Problems with NAT and Xbox 360

I talked about this in another post but here is some new information. I have two friends both with Linksys WRT54G wireless routers. They can join other people's hosted games (Halo 3 for example) and play. But if one of them starts a match and the other tries to join, they cannot. They have also reported problems with hearing each other's voices.

The first person's router went bad and he got another one. I had to go over and fix this problem again. To fix it I updated the router to the latest firmware version for it. This can be downloaded from the Linksys website. Updating the firmware did not fix the problem. His Xbox 360's IP is manually set (in this case i did 192.168.1.105. I enabled DMZ on the router and set it to be that address. That fixed the problem. Then a week later he said he was having the problem again, and the xbox network test was reporting his NAT as Moderate. So I disabled the DMZ and set the port forwarding on the router to forward ports 3047 and 88 to his xbox's address (192.168.1.105). It still did not work and the network test still reported Moderate NAT. I preferred using the IP forwarding rather than DMZ, because DMZ seems like overkill. Anyway, I power cycled the router (unplugged, waited a minute, and then plugged in). Now the Xbox 360 reported open NAT and he was able to join to a match hosted by his friend. I hope this helps someone!

Replaytv automatically reboots after complete boot

I have been using Replaytv (5000 series) for years now. I have encountered many problems. Today I had a problem and want to record the solution. The replaytv kept rebooting after doing a full bootup. It would boot and you could see a brielf glimpse of a show (live tv) and then it would automatically reboot. I ended up booting it without the network cable, and the coax cable, and then it would not automatically reboot. As soon as I plugged in the coax cable, it would reboot. It turned out the hard drive was full. Once we cleared some shows off (we freed up 10 hours) it quit rebooting when the coax was plugged in. The unit is now working correctly. If you have this problem, try booting it without the coax cable and clear up some space, then plug in the coax. Booting it without the coax was the only way we could keep it up long enough to clear up some space.

Microsoft Hotfix KB933049

Microsoft Hotfix KB933049

This hotfix resolves an issue between mpeg2 and antivirus software on Vista. It may fix freezing errors associated with Media Extenders and Transcode 360.

The file was available through the transcode.co.uk site but the site is down. I have access to the hotfix for Vista x86 (32-bit) only. Click here to download.

Transcode.co.uk site down

The transcode.co.uk site is down, and has been down for over a week now. I was able to locate a copy of transcode 360 1.6.3 for Vista 32-bit here:
http://www.transcode360.be/Transcode360Vista1.6.3.zip

Error 1606 during uninstall

On a Vista system while performing an uninstall of Symantec Endpoint Protection 11, the uninstall would not complete because of an Error 1606. Could not access network location \\myservername\public\pictures. The location it reports could be different in other cases. I believe in my case it is because I set my systems path to pictures to be on a home server where I kept pictures (but since change the path on that server). So the path was not accessible. Based on a Microsoft KB document that described a similar situation I tried something and it worked. I did a search on the registry for the missing path. Start>Run>regedit and then Edit>Find and I entered the missing path. In my case \\myservername\public\pictures. In each case when the path was found I changed it to %public%\pictures. Keep in mind this is Vista. On XP you might want to use %AllUsersProfile%\path to whatever. This document may explain it better. In the end by replacing the invalid path referenced in the registry with the valid path, the uninstall was able to complete.

Keep in mind to be careful editing the registry and have a look at the documents linked to above for more thorough information. The bottom line is replacing the incorrect path with a correct path seems to fix the problem.

Webguide - Covers look different

I am currently asking on the webguide forum why I see this...some covers are stretched, some are not.

Interesting read on different encoding options (for Xbox 360) and why this guy likes VLC best

These are from the happybeggar.com website - Item 1 and Item 2

Transcode 360 was unable to transcode [path to folder]

I am using Transcode 360 version 1.6.3 on Vista MCE to stream backed up movies (DVD) to a Xbox 360 extender. Many movies work, but many movies do not. The one's that don't work display the error 'Transcode 360 was unable to transcode [path to folder]'.

The T360 log file shows this for the error portion (on Vista the log files are located at 'C:\Users\Public\Transcode360\Logs'):
2/15/2008 2:27:16 PM *VRB* MEncoderTranscoder loaded
2/15/2008 2:27:16 PM *VRB* VLCTranscoder loaded
2/15/2008 2:27:16 PM *VRB* Using optimal resolutions
2/15/2008 2:27:16 PM Spawning: "C:\Program Files\Transcode360\Wrappers\MEncoderTranscoder\mencoder.exe" -quiet -delay 0.5 -oac lavc -srate 48000 -af lavcresample=48000 -of mpeg -mpegopts format=dvd -o "C:\Users\Public\Transcode360\TranscodeBuffer\TheMarsh.360" -ovc copy dvd://1 -dvd-device "\\Vista-mce\G\Movies\TheMarsh\VIDEO_TS"
2/15/2008 2:27:31 PM *ERR* Transcoding error:
2/15/2008 2:27:31 PM *ERR*
WARNING: OUTPUT FILE FORMAT IS _MPEG_. See -of help.

