Blu Ray No Longer Streaming Computer Content

[Shawnster]

Not sure where to put this topic.


So, I came back from vacation and now my Sony Blu Ray can no longer connect to my media computer. Running Windows XP. Any suggestions? I could stream content from that computer before I left.


Dell Windows XP computer with Windows Media Player 11 connected to a Rosewill router. Sony Blu Ray player also connected to the router. Windows Media Player is set up for media sharing. All the video files are in the My Videos folder. Everything looks fine. I even called Sony and they talked me through the appropriate settings. Everyting I've looked up on the Net so far tells me everything should work.



Last week everything was fine. We've had the Blu Ray for a couple of years now. I set the computer up as a media server last year or maybe 2 years ago. We have had absolutely no problem watching videos through the Blu Ray that were downloaded onto the computer. We left for vacation and, when we came back, it no longer worked.



What is also odd is that my step-son cannot connect to the computer through his Xbox, either. He's having the same issue.



Further, we have 2 computers, one is Windows XP and the other is Windows 7. I've set them both up as media servers. Neither of them are working. The Blu Ray sees both computers. Both computers see the Blu Ray. However, when I tell the Blu Ray to connect to the server, it doesn't. It says it can't connect to the server.

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Have you tried power cycling the router? Every router I've ever used has needed to be rebooted every few weeks. I don't suggest doing a hard reset back to factory settings though.

[Shawnster]

Yes, at least twice. Interesting that you suggested the router, though. I've been thinking the same thing - that it's a router issue. Yet, the router is working fine in all other aspects. Tablets work fine, Internet access is fine. The only issue is actually playing the media files.

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Because it sounds like access between hosts on the local network is problematic, have you tried using the ping command from your computers to the IP address of the Blu-ray? You might also want to check that the assigned IP addresses are all in the same subnet (usually something like 192.168.1.x) with the same network mask (usually 255.255.255.0).

[Rhubarbodendron]

it's a very wide shot but often in old computers their backup battery gets weak. It doesn't show if you run them every day but after a longer pause you'll notice that the date and time settings are off.
Maybe your current problem is related? There might be some data loss in the settings or simply a difference in time/date between the devices that keeps them from communicating properly.
One of my old machines has that prob - when starting it, it insists that it's Jan 1st 1900 and won't accept files or devices that date at a later year since it's impossible (from the computer's point of view) that a file or device can come from the future. It works perfectly the moment I correct the time settings manually.