Why won't this Xbox 360 stream media from this Windows XP SP2 machine?

January 20, 2008 10:34 AM

I cannot stream media from my PC. The Xbox 360 will connect to Xbox Live, but will not pass the "Test Media" option. It always fails after successfully acquiring an IP address. This Xbox has successfully connected to streaming media before on another computer. The connection has been deleted from within the Xbox settings.

OS: Windows XP SP2.

All drivers are current.
UPnP is on, both on the router and on the PC.
HTTP SSL is on.
SSDP Discovery Service is on.
Windows Media Sharing Service is on.

The network is handled by a WRT54G (v1.1) over a wired connection and the firmware is current.
The security settings are disabled on the router.
The Windows Firewall is off.
Internet Connection Sharing is off.

Using the Zune software, I enable sharing and select my folders and the Xbox does not find the computer.

Using Windows Media Player 11, I receive and error that says "Media sharing has been turned off because a required Windows setting or component has changed. For additional assistance, click Web Help." Clicking web help takes me to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/webhelp/default.aspx?&mpver=11.0.5705.5043&id=C00D0FF4

After performing those steps, I still get no response from the Xbox and when I click Media Sharing... again in Windows Media Player, I get the same error message.

I have tried several solutions to this problem:

1) Rebuilding the library, the zachd.com method. 2) Deleting the contents of the C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\DRM folder. 3) Rollback to Windows Media Player 10 and re-install Windows Media Player 11 4) Rollback to Windows Media Player 10 and install Windows Media Connect 2.0

Using Windows Media Connect 2.0, it appears on the computer that everything should work, but the Xbox still does not register any computer to connect to.

Any ideas?

posted by idledebonair to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

What IP address is the XBOX360 pulling down? What about the PC? Do you have your Network on XP set to "public" or "private." On Vista having it set to public disallows media sharing despite what other settings may say, I forget if this is a feature of XP.
posted by geoff. at 10:42 AM on January 20, 2008

Response by poster: Xp doesn't have that Public/Private setting the same way. Both machines are receiving their IP addresses from the DHCP server in the router. Currently they are 192.168.1.102 and 192.168.1.104.
posted by idledebonair at 10:46 AM on January 20, 2008

For what it's worth, I have the same problem. I used to connect to the PC all the time with our 360, but the Fall 2007 dashboard update broke the connection settings, and I've spend hours and hours trying to fix it to no avail. The Xbox Live technical forum has some suggestions on connectivity issues, you might try there.

I ended up using an old Orb account to stream media to the 360. It is intended to let you access your music/movies/pictures over the internet, but it connects directly to the PC via your LAN if you stream it to the Xbox. It works, although it can occasionally be a bit buggy.
posted by gemmy at 11:01 AM on January 20, 2008

I could never get streaming to work on my 360, despite how "easy" it was advertised to be.

Then on a lark I installed Orb and streaming on the 360 "automagically" started working with practically zero setup.
posted by Ynoxas at 11:40 PM on January 20, 2008