2/15/2008 2:27:31 PM *WRN* MEncoderTranscoder unable to handle request: \\Vista-mce\G\Movies\TheMarsh\TheMarsh.vol
2/15/2008 2:27:31 PM *WRN* Failed to start transcoding
Even though the path is a UNC the files are local to the MCE machine.

I think I found a solution to this problem. I downloaded the MPlayer 1.0rc2 Windows version of mplayer from http://www.mplayerhq.hu and replaced the mencoder.exe file located at C:\Program Files\Transcode360\Wrappers\MEncoderTranscoder with the newer one downloaded from the mplayerhq site. I then ran the configuration utility and double checked that MEncoder was the selected encoder and then stopped and started the service (not sure if that was necessary). Now, all the movies that would not play before will play. These are all .vob files from backed up dvds. Each movie has its own folder, with the .ifo and .vob file contained within a Video_TS subfolder.

Disposing of Mecury containing light bulbs

Information here: http://www.epa.gov/bulbrecycling/

Transcode 360

Transcode 360 will not work right for me (watching media on xbox 360 as extender) unless I stopped the service, and edit the following registry value:

Hkey_Local_Machine\Software\Transcode360

Change the value of InstallationType from LocalSystem to Network

Restart the Transcode 360 service. Now watching media on an extender should work - provided everything else is setup correct.

In the past I changed the Log On value for the Transcode 360 service from Local System to my administrator account so it could access data on other systems. That didn't work out though, Transcode 360 just didn't work right if the data was not local to the Vista MCE box. So, I move all the data back to the MCE box and now run Transcode 360 service under the Local System account.

Here are some other things to look out for when using Transcode 360. To use with My Movies from an extender, choose 'Watch Stream'. You should see 'Loading Title' for a short while, and then a spinning circle in the center of the screen, the circle will freeze and then shortly after that the movie should start. If the circle in the middle starts out frozen, most likely something is going wrong and the xbox 360 is locked up. I had this happen and uninstalled/reinstalled Transcode 360, set the value mentioned above in the registry, restarted the service, and it started working again.

If, while watching a streaming movie on the extender (xbox 360's are the only kind of extenders I have experience with), it errors with a message referring to 'Application UI' (I cannot remember the exact error right now), check the event log on the Media Center PC for event ID 107. Because my MCE is Vista the event log of interest is under:
Event Viewer>Applications and Services>Media Center
The General description of the event may tell you what application or service is causing the unathorized window that is interrupting the media center. Once the application is identified it can be remove, disabled, or configured not to interfer. Have a look at:

Microsoft Document: Event ID 107 — Windows Media Center Extender Connectivity

So far Transcode 360 is working out better than WebGuide for streaming movies from the MCE to the Xbox 360. With Webguide, if I choose to stream at a good quality, like 8Mbps, sooner or later the movie will start stuttering and become unwatchable. It should not be a network issue. I attribute it to the CPU of the MCE. The webguidetranscoder is realtime so cpu limitations seem to have more effect. The nice thing about the Transcode 360 transcoder is it trancodes ahead, to file, creating a buffer. If the system gets busy, the movie doesn't start skipping. In the Transcode 360 configuration utility you can specify how many files to keep (I keep 2), and how many seconds to buffer. The biggest issues I am having now with Transcode 360 is 1) it will not work with some of my movies, 2) sometimes it seems like the service gets hosed up.

Error 64 when opening gpedit or gpmc

If you see:
The following error occurred in file://path.../Adm/somefile.adm on line 62. Error 64 Help string specified more than once. The file can not be loaded.YOu click OK and then get:The following error occurred in file://path.../Adm/somefile.adm on line 6537. Error 64 Help string specified more than once. The file can not be loaded.
Most likely you have added a .adm file that was made using another .adm file. To fix this you will either need to remove the original .adm file and just leave the new one (remove the .adm file from you group policy editor) or edit the string items that use identical names. For example, you have system.adm and then made a new file will settings that are different than system.adm but you used system.adm as your starting point. Now both file use the same string variables which doesn't work. Both files might have !!WindowsExplorer and then a string definition for WindowsExplorer. The identical names need to be changed or the one of the files removed. I ran into this today when making a new .adm based off the system.adm (I wanted to add to the !!NoDrives section). Instead, I just created a new .adm, copied the stuff I needed and then made new string identifiers and strings. I replaced !!WindowsExplorer with !!HideDrives, etc. That solved this problem.

Removing unwanted items from random slide show in MCE or Media Player

I stumbled on this on the Green Button forum. I had been looking for how to do this for a while. I was tired of seeing my album art in my picture slide shows (the album art folder was *not* part of my media center's watched folders, but the pictures still appeared.)
http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/240461.aspx