Can XLobby send a WOL command?

[LYU370]

Still a VERY newbie. But can XLobby be setup to send a WOL command to another PC. I was thinking of using a spare PC for storing DVD's etc. which would normally be in standby mode. If I wanted to watch a DVD, my HTPC would try to read the movie from the server, if it was offline, I'd like to be able to send a WOL command to it to wake up, then have either XLobby retry or manually re-select the movie.

Thanks
Andy

[erikt]

I don't think you can check if the other PC was online or not. If you
can find an application that can be executed from the command line
with the correct parameters to send the WOL packet, then you
could automatically send the WOL command whenever you hit
Play on the movie page. You just add an OS->execute file command,
which invokes the WOL application, to the Event assigned to the Movie
Play button.

erikt

[tswhite70]

I do this, all of my systems are set to sleep after 30 minutes. I use Depicus WOLcmd (http://www.depicus.com/wake-on-lan/wake-on-lan-cmd.aspx) to wake them. Install the software (it's free) on your system, create a batch file with the command for the particular system(s) you need to wake and then call it out of Xlobby whenever you want.

For me I have all my movies on one server - so I've created a batch file that runs the WOLcmd for that server (WakeMovieServer.bat). Then in the Xlobby event manager I set it up so that whenever I hit the Movies button on the main screen it runs the batch file and switches over to the Movies screen. Works like a champ...

good luck,
tsw

[Roscoe62]

tswhite70,

I'm interested to know how long it takes for your server to wake up. Which sleep mode do you use? (S3, S4.....?)

Also, do you use the "goto movies screen" event (or something similar) to trigger the batch file?

At the moment I am waking the entire system up from S4(?) in a pre-defined sequence (PPC sends WOL command to server, server wakes up & then sends WOL command to HTPC). It works OK, but it's VERY slow!
Very interested to know how you have this working.

[tswhite70]

I have my boxes going into S3 and it seems to take 3-5 seconds to wake up and be usefull. Sometimes I see just a little delay for instance with the page down button on the movies screen if the server is just waking up - I'll hit the button and then 2 seconds later it will page down, but that only happens as the server is waking up, after that everything is normal.

Yes, in the Goto Movies Screen event I have 2 steps: execute WakeMovieServer.bat and the actual "goto movies screen" Xlobby command.

I think S4 would be to slow for this type of use as it has reload the memory from the hard drive. S3 keeps the memory in ram so it's very quick coming back up. There's very, very little power usage in S3 and its so convenient that S4 is just not attractive to me. I'm sure it depends on the system as to how fast it wakes up and I do have all extraneous services disabled.

One problem I ran into with this setup was that since Xlobby loads on my HTPC whenever I reboot it Xlobby goes out to all the specified directorys (movies, music, pictures) and loads the images/covers during it's initialization. If my server wasn't running when this happened my movies screen wouldn't have any covers. I fixed this for the time being by setting up Girder on the HTPC to wait a predetermined amount of time after bootup (seems to take awhile for my network to become active) and then firing off the WOL command to the server, then wait 5 more seconds, then start Xlobby and that fixed it. This may all change when I start using Xlobby in client\server mode instead of the standalone instances I'm running now.

good luck,
tsw

[Roscoe62]

TSWhite,

Thank you for coming back to this thread. What you've said here is EXACTLY what I was hoping to hear.

Yes, S4 is a bit of a disaster for this kind of application. The way you've gotten around it is exactly what I'd like to try with one exception....

To my way of thinking I'm only going to need the server awake when the HTPC is awake. (I also have XLobby start on bootup). So what I'd like to do is set the server to go into S3 when inactive (say, after 30mins inactivity) but have the HTPC wake the server during bootup...just like you've stated. However, I'd like to set up a regular event somewhere (possibly within Girder) to PREVENT the server from going back into S3. Once the HTPC is turned off the server will slip back into S3 after the pre-determined inactivity period is reached.

I haven't figured out what event would be best to use for this but I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult. However, you seem very knowledgeable on this so if you've anything to suggest I'd be grateful.

Thanks again!
Ross

[smeehrrr]

Roscoe, a cheap and simple solution for keeping your server alive would be to create a batch file that pings it every 20 minutes or so. The network activity will be enough to keep the server alive and it will stop pinging when you shut down your HTPC.

[tswhite70]

Roscoe62 - There are 3 ways to do it - you could follow smeehrrr's suggestion of setting up a batch file to ping the server, then call it from girder every 25 minutes or so (set your ping command to send 1 ping only: ping -n 1 IPaddress). That of course assumes you allow any network traffic to wake your system.

