How to keep network drive connections alive

[uglyned]

Hi,

 

I have a NAS drive, which holds a lot of my films and TV series. On my HTPC I have network drives permanently mapped and links to them in the movies section in DVBViewer.

 

However, sometimes Windows XP switches off a connection to a network drive, maybe if it hasn't been used for a while. When that happens, DVBViewer can't wake it back up again and when I navigate onto that share in DVBViewer OSD Videos, I just get a blank page and no videos.

 

Does anyone know a way of keeping network drives connected in Windows XP?

[Gioxy]

DVBViewer can't wake it back up again

...you mean that your NAS goes in standby? If it's that then you could try if the NAS remain alive with a timed Ping(ing) sw; I'm happily using FreePing.

 

[uglyned]

Thanks for the reply, but not quite. The NAS stays awake (it doesn't have a powersave feature) but the network drives in the My Computer window revert to 'Disconnected network drive' even though it's still connected. If I double click on the network drive from the My Computer window then it opens without a problem and the display changed to 'network drive'. But unless I do that double click every now and again, it reverts to 'disconnected network drive'.

 

I think it's a Windows thing.

[uglyned]

I found this at Microsoft which explains how to keep drives connected for almost forever.

 

Now I just need to work out how to have them automatically connect at startup. It seems that by default Windows XP leaves network drives disconnected until they're accessed by the user, through explorer, then it initiates them. Unfortunately, navigating to the link to the drive in DVBViewer OSD does not initiate the connection.

 

Microsoft article

[Gioxy]

Interesting MS KB...

 

To reconnect the NAS share obviously the best solution whould be that DVBViewer could wake it up when it needs, through I don't know if it is possible at all...

 

...a very dirty solution could be to add a link to the NAS main folder in the Windows Autorun folder (in the options you can set it to open iconized...).

 

...to reconnect the share when PC resume from standby/hibernation you can execute the same link with a prog like Hibernate Trigger...

 

...a better solution can be a WScript that execute it (or something better suitable) before DVBViewer start and with Hibernate trigger...

 

[Lars_MQ]

Why don't just use the UNC path instead of a mapped drive? It will not get disconnected and should work. You know the \\server\share\ notation.

[dbraner]

Hi,

 

I have a NAS drive, which holds a lot of my films and TV series. On my HTPC I have network drives permanently mapped and links to them in the movies section in DVBViewer.

 

However, sometimes Windows XP switches off a connection to a network drive, maybe if it hasn't been used for a while. When that happens, DVBViewer can't wake it back up again and when I navigate onto that share in DVBViewer OSD Videos, I just get a blank page and no videos.

 

Does anyone know a way of keeping network drives connected in Windows XP?

 

I thin you should not use the option "map permanently" when mapping the drives. Instead map tthe drive in your autostart or start a script using hibernate trigger when waking up from standby.

 

net use Driveletter: \\Server\Share Password /user:Username

 

With hibernate trigger it's possible to unmap the drives before standy. But this is not necessary.

 

For me this works.

[esackbauer]

I used mapped network drives until i ran into the same problem.

 

Problems went away when I used UNC paths instead of drive letters in DVBViewer configuration, just like Lars mentioned 2 posts above.

Edited July 15, 2009 by esackbauer

[uglyned]

Thanks both for your suggestions.

 

Switched to UNC paths tonight and all working well.

[dbraner]

Thanks both for your suggestions.

 

Switched to UNC paths tonight and all working well.

 

What about authentication? Don't you use a password for your share?

[uglyned]

Deliberately not. I don't use one on my HTPC either.

 

There's always a tradeoff between security and usability. I don't want to use a keyboard on my HTPC so don't want to be prompted for a password when booting up or when resuming from standby so the default account doesn't have a password.

 

The shares I want the HTPC to have access to on the NAS drive just use workgroup security - the username that the HTPC logs in with had read only access to the shares with media on them.

 

Not ideal I know but I have a decent router which blocks most internet traffic and make sure all obvious ports on the HTPC are disabled.