMW UI again, I see three MM.exe tasks and one MMS.exe task. MMA stops playing (and crashes).
vii) re-starting MMA does not show the MediaMonkey Server.

At the moment, I am reminded of Blackadder's quote:

"The path of my life is strewn with cowpats from the devil's own satanic herd".

Any suggestions for
a) how to stop MMW tickling the floppy, and
b) an utterly foolproof, step-by-step guide to getting the server running standalone (from machine boot)

would be most welcome, and save what is left of my hair.

I'll post this, and then re-boot the PC, see what happens, and report back...

[Lowlander]

1) Disable it with IgnoreDriveLetters http://www.mediamonkey.com/support/inde ... ediamonkey

Did you maybe install the service as different user as MediaMonkey at some point? Have you tried a PC restart and then see if service is working?

[captain paranoia]

Right, I'm back...

After boot, but before logging in, I noticed the floppy tickle occurring.

I tried connecting to the server with MMA, but it wasn't found.

I logged on using the same account as I used to set up the server, and the same password.

Task Manager shows just the MediaMoneyService.exe task running.

ComputerManagement/Services (CM/S) shows the MediaMonkey Server has started, and appears to be running as a Local System account, not interacting with the desktop. It is not dependent on any other services.

The floppy tickling seems to have stopped. But, even though I'm logged on, and the Service is running, MMA cannot find the server.

Starting MMW UI, I hear the familiar floppy tickle. This continues at the same 30s interval. It's very annoying... I've never encountered this problem with any previous version of MM.

CM/S shows the service present, but stopped. Task manager shows to MM.exe tasks.

MMA finds the MediaMonkey Server.

So, it seems that it's MMW UI that is tickling the floppy, and the Server, although running when MMW UI is not running, is not making itself visible to the network, and not serving media.

After 20+ hours fighting over the last four days, I'm going to have an evening off. I look forward to your suggestions. It really can't be this hard, surely? I'm not a computer administrator, but I'm pretty competent with technology (I'm an electronic design engineer), so if I'm having this much trouble, heaven help those who are less computer literate.

Thanks.

[captain paranoia]

Lowlander,

Thanks for the quick reply; it's dedicated users like you and nohitter that seem to solve most problems (based on the wide reading of forum threads over the last few days...), and make up for what seems to be a lack of up-to-date and accurate documentation for MM.

Just checked my old .ini files (which have evolved over the years from MM3), and they have IgnoreDriveLetters=AB in them, so that sounds likely.
Hacking the .ini is a bit arcane. Would it not be better done via the UI... or as a standard install?

Done. Seems to have silenced the tickling, thanks.

Now on to the bigger problem of the Server...

[Lowlander]

The floppy tickling seems to have stopped. But, even though I'm logged on, and the Service is running, MMA cannot find the server.

Starting MMW UI, I hear the familiar floppy tickle. This continues at the same 30s interval. It's very annoying... I've never encountered this problem with any previous version of MM.
...

So, it seems that it's MMW UI that is tickling the floppy, and the Server, although running when MMW UI is not running, is not making itself visible to the network, and not serving media.

1) Disable it with IgnoreDriveLetters http://www.mediamonkey.com/support/inde ... ediamonkey

The most common reason the service isn't showing a Media Server is because the Service has been installed as a different Windows User Account then MediaMonkey (thus uses settings from the different Windows User Account). A second problem can be the Firewall (although I'm not sure if it needs separate permissions from the main app). The latter is something you could check with a DLNA capable client running on the same PC.

[Lowlander]

As few have floppy drives and many use USB sticks on drive letters A & B it was removed.

[captain paranoia]

Thanks for the additional responses. It's interesting that it tries to look for A&B, since File Monitoring is turned off, and I can't think if any other setting that would make it keep looking for drives, other than where the library is held. And there's nothing in the library on A:...

There's only one account on this PC: 'User', which is also Admin. I used this account to install MM, and used this MM to install the Server, using the Tools/Options/MediaServing dialogue. I gave it the User password.

The MediaMonkeyService.exe is running when MMW UI is not running; it's visible using Task Manager, and the Computer Management Tool. This seems to suggest that the service is installed correctly, and has the correct password.

