YAZSOFT SUPPORT  Tony,

As mentioned in our FAQ, and my email responses to you; this is not currently possible simply because the SL Firewall does not give you access to all the services that you need to let through. When you activate the firewall, they are OFF by default.

If you have a router on your network, a firewall on you Mac is a little redundant.

If you'd like to discuss this further, I welcome you to join our forums:

http://www.yazsoft.com/f/

The MacUpdate comment section is not really the best place for this type of discussion.

Johnny  
(Version 1.1)

TONYPATILLAS99  Hi Johnny,

I haven't received an email stating snow leopard firewall is not compatible with Playback. Just a link to a forum post about what ports to open which you cannot do with Snow Leopard Firewall.

It might be worth stating this in your sites FAQs under 'Is Playback compatible with Snow Leopard's Firewall?'.

Also I would also welcome the opportunity to continue this conversation on your forums but I have been waiting since the 24th October for an administrator to activate my account. For now I just get the message 'The specified username is currently inactive. If you have problems activating your account, please contact a board administrator.' I have sent a second request to activate my account but still nothing. Hence my posting on mac update for help resolving the my playback issues, which for someone who has parted money for this software is totally appropriate if I am unable to find answers elsewhere.

Apologies for my tone but I am somewhat frustrated with my experience of using Playback so far.

Regards

Tony  
(Version 1.1)

YAZSOFT SUPPORT  Tony,

Email me at info at yazsoft dot com.

Also, please make sure that none of my emails are being caught in your spam folder. In your email, also provide the username you have chosen on the forums. Ill activate your account manually.

Johnny  
(Version 1.1)

RUDHY  I've the same problem, but luckily for me I've also license for Rivet which is working just fine with SL, Firewall turned ON and even Stealth mode enabled. I don't understand why Playback can't where Rivet is doing great. For now Rivet is my choice.  
(Version 1.2)

NAVDEEP BAINS  @RUDHY I don't understand it either. I should also add that I can't reproduce the firewall issues being reported on any of my machines. There's only one way to bind a socket to a port, so in that respect, Playback and Rivet are exactly the same. There's no special technique to employ; no magic trick that I'm aware of at least.

Take a look at the Rivet forums and you'll see that Rivet users are also having problems with the Snow Leopard firewall. Both Yazsoft and Cynical Peak are being blamed for Apple's buggy code.

It's not Yazsoft's fault that the Mac OS X firewall implementation is flaky. It's not Cynical Peak's fault either. There really is absolutely nothing we can do to solve these issues on our end.

Thanks,

Navdeep Bains

Playback Developer  
(Version 1.2)

MAC-ADDICT  Hi Tony,

My problems with Playback in the end turned out to be a problem with LittleSnitch, running so silently in the background I'd forgotten all about it's use. However, unlike you I was using Leopard, maybe this solution could help solve your issues, but it would include needing LittleSnitch.

If you go to the following:

http://yazsoft.com/products/playback/faqs/

Look under the question "Is Playback compatible with Little Snitch?" here you'll see my solution as was so kindly helped and provoked by the Yazsoft staff, who I've gotta say where fantastically on the ball with their support. In the end I took their help and went a little further until I found what exactly needed to gain access to the network for Playback to function perfectly. Also I have NetBarrier running but not the built-in Firewall.

Hope this helps you out, I know it is seriously frustrating when this software doesn't work, but it really is soooo much better than Rivet it's not fair to compare them.

All the best,

Ryan.   
(Version 1.2)

TONYPATILLAS99  I seem to have the same issue you encountered... how did you resolve your connection issues after purchasing playback.  
(Version 1.1)

YAZSOFT SUPPORT  Rustman,

I think it would be much more helpful if you emailed me directly at info at yazsoft dot com. The MU forums, as great as they are, are not the proper place to address support issues of this kind.

What you are experiencing should be easily resolved with a little more info. There is nothing wrong with Playback, and no, you shouldn't be exposing your computer to the world just to run a media server.

Awaiting to hear from you. Please refer to this post in your email to me.

Johnny  
(Version 1.1)

YAZSOFT SUPPORT  This may help:

http://yazsoft.com/products/playback/faqs/what-firewall-settings-are-used-with-playback/

If you need more assistance, please email me directly (info at yazsoft dot com)  
(Version 1.1)

YAZSOFT SUPPORT  It is extremely unlikely that you haven't heard back from me if you sent an email. I reply to all my emails usually within minutes of receiving them.

If I've received your email and most probably already responded, you may want to check your spam folder in case it fell in there. Also, if you have a server side spam filter in place, make sure that all emails from yazsoft.com are allowed to pass.

At the same time, I invite you to resend your email with reference to this post on the MacUpdate forums and I'll be happy to assist you. Playback works very well on all systems up to and including Snow Leopard 10.6.1. If there is something getting in the way on your network, I'm sure we'll iron it out.

Thank you,

Johnny  
(Version 1.0.5)

PDBOWERS  I want to take this opportunity to apologize to Johnny, and to Yazsoft. In my original post, I said some things that were not true, the biggest being that "Playback was mediocre at best". That is not true. For what the software is supposed to do, it does it beautifully. I was wrong in assuming that all playlists were supported, and in my case, streaming internet URL's.

Through constructive and informative exchange, Johnny let me know in a kind, non accusing way, what the software did, and at the moment, it's limitations. I have no beef with Johnny,nor the company itself. Good communication and support is unheard of most of the time today, but Yazsoft is one of the exceptions. Accept my humble apology.

Thank you for your support John.

Sincerely,

Paul Bowers  
(Version 1.0.5)

YAZSOFT SUPPORT  Paul,

Thank you for taking the time to re-send your email to me and for giving me the opportunity to clarify all aspects initially causing this confusion. I'm glad this issue has been resolved.

For the sake of all users, I would simply like to add that while we can do pretty much anything we want with Playback; if the consoles (PS3, etc) themselves don't support certain features, there's no point in implementing them. Regardless, we follow-up with all console firmware releases to see what other cool things we can integrate. Playback has one of the most powerful engines in its core and we will take advantage of it at every possibility.

There's a lot more planned for Playback and as always, I'm here to assist in every way possible and to listen to all your feedback. Stay tuned.

Thank you once again Paul for your sincerity and continued support.

Johnny  
(Version 1.0.5)