Moderator moved from Nokia Beta Labs/Bug reports/Ovi Suite 3.1.1.85 - External harddrive folders cannot be used as "Music folder location"
No external hard drive folders can be added to be the music folder location. I personally bought an external drive (2 TB) to store all my music and now Nokia restricts me to use it.
This bug should be corrected asap.
20 comments
Comments
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**EDIT** Ignore this post! Use solution by mr_jrt in post #8 below
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Just a guess:
Have you tried NOT mounting the external disk it as a separate disk-letter but mounting it as a folder on say C: somewhere?
With some luck NokiaSuite would work with the folder, not knowing it is not a physical folder.
Best Regards
Eske Rahn
On W7 and with administrative rights you can use
mklink c:\linkdir \\yourservername\yoursharename
The limitation of this is that you can NOT access the root of the share.
the c:\linkdir\ always appear empty.
BUT you CAN access any subdirs if you know the names.
So
c:\linkdir\yoursubdir
would be an alias for
\\yourservername\yoursharename\yoursubdir
To delete the link use
del c:\linkdir. (Note the period)
This also might be relevant:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/doxley/archive/2007/11/26/junction-points-wit...
if you could tell me how to do this by simple means not using microsofts dfs I would give it a try.
I've tried mklink d:\test \\nas - not working for Nokia Suite.
edit:
just read your edit after posting...
in windows explorer i can access d:\test and it shows all folders, but in Nokia Suite "OK" to select D:\test or any subdirectory is disabled.
I've had success with hacking around in the registry. Create a dummy folder, then find it in the registry and edit the path. Volia!
...be careful when editing the registry..but this is how I get Ovi Suite to work with my networked user profile.
@mr_jrt
Please explain in more detail, so people that wants to try it don't have to reinvent the wheel. ;)
Best Regards
Eske Rahn
Ok...though, I don't know if the new apparent "removal" of "MPlatform.exe" (as per the release notes) will affect this given the key names...
My user profiles are stored on a network file server and mapped to "H:\". So H:\documents = "My Documents", H:\documents\music = "My Music", etc.
Anyway...create a watch folder...say to "c:\music".
Now, go to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Nokia\MPlatform\DataStores" in the registry editor.
You will see a key for each datastore. In my case, the key is called "c:_docume~1_jamie~1.bus_locals~1_applic~1_nokia_nokiad~1_"
You should be able to see how the actual path is represented, AAFAICT, it's similar to the way Windows stores long filenames on FAT volumes (aka. as 8.3 names).
Under that key is another called "WatchFolders". We're nearly there!
Under that, you'll have each watched folder listed as a key, e.g.:
"h:_dbjgby~h_documents_music_sync".
I don't think the name matters as long as it's unique, but feel free to change it as I did to match where you're actually going to be pointing it.
Under that key will be a value called "Path", and the value set to wherever you told it to monitor (I found these by pointing it somewhere weird and running a search through the registry for that value).
Simply change the value to be where you want it to be. I changed it from c:\Music to "h:\documents\music\sync" (I don't want to sync everything...just a subset).
...restart the software (make sure you kill all it's components!), and it should be fine.
...all that because the GUI pointlessly limits you to local fixed drives. :(
Hope that helps someone.
@mr jrt:
Thank you very much!
You're detailed workaround helped me to integrate my nas.
@eskerahn:
and thank you for asking for a detailed description.
@mr_jrt
Thanks! Always nice when people post solutions, and not just problems.
And here even in full detail. *ThumbsUp*
:-)
Best Regards
Eske Rahn
Impressive! :) Let me check this issue with our architects, I'll get back to you.
Regards,
Teemu
Product Manager, Nokia Suite
Hi,
Ok, here the problem is as follows:
It would be possible to set watch folders to on a USB drive or a network drive in Nokia Suite 3.2, now that we no longer have NokiaMServer.exe. The feature has been blocked on the UI however.
The reason is that those watch folders would not work if Ovi Player is installed. If Ovi Player (or actually Nokia Multimedia Common Components) is installed, Nokia Suite uses the NokiaMServer.exe too, whereas if NokiaMServer.exe is not running on the computer, Nokia Suite handles watch folders itself.
