Learning the hard way - how to open the Uniti Core’s Network File on Windows 7

Unless your Core has a fixed IP address it may have changed, which would explain why \\10.0.0.7 no longer works.

In file explorer, click on 'Computer' down the left

Then click 'map network drive'

For the server address, type '\\UniticoreXXXXXX\Downloads' (the X's represent your core's serial number, if you have changed the name on your core use the new name instead. This is shown at the top of the app screen)

Assign whatever drive letter you would like, give it a name if you want to. 

Click finish and it should be listed with the drive letter specified, and this should be a permanent solution to the issue.

J Saville posted:

Unless your Core has a fixed IP address it may have changed, which would explain why \\10.0.0.7 no longer works.

In file explorer, click on 'Computer' down the left

Then click 'map network drive'

For the server address, type '\\UniticoreXXXXXX\Downloads' (the X's represent your core's serial number, if you have changed the name on your core use the new name instead. This is shown at the top of the app screen)

Assign whatever drive letter you would like, give it a name if you want to. 

Click finish and it should be listed with the drive letter specified, and this should be a permanent solution to the issue.

I’ve been advised to map the drive before, but when I searched for the specific instructions, what came up didn’t make sense to me.  Yours do.   And clearly!  I’ll get to this tonight and hope to be able to report back that I’m finally set.  Thanks so much!!

You might like to tick the reconnect at login box before you click finish to make it stick forever (or until you tell it not to).

J Saville posted:

Unless your Core has a fixed IP address it may have changed, which would explain why \\10.0.0.7 no longer works.

In file explorer, click on 'Computer' down the left

Then click 'map network drive'

For the server address, type '\\UniticoreXXXXXX\Downloads' (the X's represent your core's serial number, if you have changed the name on your core use the new name instead. This is shown at the top of the app screen)

Assign whatever drive letter you would like, give it a name if you want to. 

Click finish and it should be listed with the drive letter specified, and this should be a permanent solution to the issue.

I so wanted to report good news, but alas, no.  I followed instructions exactly, easily finding the ‘map network drive command’ and let the default drive designation of Z stand.

Z: 

followed by

\\Uniticorennnnnn\Downloads. (Where n=my serial number)

Network Error

Windows cannot access (the address indicated above)

Check the spelling of the name. Otherwise there might be a problem with your network.  Click Diagnose.  (Which cannot resolve the problem.)

There is no spelling error.  However, the Uniti Core abruptly stopped playing music in the middle of a stream earlier this evening, so that problem may be relevant to this, though the Core, turns on, responds to commands and appears to be playing music, so it certainly appears to have a proper network connection.  As well, it appears in the list of devices under its Uniticore name, so it’s doubtful that a network problem is the issue.  Everything with the Core app is normally accessible.  Hard to guess what might be wrong.

I decided to repeat the process minus the serial number and it works!  My SSD File is now listed in File Manager  as drive Z  and under Computer with all my other drives.  Yay!!  Many thanks!!

Finally.  This problem has nagged me for many many months.  Whew....

Ok, you must have renamed your Core to get rid of the serial number then, this changes the network name of the Core to reflect the name that it shows in the app.

Glad that it's working for you!

J Saville posted:

Ok, you must have renamed your Core to get rid of the serial number then, this changes the network name of the Core to reflect the name that it shows in the app.

Glad that it's working for you!

Yes, I had renamed it some time ago, then when this solution looked so promising I thought I’d simplify and change it to ‘Uniticore’, not remembering that it must have originally included the serial number.

I’m having what looks to be the same problem with my backup file.  I think Media Player has it locked up, even though I’ve deleted the troublesome Media Player.     I did try to set the file up  at a higher level as a mapped drive  \\Uniticore, instead of \\Uniticore\Downloads) but that didn’t work.     Can I set up a series of mapped drives then, just assigning each of them a different drive designation?  

P.S.  I sure appreciate the help.  Thanks again.  Janet

You can indeed do that. You’re only limited by the number of letters in the alphabet !

do you mean back up folder?

To map a network drive firstly open the share click on 'network' in the left hand side of an open window in explorer, if you are lucky you will see it pop up if not there is an address line at the top type \\192.168.0.etcetc (This number being the IP of what you want to share)

It will then appear with how ever many folders are in the share, right click the one you want an map network drive.

You cannot add anything deeper than this as a share, ie if there is only one share folder then thats all you can map, however you can map that then add anything within to the left hand bar for quick access.

I was going to suggest trying to map the Core using its IP address rather than its name. What I don’t know is how Windows would handle this when DHCP allocates it a different IP address. Probably best to reserve an address for the Core via your DHCP server. 

I am liking the way it is set up now.  An IP address is not needed to set it up so it’s really simple.  Using File Manager and seeing it listed under the “Computer” heading, it looks  like any other drive, IOW,  entirely familiar to me, and access is now just a click away.  DHCP looks way complicated in comparison.  Using a browser instead seems more complicated too.

Although I have to admit “mapping a drive” seemed complicated when I tried to research it, though it turned out to be quite simple to execute, that is, once J Saville spoon fed me the recipe for doing it (lol).  Thanks to Tallguy, I left  the box checked to make it stick around.

ChrisSU posted:

I was going to suggest trying to map the Core using its IP address rather than its name. What I don’t know is how Windows would handle this when DHCP allocates it a different IP address. Probably best to reserve an address for the Core via your DHCP server. 