I added a Windows Firewall Exception for both MediaMonkey.exe and MediaMonkeyService.exe, and those permissions are both active. This allows the tasks to communicate with devices on the network, and not get blocked by the Firewall; I discovered the need to do this quite early on this week. It seems a pretty essential step, but that may be a legacy in XP, and it may be managed better on more recent Windows.

MMW UI runs as a task owned by User, as is to be expected, since the UI version is launched from a logged in User account.

When MMW UI isn't running, MMW and MMS are running as tasks owned by SYSTEM. Since they're services, this is what I'd expect them to run as (just as the iPodService and AppleMobileDeviceService run as SYSTEM tasks). SYSTEM tasks ought to be available to all users, I think.

In CM/S, I enabled the 'Allow service to interact with Desktop', and re-started the service. This brought up a 'clean' version of MMW UI... Not what I wanted, so I turned that setting off, and re-started the Service.


The ultimate goal for this is to understand how to make MMS run standalone on an XP platform, and then install it on a small, Atom-based XP Embedded device that will run all the time and act as a music server. It's rather galling that there are two other Media Servers on the network; a Twonky server in the WD NAS I have (bough mainly as a cheap 4TB disk), and a server on the router provided by my ISP (A Technicolor 582n, which seems to be pretty capable). Sadly, the Twonky server doesn't seem to talk to anything, and the router server only serves media from a USB port, and only seems to support FAT32, with NTFS as an 'option' which doesn't seem to be installed on mine... FAT32's 4GB file size limit doesn't sound a good idea for a media server... I my end up buying a 4TB USB disk, formatting it as FAT32 64KB clusters, sticking it on the router, and ditching the WD NAS, or relegating it to backup, as the router seems to be able to do just about everything the NAS does. The problem of impulse buys and not planning acquisitions...

[captain paranoia]

On with the experimentation...

I downloaded Linn Kinsky as a DLNA client.

With MMW UI not running, Kinsky doesn't see the MM Server. It does see the Twonky & Technicolor servers, and actually finds media on the Twonky server; looks like Twonky is sooooo slow to serve, other apps timeout assuming it's dead (MMA says 'connection failed', MediaConnect says 'Error: request timed out'). CM/S says the MM Server service has started.

If I now start up MMW UI, Kinsky sees the MM Server. However, it says 'Access denied'. Hmm... that's odd; neither of my Hudls can now see ANY servers, nor can the iPad... Shut down Kinsky. iPad now finds MMS and Technicolor, and can play from MMS.

Re-booted both Hudls, and they now see all three servers. And MediaConnect on the iPad threw a wobbler whilst playing music from MMS, and re-started itself, and has now found Twonky as well.

I'll risk re-starting Kinsky.. Ah; that caused a 'server refresh' on the iPad, but all three re-appeared. They're also present on the Hudls. And in Kinsky. I can't play anything with Kinsky, of course, as it can't find any renderers.

So, all three tablets and Kinsky on the PC are seeing all three servers, even if they are a little flakey...

If I now shut down MMW UI, the MM Server immediately disappears from Kinksy's 'Library' view, and from one of the Hudls (running MMA 1.1.0.0330), but not from the other (running MMA 1.0.7.0311).

Update both Hudls to the latest MMA... (1.1.0.0335) Now neither sees the MMS.

Re-start MediaConnect on the iPad, and that no longer sees the MMS.


So I think it's pretty conclusive that the MM Server is not running standalone correctly, even though the Service is running.

I don't think it's a password issue, as, during my earlier battles, having given it the wrong password, CM/S showed that the service had failed to start due to the incorrect password.

What now...? I'll try uninstalling the server, re-booting the PC, re-installing the server, re-booting the PC... back soon...

[captain paranoia]

Back again after the Service uninstall/re-boot/re-install/re-boot.

On re-booting the PC, neither Hudl sees any servers. The iPad sees Twonky. Kinsky sees Twonky & Technicolor.
Once again, re-booting the Hudl allowed MMA to see the servers again. Maybe some persistent setting in MMA is causing that problem; closing (from Settings) MMA down and re-starting didn't restore the server visibility.

