360 can't find PC for media streaming

[Jebus]

This problem has been intermittent now for months but it's finally stopped working.

The 360 sometimes cannot find the PC on my wireless network, don't know why but I'm SURE it's not the PC, but the 360, since other devices can find the PC no problem at all.

Recently I've had to go into WMP and change the name it shares as, this usually solves the problem, but now it doesn't. It cannot find it at all and nothing I try works. I even removed the 360 from the list and made it re-find it, which it did, but nothing..."Can't find any computers running media sharing software. Try testing your connection".

PC with Vista Basic, wireless network on netgear router.

As I say, everything else works fine but this is driving me nuts.

Any help, advice, suggestions?

I've deleted the PC from the 360, so as to start again but nope, won't find it at all.

Oh and the 360 mac address IS enabled in my router settings, and I've even tried it with all firewalls OFF...still doesn't wanna know.

[EvilBoris]

Try turning upnp off/on in the router setup

[Jebus]

Will try it now!

Didn't work

[EvilBoris]

Are you using a dhcp server or are the ip's set to static

[Jebus]

Static!

It worked REALLY briefly, it came up my 360 screen with the pc name etc, I clicked connect, it "loaded"...then came up saying no again. Mentioned firewall possibilities but that's turned off...unless another program has one built in somewhere?

Actually in my router settings DHCP is set to "on"

[EvilBoris]

Obviously windows has it's own one and then your router will have one also, there is a good chance that your anti virus software may have one too. try going to xbox.com/pcsetup and downloading the setup software and see if that helps

[Jebus]

Ok so here's the real nut-smasher...

It can find my laptop and stream from there just fine...

There MUST be some service running on this PC I'm using now that is stopping it.

If I'm honest, I'm at "tearing my hair" out point.

[EvilBoris]

Are they all static or just the xbox?
If you PC is set to a static IP, change it to an automatic one, as UPNP seems to dislike (maybe for a specific reason) static IPs

[Kotatsu Neko]

By the way Jebus, if you get it working again, you might want to upgrade to Vista Premium. You'll have Media Center then, and that works brilliantly with the 360. It's a lot better than just media streaming through the dash, and can do a bunch of other stuff too, such as record TV, stream radio and web TV stations (such as BBC and ITN news), download video podcasts (with the TV Tonic plug-in), and download movies (through the CoolRoom store, which is part of Media Center). Oh and transcode XVID, DIVX, MKV etc to play in Media Center with the Transcode360 plug-in.

[EJG1980]

Yeah, I'd reckon that having DHCP turned on when you're using static addresses might cause a problem, as the router would be trying to hand out IP addresses to devices that already have an address that you set.

[MJ]

Are they both wired to the router?

[Jebus]

Completely wireless here...except the pc (wired straight into the router, everything else wireless).

I didn't like media centre much when I tried it out before, my pc really isn't up to much (long overdue for a major upgrade) and didn't run it too well...but on a good PC it'd be dynamite!

It's working flawlessly now on my laptop, just have to boot it up and wirelessly transfer the media I want to watch from PC -> Laptop and it's fine.

Quite why it hates my main PC I don't know...but it'd been acting up for ages before it finally stopped working the other day.

Thanks for all the help guys...though I see no option to turn DHCP off in my router settings.

[Lyris]

I'm glad there's a thread about this so I can (female dog) about the whole media sharing thing.

Back when I had a modded Xbox with Xbox Media Center, it was so easy. If I ever wanted to watch a video file through the Xbox, I'd just run the FTP program and drag the file over. Simple.

So now there's the 360 with its own media playback facilities. Rather than make it simple, MS would have to completely bugger it up (to the point of it being easier for me to burn a DVD) with their trendy "My File Sharing" nonsense. I had the same problem as Jebus, the two just wouldn't 'talk' to each other, then lo and behold, it mysteriously started working. Just when I thought all was well, I find that Windows Media Player on the PC routinely crashes, severing the connection. The only way to get it back is to reset the 360, and then WMP crashes again. I guess there's a file in the folder somewhere it doesn't like. This is on an otherwise 100% stable Intel-based PC.

And then there's Windows Media Center on the 360 as well. Why? Why do we need two official programs that seem to do the same job? Not only that, but why the hell can Windows Media Center talk to the PC when the main dashboard media player can't? Secondly, why in the living crap can I not just tell the damn thing, "C:, Downloads, Videos, the video file I want to play is HERE, play it!!!!"? Is that really so difficult? Instead all I seem to get access to is a randomly picked selection of the "My Pictures" folder and 3 Windows Vista sample video clips. I can choose "Bear", "Lake", and whatever the other one is.

Sorry for going off on one. It's just so exasperating knowing this functionality is there but it's buggered up by a complete lack of understanding of how normal people want to watch stuff.

[EvilBoris]

And then there's Windows Media Center on the 360 as well. Why? Why do we need two official programs that seem to do the same job? Not only that, but why the hell can Windows Media Center talk to the PC when the main dashboard media player can't? Secondly, why in the living crap can I not just tell the damn thing, "C:, Downloads, Videos, the video file I want to play is HERE, play it!!!!"? Is that really so difficult? Instead all I seem to get access to is a randomly picked selection of the "My Pictures" folder and 3 Windows Vista sample video clips. I can choose "Bear", "Lake", and whatever the other one is.

You need to have added your personal folders in the library bit of windows media player for it to share to the 360

[EvilBoris]

And then there's Windows Media Center on the 360 as well. Why? Why do we need two official programs that seem to do the same job? Not only that, but why the hell can Windows Media Center talk to the PC when the main dashboard media player can't? Secondly, why in the living crap can I not just tell the damn thing, "C:, Downloads, Videos, the video file I want to play is HERE, play it!!!!"? Is that really so difficult? Instead all I seem to get access to is a randomly picked selection of the "My Pictures" folder and 3 Windows Vista sample video clips. I can choose "Bear", "Lake", and whatever the other one is.

You need to have added your personal folders in the library bit of windows media player for it to share to the 360