Windows just reports that it is unable to connect to all the mapped drives if you map with an ip address and that address is changed subsequently. So mapping with the name is the way to go. But it has to be the actual name not the one the Core started life as!

One thing to watch here though Janet is that if you do a factory reset of the Core sometime, the original name will be restored and your mapping won’t work any more, unless you change the Core’s name back again.

best

David

David Hendon posted:

ChrisSU posted:

I was going to suggest trying to map the Core using its IP address rather than its name. What I don’t know is how Windows would handle this when DHCP allocates it a different IP address. Probably best to reserve an address for the Core via your DHCP server. 

Windows just reports that it is unable to connect to all the mapped drives if you map with an ip address and that address is changed subsequently. So mapping with the name is the way to go. But it has to be the actual name not the one the Core started life as!

One thing to watch here though Janet is that if you do a factory reset of the Core sometime, the original name will be restored and your mapping won’t work any more, unless you change the Core’s name back again.

best

David

David,

Thank you,   I will definitely watch for those naming issues in the event of a reset.

I do have to report that my mapping effort did not persist.  When I opened File Manager today, I had to repeat the map.  I had ticked the box that said it would be saved at logon or words to that effect.  Apparently it doesn’t mean what I had hoped, that the mapping would have longevity.  It’s an annoyance, but only a minor one.

The mapping should persist indefinitely. I don’t remember ever tucking a box though (and I use windows 7). So maybe read what the tick box does more carefully.

Anyway I expect you are familiar with it all to handle with confidence now. Did you buy any hi def music yet?

best

David

David Hendon posted:

The mapping should persist indefinitely. I don’t remember ever tucking a box though (and I use windows 7). So maybe read what the tick box does more carefully.

Anyway I expect you are familiar with it all to handle with confidence now. Did you buy any hi def music yet?

best

David

Ohmygosh, I kinda wish you hadn’t asked ????.  The truth is I looked and looked and I can’t seem to find my favorite music or musicians in hi def or in a hi def selection I want.  So I looked and looked outside my initial narrower window and found all sorts of possibilities, so many  I can’t decide!  It’d be easier to decide if hi def were cheaper, but it turns out it’s fairly pricey.  So it’ll take me a little longer to sort through my choices and pick just one or two to start with.  And I’ll have to hope my old ears really will be able to tell the difference.  My DAC unfortunately limits me to PCM, so I can’t try DSD or MQA, but I’ve been told we still live in a PCM world, so I’ll content myself with hi def PCM.

However, I did copy a half hour music program off an Internet FM station and moved that to the Downloads folder.  I found an appropriate photo for cover art and put a jpg suffix on it.  The music played beautifully but, boo hoo,  the cover art didn’t take.  Perhaps I added a suffix to something incompatible with jpg.  Something more to look into.

I’ll have to do some research into why my mapped drive didn’t persist, even though I definitely ticked the box to reconnect at logon.   I discovered some videos which stated that ticking that box should keep the mapped file around, so I don’t know why my Windows should be perverse.  As before, no big deal.  I’ll let it be until I have more time to look into it.  I’m just so glad I can finally access the Downloads folder.

Janet

So regarding the cover art in downloads, you have to have a jpg in the folder alongside the music files, but it has to be called folder.jpg or cover.jpg  So Janets radio download.jpg won’t work. I bet that is the problem.  You normally have to rename the cover art if you buy a WAV download, but if it’s a flac, the cover art is embedded and you don’t need to worry about it.

So just navigate in to your downloads folder in the Core and rename the artwork file. You can do it there. You don’t need to take it out first or anything. And the Core will find the edit in a few seconds or so. Maybe one minute.

best

David

Hi David,

You are too right, I did misname the jpg file.  I renamed it folder.jpg.  Unfortunately, half an hour later, it still has no cover art.  Thr music itself plays fine.

But here’s another question for you.  When I add another file to the Downloads folder, I’ll no doubt have to add another folder.jpg.  How does the system know to associate the correct folder.jpg file among perhaps many with the corresponding music?  Obviously that can’t work.    Do I have to come up with a folder for each piece of music in Downloads?  That’d make more sense to me.

Janet

Hi Janet

Yes you have to set up a folder structure for WAV files otherwise the Core gets confused. I think this is explained in the Downloads advice in the online support wizard I pointed you to before. But basically within the downloads folder you have a folder for each artist. That can be a classical artist like conductor or the main tenor or whatever, then within that a sub-folder for the album. You could have more sub-folders if you want, it doesn’t matter how deep the structure is. Then the album sub-folder you would name according to a convention that works for you. I know you listen to opera, so you would probably do what I do and name the folder as “composer name - name of work”. This is the name you will see for the album in the Naim app. Then inside the album folder you put the file for each track and the folder.jpg file for that album.

So if you navigate into your downloads folder and add a sub-folder which you might call “radio downloads” or similar and put a sub-folder inside that “radio download number one” or whatever, then you can cut and drag the music file or files and the folder jpg into its new home. Hopefully the Core will pick up the art now.

One other point is that the art has to be a jpg. It’s not enough to rename something else, say a pdf or a doc file as a jpg. So find the picture you want online as a jpg, save it to your photos or wherever.  Then copy it into the Core and change the name to folder.jpg or change the name first and then copy it to the Core. It doesn’t matter which way round.

Key point is that at the end of the day whatever structure you use within the downloads folder you need a subfolder per album and an image jpg file in that subfolder at the same level as the music file.

best

David

The Core is limited to a maximum coverart resolution of 2500 x 2500. It will ignore anything over this resolution.