Task Manager shows MediaMonkey.exe and MediaMonkeyService.exe running, both as SYSTEM tasks.
CM/S shows the MediaMonkey Server running.

My computer security software warned me about a file called 'Program' at C:, and offered to re-name it. I declined, but had a look. It's a simple text file, containing the following:

SERVICE_NAME: MediaMonkeyService
TYPE : 10 WIN32_OWN_PROCESS
STATE : 2 START_PENDING
(NOT_STOPPABLE,NOT_PAUSABLE,IGNORES_SHUTDOWN)
WIN32_EXIT_CODE : 0 (0x0)
SERVICE_EXIT_CODE : 0 (0x0)
CHECKPOINT : 0x0
WAIT_HINT : 0x7d0
PID : 2508
FLAGS :

Hmm... I've deleted it now, as I took heed of the warning about it confusing some applications.

If I now start up MMW UI, the MM server immediately appears in Kinksy, but not on the re-booted Hudl. The non-re-booted Hudl is still showing no servers at all. Re-booting the second Hudl allows it to see all three servers. The iPad sees all three servers.

TM shows two MediaMonkey.exe tasks, but no Service task. CM/S shows the Service has started, but status is Stopped.

Stopping MMW UI, CM/S shows the Service has re-started automatically, and TM reveals on MM.exe and one MMS.exe.

I suspect a lot of the 'missing servers' is due to MM interrogating the 140MB+ database from the NAS, which may be gobbling all the available router bandwidth; it takes a very long time (10 minutes+) to stop 'Reading files...' after starting. I may try moving the database to C: to stop that. But not tonight. My 'quick download and test of Kinsky has taken 2 hours...

[Lowlander]

it takes a very long time (10 minutes+) to stop 'Reading files...' after starting.

Disable Folder Monitoring (if enabled), reduce the size of the Now Playing as well as have the selected node on startup be one of few files.

[captain paranoia]

Thanks. Yes, having a long playlist takes a long time to read, but in this case, it's reading the database to show how many tracks there are. My fault for leaving the browser on 'All'...

I never have file monitoring on, as all my library additions and removals are done in a strict manual process, with no changes outside my control.

But this is merely a side issue to the main one of the nonfunctional server.

It's looking like I'll need to raise a ticket on this, as I've run out of ideas of what to try. The only thing left is what user the Server task runs as: Lowlander, what User owns your background MediaMonkeyService.exe task? Is it SYSTEM, like mine? Or something else. Not that I'd know how to change it...

Thanks, cp

[Lowlander]

I don't run the Service as I need the main App a lot.

[captain paranoia]

Okay, thanks for the help Lowlander.

Does anyone else have any suggestions? Ideally, point me to the elusive "comprehensive dummies' guide to installing and running the MM server"... Or simply the steps they've taken to get MMS running standalone.

Reading the forums, I note that some people see only the Server in the Media Sharing options dialogue, and some see the Server and the Library. For instance, this thread:

http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... 20&t=77859 seems to be asking what the two things do.

I've unticked the Library, thinking it not the Server, but I'll try enabling it again before installing the Server. I'm not sure what 'install server' actually installs, or if it bears any relation to those tick boxes... In earlier experiments with my original installation, I noted that 'install server' made MonkeyFlow run when MMW UW wasn't running; i.e. MMW was running pretty much as the UI version. Only without the UI, which makes running MonkeyFlow somewhat pointless...

I'm more than happy to collate information and write a (hopefully) useful article for the Knowledgebase (or update Rusty's 2011 sticky post on this forum), provided I can get reliable information from other users, and crack the secrets of installation. I suspect I'd need someone with admin access to post it, as I doubt a mere mortal user like me has permission to post on the Knowledgebase or edit sticky posts.

Cheers,

cp

[Lowlander]

The 2 are seen for those that updated from 4 to 4.1. Only 1 is required.

[Peke]

Hi,
I setup XP rig for testing and could not replicate issue. I only have one admin user and service is running as it should. Also as lowlander said I use MMW a lot so I set it to Minimize and close to tray, set Startup LNK to start MMW minimized when I log on and that covers all.

On Win 7 all worked as it should even without startup LNK in 100% of cases.