The VideoLAN Forums

Hi,

I've had a Fire-TV for about 6 months and I've used VLC to stream media stored on my PC on my home wireless network. For the first few months everything worked really well, and then intermittently the app either wouldn't see my PC as an option in the Local Network folder or it would see it, but after I selected it the loading circle would just run forever. I left it overnight once, just to check. After a while of intermittent problems, it just stopped working altogether. I tried reinstalling the app, resetting all of my devices, resetting the router to factory defaults, and nothing seems to work. The folders on my PC are shared just as they were when everything was working.

None of my devices (router, PC, TV) seem to have any connectivity issues otherwise, so I'm pretty confused. PLZ help.

I am also having this issue. VLC on my Fire-TV worked perfectly until a month or two ago. I would go to Local Network and select my desktop via SMB and I could access all of my shared folders. Now when I select my desktop via SMB I get the spinning wheel and it never connects to my shared folders.

I have got the same problem. And I have tried on my phone if I choose tv interface in setting, timeout remains. So I wonder if there is any way to disable tv interface on a tv or could I just modify the config file?
Can someone give us a work around? thanks

After doing some research and realizing when certain events occurred, I've come to believe this is happening because VLC uses the SMBv1 protocol to connect to a PC, which Microsoft has not only discontinued, but forcefully disabled on any currently updated PC. It's not a bad move, since SMBv1 is very unsecure, but that does leave any app that relies on it out in the wind. If this is indeed the cause of this problem, will we see an update for VLC on FireTV anytime soon so I can stream videos from my PC again?

Maybe, but not soon.

While SMB 1.0 is being disabled with recent updates to Windows 10, it is still available as an optional feature. Here's some instructions to re-enable it:

I have found a workaround for this: SMB 1.0 is still available as an optional feature in Windows 10.

To turn it on, open your Start Menu, and search for "Turn Windows features on or off". Within the window that opens, click the plus sign next to "SMB 1.0/CIFS File Sharing Support" and select "SMB 1.0/CIFS Server" (Also make sure that "SMB 1.0/CIFS Automatic Removal" is deselected). Click "OK" and restart your computer. Once it boots back up, VLC should be able to successfully access your fileshare.