Here are some of the frequently asked questions about the Firefly Media Server. The questions are broken down by section based on the type of question.

Installation

I get a "cannot connect to server error" connecting to my Mac

Very likely your server is firewalled. To fix this, you'll need to move your firefly port to a fixed port, rather than letting it assign ports by itself. In the Firefly preference pane, select the "Advanced" tab, and change "Assign Server Port" to "Manually". Set the port to something unused. I typically use 9999, as that matches the Windows version.

When you apply the changes, the server will restart. Now, you must open a firewall exception for the port you just set up. To do that, go to the "Sharing" preference pane. Under "Firewall", hit the "New" button. Port Name: Other, TCP Port: 9999 (or whatever you used above), UDP Port: blank, Description: Firefly. Hit Ok. Then make sure it shows up in the service list and that it's checked. That's it. You should be able to connect now from a remote client.

I can't see my Firefly server in iTunes/Soundbridge

The mechanism by which iTunes or Soundbridge sees the Firefly server is using the Apple "Bonjour" service. The potential problems include a bad installation of Bonjour (if using Windows), problems with Firefly advertising Bonjour, or network problems.

As a first step, re-installing Apple's Bonjour for Windows (if using Windows) isn't a bad place to start. Another potential problem is a bug that was fixed in svn-1441. Updating to a new version from theFirefly nightlies site isn't a bad idea either.

If neither of those work, it may be a problem with networking. If using a wireless router, check to see if the configuration page on the router has settings to enable multicast.

My Pinnacle Soundbridge can't see Firefly

Make sure that your Soundbridge is running firmware 2.5.171 as a minimum. If you are running a NAS device e.g. NSLU2 then ensure that you are running a nightly build. At the time of writing the optware feeds contain mt-daapd 0.2.4 which doesn't support RSP.

Playlists

Why can't I see my iTunes playlists?

Firefly picks up the iTunes playlists by reading the "iTunes Music Library.xml" file that iTunes stores playlist information in. In order to be able to find the iTunes playlist, Firefly must be able to find this file somewhere in its search path. In practice, this means adding the "My Music" folder (in Windows) or the "Music" folder (on Mac) as one of the Music Folders in the web configuration tool.

There is also a configuration entry that controls whether or not Firefly should even try and build playlists from the iTunes file. That configuration options is the option called "Process .m3u files". It's a poorly named configuration value, as that value also controls whether or not Firefly tries to build playlists from iTunes files. Check to be sure that is still set to "Yes" in the web configuration tool.

In addition, it's possible that this still won't fix the problem if the files are stored on a network share (for Windows). If so, please see the next FAQ entry (Firefly doesn't see my music on my network drive).

Firefly (Windows) doesn't see my music on my network drive

The Firefly server runs as a different user as the one you are logged on with -- an account without networking permissions. To allow it to have access to network resources, you must have it log on as a user with permissions to access the network resources.

To do that, go to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services and locate the "Firefly Media Server" service. Right-click -> Properties, and look at the "Logon" tab. Change the logon user to a user that has permissions to the network resource. Then stop and start the service.

Another potential problem is drive letter mapping. If you access your music files by drive letter rather than by UNC (\\server\share), then it's possible that Firefly doesn't know what the network path is to a specific drive letter, and that may cause Firefly to either not find networked files, or not be able to put the files in playlists. You must be running a version of Firefly after svn-1433 to resolve this problem.