I'm still running 2.0.28 , so this may not be an issue with the new version, however I saw one post still reporting shares problems so I thought I'd post this observation.
Since I installed 2.0.28, I haven't had much problem with lost shares, except for a couple occasions where an application apparently crashed. However, yesterday, I observed something that may not be important, but I found it interesting.
The network I have my Roku on usually only has 1 computer, one TIVO, and a Netgear music device, so generally there is little or no activity on the network. What happened, was that I wasn't even actively using the Roku at the time, although I think I had a telnet window open, but I had put a second computer on the network several hours before the problem occurred, but only made some very quick network tests.
However I decided to experiment by streaming a big video file from my main computer with VLC to this second computer, which also had VLC running. I was trying to compare how the Roku talks to VLC while streaming vs how VLC talks to VLC while streaming, by using a network sniffer.
Well shortly after starting my stream to the second computer, things got clogged up, and I had to terminate the process, but after stopping VLC on both computers, I noticed that the network had gone bezerk with activity going out on all ports. I turned on the network sniffer, and the Roku was searching for computers on all possible IP#s of the subnet it is on, ie basically sending out "who's there" pings on x.x.x.1 x.x.x.2 x.x.x.3, etc. I tried to access the Roku by telnet, and I couldn't get a listing on my shares. Ran upstairs and looked at the Roku display on the TV, and there were no shares listed at all. Went into the nework shares window in the setup screen, and it had listed a whole bunch of new shared folders that were on this new computer I had on the network, but nothing unusual.
Only thing I can figure, is that the Roku must have detected the presence of the 2nd computer and catalogued all the shared folders, however somehow my streaming to the 2nd computer somehow caused enough network congestion, that when it tried to do a periodic check of the shares, it must not have gotten an answer, and decided to do a complete check of all computers on the network for some reason. It should NOT have had any problems getting through to the main computer, but it may have had problems getting through to the 2nd computer, which is slower, and wasn't capable of displaying the video I was sending it.
Anyway, whatever the reason, I found it interesting that network congestion not even visible to the Roku (since it was through a switch, and the Roku light wasn't even lighting up) would cause the Roku to go beserk and lose it's shares. I also found it interesting that it was going through each IP# one by one, instead of sending out 255 requests that go to every computer at once, which I thought was the way it was usually done. I just thought that some of the lost shares problems that some people are reporting might be caused by network congestion not even involving the Roku.
BTW, everything on my LAN uses fixed ip#s.

wejones wrote:

Anyway, whatever the reason, I found it interesting that network congestion not even visible to the Roku (since it was through a switch, and the Roku light wasn't even lighting up) would cause the Roku to go beserk and lose it's shares. I also found it interesting that it was going through each IP# one by one, instead of sending out 255 requests that go to every computer at once, which I thought was the way it was usually done. I just thought that some of the lost shares problems that some people are reporting might be caused by network congestion not even involving the Roku.

Thanks for the data point. One option you have available is to turn off the periodic search: in Network Shares, set the "Search Type" spinner to "None". This will prevent new searches from clogging your network.

The reason the HD1K sends out a ping to each IP address (when the Thorough mode is enabled) is because some windows firewalls don't respond to broadcast pings, but they do respond to direct pings.

Dave

Thanks for the info. Interesting.

I lose the ability to see files or directory structure in some of my shares from PCs running WinXP-Home sp2. Turns out that the reliable shares are on a PC that never goes into standby nor turns off the hard drive. The problematic shares are on PCs that do shut down the hard drive and go into standby when idle for several hours. I changed the Power Management settings to always-on and everything has workd for a day. So much for good ecology.

I guess I should try putting a PC into standby and try... Someday.

Widows PCs can re-establish connections when systms wake up and the shares aren't permanently disabled. Is there some way Linux/Roku can do the same?

tjdebon wrote:

I lose the ability to see files or directory structure in some of my shares from PCs running WinXP-Home sp2. Turns out that the reliable shares are on a PC that never goes into standby nor turns off the hard drive. The problematic shares are on PCs that do shut down the hard drive and go into standby when idle for several hours. I changed the Power Management settings to always-on and everything has workd for a day. So much for good ecology.

I guess I should try putting a PC into standby and try... Someday.

Widows PCs can re-establish connections when systms wake up and the shares aren't permanently disabled. Is there some way Linux/Roku can do the same?

That might tie in with something I've seen also. I have a Ximeta Netdisk on my switch in the basement. However since it's not formatted "right" so that the Roku can directly have read/write access I'm just sharing it from my PC. However whenever the Ximeta goes to sleep I can't access it from the Roku until I go and access it from my PC to wake it up. None of my PC's go into standby BTW, all just go to screensaver.