Or you could use a batch file with a magic packet as I described in my earlier post with girder (if you have the "only allow admin systems to wake this machine" option set) firing off the magic packet every 25 minutes or so.

Or....I haven't tried this but it might be pretty slick. Sysinternals has a freeware utility inlcuded in their PStools package called PSshutdown that allows you to send a suspend command to the system (-d option). I've used a lot of Sysinternals tools and really like them, but have never tried this particular option.

If it worked then you could set your server to never standby, send the WOL from HTPC to server at startup (either throught the startup options or via girder) and then send the Psshutdown command from HTPC to server when you put the HTPC to sleep (use girder command fired by standby event). I might try this myself when I get a chance. Of course it gets a bit more complicated if you have multiple pc's feeding off the server.

Let us know what you end up doing - good luck!
tsw

[Roscoe62]

Some great suggestions here - definitely something to work with.

Thanks a lot guys!

[erikt]

I'm considering setting something up like this, but one thing concerns
me. I've played movies across a 100Mbit network before and found
that the picture will occasionally stutter. Playing the same movie on
the local hard-drive gets rid of the problem.

I see two possible solutions:
1. implement some kind of streaming video setup
- I don't know anything about this, is this even possible using Zoomplayer
to watch a DVD?
2. upgrade to Gigabit ethernet

Any thoughts? What have you done to alleviate this? or do you even see
this in your setups?

Thanks.
erikt

[Roscoe62]

I too get an occasional stutter. In fact I get it so bad sometimes that the picture freezes and the sound in the buffer loops for up to 7-8 seconds. During this time XLobby will not accept any commands from the PPC either.

It's really killing the enjoyment factor in our setup and I've been spending quite a bit of time trying to nail down where the problem is occurring. I've updated all of the drivers in the system including the BIOS and the motherboard drivers, but although this has improved the problem it hasn't eliminated it.

I am currently playing movies without XLobby to see what I can learn there. Last night while watching Attack of the Clones the movie stuttered twice, but each occurrence lasted less than a second. So I still don't have enough data yet to make any conclusions.

I also note that I get freezing up happening while skinning from another PC via UltraVNC. So, is XLobby the problem for me? It's still too early to tell. Still gathering information.

I don't know whether going to a Gigabit network will solve the problem. Theoretically, 100Mb/s is plenty of bandwidth to stream a movie.

[erikt]

I don't know whether going to a Gigabit network will solve the problem. Theoretically, 100Mb/s is plenty of bandwidth to stream a movie.

While 100Mbps is plenty, media players like Zoomplayer don't buffer any
of the data, they assume they can get a steady stream from the HDD.
Since an Ethernet network makes no guarantee about when data will
arrive, any other network (or CPU) activity can superscede the data you
care about. As a result, you can't even guarantee that a Gigabit network
will provide the steady stream of data the player requires.

Now, it sounds like your situation is much worse than mine, I just get
occasional stuttering, no freezing or loops.

I'm going to try playing a few movies of my newly installed Gigabit switch
and see if that works before putting together a file server.
erikt

[erikt]

Just in case someone's still interested in this thread, I thought I'd provide
an update on what I've done. This weekend I put together a "server"
machine from some parts I had from my HTPC experiments. I replaced
the 160Gb HDD in my HTPC with a 40Gb Samsung notebook (2.5") drive,
and put the 160Gb HDD (along with an 80Gb and a 120Gb) into my
server machine. The server is a P4 Celeron 2.4GHz/533MHz with a
gigabit Ethernet network card, running XP Pro. My HTPC also runs XP Pro.
The server sits in the basement, next to my broadband modem,
router, and gigabit switch. The HTPC is in my entertainment system.
All of my music and video files are on the server disks.

I have my HTPC and server normally standby in S3 when not in use. Using
Girder, Depicus' wolcmd, and PSTools' PSShutdown, I have the HTPC send
a wolcmd to the server whenever it resumes from standby. I then have
the HTPC send a PSShutdown to the server whenever I suspend the HTPC.

This works great! The HTPC is quieter, and I can't tell any difference
between when the files were stored locally and now when their on the
server. I was a bit concerned that the server wake-up time would cause
some delays, but my fears have proven unfounded.

Thanks for the suggestions regarding wolcmd and psshutdown!
erikt

[tswhite70]

Cool - glad it's working for you!

tsw