Advice Needed Mount USB NAS drive to DM500 via router

willow5

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I am trying to create a mount from my DM500 to a usb drive which is connected to the USB port on my router. Looking through this forum, I have come across the following mount commands:

mount -t cifs -o username=dreambox,password=letmein //192.168.0.2/Recordings /hdd
mount -t cifs -o username=whoever,password=passwd //192.168.0.2/Recordings /var/mnt/smb
mount -t nfs -o nolock 192.168.0.1://mnt/hdb2/Recordings /var/mnt/nfs

However, when I try these commands; I receive the following error messages:

mount: Mounting //192.168.1.99/USBDISK/recordings on /var/mnt/hdd failed: No such file or directory

I have changed the /var/mnt/smb to /var/mnt/hdd as that folder seems to be preconfigured in the menu.
And when I try to remove the /hdd, I get this error message:

mount: Mounting //192.168.1.99/USBDISK/recordings on /var/mnt failed: Connection refused

Please can someone help as I am tearing my hair out over this ! I can see the 192.168.1.99 USB drive on my windows machine through windows explorer so I know it is accessible. I have also configured SAMBA support on my router
 

battenfan

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The first one wont work trying to mount on /hdd as it's write protected. Make sure it's an existing directory beginning with /var, but this will be a later problem.
The third one with nfs will not work with samba.
Try:
mount -t cifs -o user=whoever%passwd '\\192.168.0.2\Recordings' /var/mnt/smb

Cool router! What is it? Or are you running dd-wrt or something?
 

willow5

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Thanks for your reply, I think it worked but I have mapped my drive to /var/mnt. Now when I do an ls in this directory, I can see the root drive of the USB drive and all it's contents apart from video files for some reason. I can play mp3's via the drive ! However, I can't seem to record from the TV. What do I need to do now ? When I go into the enigma web interface and hit record from there, I get this error message on screen: Record failed due to inaccessable storage. Is there any other way of recording or is it only via the web interface ? How do I tell the DM500 to use the /var/mnt directory for recording ?

By the way, the router is an EE brightbox and SAMBA is a native feature !
 

willow5

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Progress I think - I can now record; had to create a folder called movie on the USB drive and two files are created per recording: EIT File and MPEG-2 TS file. The problem now is that the maximum file size seems to be 1,536 kB irrespective of how long the recording runs for. Then when I attempt to play back one of the files, nothing happens. There is sufficient space on the hard drive so I am not sure what the problem is - can you help further please ?
 

battenfan

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I'm of no further help I'm afraid, I used to run ngrab to record. Only thing was I had to rename the ts-file or configure file properties in Windows so media players would recognize the file.
If nobody else have a clue I'd try dedicated firmware forums openpli, openvix. Are you running stock firmware?
 

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Try VLC player - that will open almost anything you can chuck at it
 

willow5

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Thanks all - playing is not the problem, it is recording from the DM to the hard drive. It seems to create small files (1,536 kb in size for MPEG-2 TS) then crashes the box and the only way to get out of it is to pull the power. I'm running Gemini 4.2.0. Could it be to do with the window sizes or nolock/rw/udp settings in the mount configuration ? I think I am very close now.....
 

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On my DM with the PLI image (maybe different to Gemini), I'm sure I had to change an option or setting so that it would record onto one big file, otherwise it would record upto a certain size and start a new chapter/file
It's been that long since I've recorded anything though that I can't remember (and I don't have the network shares set up anymore or the DM on the same network as a PC or NAS so I cant try it)
 

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When your recording via a network linked drive is it the case that you do not have to have the drive EXT 3/4 ect formatted? Because I know my USB drive has to be EXT 3 or the recording is wee chunks. Just a thought.

Sent from my T5 using Tapatalk
 

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willow5

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Thanks all again,very helpful indeed!

No further forward really - there seems to be packet losses between the DM and the router as I logged on earlier and pinged the default gateway (router ip) and I am getting a packet loss of around 20% which seems quite high to me. Perhaps this is one cause - I experimented with different MTU sizes (default is 1500) but still no joy. I also tried streaming using VLC on port 31344 earlier but even this doesn't work...

@Ghostleader - thanks for your advice. Not sure about EXT format, how can I confirm if this is the case? The files are being created when I record but then stops after 1,536kb or, at times, 2,056kb.

@battenfan I haven't yet tried the cache option but will try later. Thanks for your advice....I have also experimented with different rsize and wsize values but nothing seems to work.

Thanks all
 

battenfan

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@Ghostleader - thanks for your advice. Not sure about EXT format, how can I confirm if this is the case? The files are being created when I record but then stops after 1,536kb or, at times, 2,056kb.
We are not trying yo mount an ext or a nfs file system, we are trying to mount a cifs file system. Let the router worry about whatever is attached to its usb port.

The fact that you are getting packet losses using ping seems worrying. Try replacing the network cable.
If you get ping to work, try copying a large file:
dd if=/dev/random of=/var/mnt/totally_random_file.bin bs=1024 count=4096
If that works and it still doesn't record, try another firmware. It crashing because of a network problem sounds like a bug.
 

willow5

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@battenfan seems more and more like a networking problem - I tried that command you mentioned and, while it creates a 0 byte file on the HDD, the command prompt simply hangs and does not return to the >. Changing the network cable doesn't seem to make any difference.

So either looks like a duff box or duff image. Does anyone have a spare DM500 lying around ;) But seriously what are the best images to put on this type of box bearing in mind I am running Gemini 4.2 and don't want to kill the box with an image that makes it incredibly slow....
 

willow5

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Interesting - have just tried another recording and this time the DM500 has displayed this error message on screen (which is something I have not seen so far):

Record failed due to an write error during recording. Check for filesystem corruption.
 

battenfan

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@battenfanI tried that command you mentioned and, while it creates a 0 byte file on the HDD, the command prompt simply hangs and does not return to the >.
Me too!
I just couldn't let it go now, could I? Digging up my DM500, pluging it in, finding batteries for the remote... long story.
It happened exactly as you described.

I found two files in the /bin directory, smbmnt and smbmount. So it seams openpli uses stand alone clients that bypasses the kernel and they seems to handle the opportunistic lock themselves. Using the argument cache=none didn't make any difference so maybe something went missing in the kernel or busybox at compile time. Maybe there's a reason for those stand alone programs.

After configuring cifs server in DM500s' web interface there was no problem recording. Playback worked too but not very smooth, I didn't investigate any further. I still couldn't manually copy a file while the share was web mounted.

I'm lazy and don't try new firmwares very often so I don't know witch one is best. I moved from Gemini to Openpli last time and the only feature I was missing was setting time from internet if I remember correctly.
 

willow5

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Still the same no matter how I create the mount I.e. through Web interface or remote. Records a few seconds then occasionally comes up with "Record failed due to an write error during recording. Check for filesystem corruption".

I think it is an ethernet issue but can't quite work it out. @battenfan are you thinking of selling your dm500 :)
 

battenfan

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I apologize for my stupidity but it's /dev/random that is blocking the copying test. Try /dev/urandom instead.

My dm500 is not in a healthy condition, it needs a 10 minute warm-up before diseqc commands get accepted. Not worth it.
 
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