So basically we would need to implement this so that if Nokia Ovi Player is not installed, users are allowed to set watch folders on network drives. If a network drive is not available when Nokia Suite is started, or the gallery or music view is refreshed, the files would disappear (or be showns with file missing flag). When the network drive becomes available, the files would be added back to the library.
If the user downgrades to an earlier Nokia Ovi Suite version or installs Ovi Player, the watch folders would stop working properly.
Anyway, this is something we have overlooked when getting rid of NokiaMServer.exe. I'll see what we can do. We have not done proper testing with watch folders on portable devices or network drives. We'll also need to make sure that the user experience is tolerable in the case of downgrading or installing Nokia Ovi Player after Nokia Suite 3.2.
I would be interested in hearing about your experiences with the watch folders on portable devices and network drives!
Regards,
Teemu
Product Manager, Nokia Suite
@teemukoo
Thanks for the positive and constructive attitude on the subject. *ThumbsUp*
Best Regards
Eske Rahn
So I installed Ovi Player (2.1.11020.02) after updating Nokia Suite to version 3.2.66.
And it's true: a refresh of watched folders (used mr_jrt's method of regediting, this also works for the Galery) located on an usb memory connected to a Fritz!Box 7270 which enables a simple nas, is not possible in Nokia Suite anymore after installation of Ovi Player. Only the files stored before Ovi Player installation are recognized.
This of course makes a "watch folders"-function pointless.
On the other hand, Ovi Player seems to use the network watch folders set in Nokia Suite though it cannot be set manually in Ovi Player options. I have been able to play, edit and transfer the files stored on the nas via both Nokia Suite and Ovi Player.
In general the integration of network drives works quite well.
When Nokia Suite is starting it hangs a bit while loading information from network drive but with some patience it get back into track. After deinstallation of Ovi Player it was necessary to remove nokiamserver from registry (sharedDlls) and from system services (msconfig) to restore watch folder functionality in Nokia Suite.
Just weird that still a nokiamserver.exe process is listed in Windows Task Manager.
With files on external hdds (Iomega, Buffalo) connected directly to the PC via USB I have no problem at all. Updating of files, adding watch folders works in Nokia Suite and Ovi Player.
Win 7 Enterprise (32-bit), N8 025.007
@Kallisticker thanks for testing! If you want to get rid of NokiaMServer.exe, you can uninstall not only Ovi Player but also Nokia Common Multimedia Components.
Regards,
Teemu
Product Manager, Nokia Suite
In another thread dazjp71 had noticed that there is no longer a restriction to set watch folders on removable drives.
http://betalabs.nokia.com/apps/nokia-suite-3-2-beta/discussion/42081/syn...
That seems to be the case indeed, but the watch folder functionality is still as discussed above. I'm afraid I'm going to have to have the restriction put back in the commercial release if we have the time. I don't want all the Ovi Player users to start sending us complaints about the watch folders not working. I understand watch folders on external drives are a needed improvement, but for the time being you can use the trick posted by Mr. JRT, right?
Regards,
Teemu
Product Manager, Nokia Suite
@teemukoo
Thanks for your reply and effort.
Keep up the good work!
To get rid of nokiamserver.exe a simple uninstallation of "Nokia Common Multimedia Components" using "Windows Install Clean Up" didn't work so I just deleted the "Mplatform"-folder (of course I did a backup before :)).
This had no negative effect on Nokia Suite so far.
Well, if you have to put back the restrictions I just stay with 3.2.66 beta which works just fine for me.
And for adding watched folders without editing the registry:
in Nokia Suite add any folder (e.g. d:\lalala) on local storage as watched,
close Nokia Suite, (thanks EskeRahn)
delete this folder in Windows Explorer,
press Ctrl+r, type cmd, press enter,
type mklink /d d:\lalala \\networkdrive\folder)
On putting back the restriction.
Why not make it a bit smarter, to help more people in a simple way?
Add an "Advanced options" somewhere, where you can turn it off if you do NOT have "Ovi player" installed.
IF you have turned it off, then let NokiaSuite check for OviPlay at start up.
If found, turn the restriction on, and show a message like
"blah blah restriction has been turned on for comparability with OviPlayer"
(The same "advanced options" could even give a standard browse button for drive and folder)
Best Regards
Eske Rahn
PS
@Kallisticker
On your nice guide, please edit your post and add "Close Nokia Suite", before "delete this folder...".