How I finally got PS3 Media Server to work again

After many curse words I finally managed to find out why my PS3 could not find my PS3 Media Server (PS3MS).

This is the background for my scenario:

• Running Windows 7 64-bit
• In PS3MS traces, this text is shown : Access granted to /192.168.1.132 (my ps3 ip)
• On PS3, I see Windows Media Server but no PS3MS
• When I turn off windows firewall they find eachother
• Turning it back on and looking at the pfirewall.log file (C:\windows\system32\logfiles\firewall\) with every log setting enabled I see that TCP-connections to port 5001 are dropped
• After a lot of guessing. googling and bruteforce attempts, it turns out that those drops are due to calls to "javaw.exe".

Solution:

For me it was inbound connections that were dropped. When looking at inbound rules for Windows Firewall advanced settings.

I had all the regular things enabled (java.exe, PS3 Media server.exe and what not...)

I had the following items as blocked on my inbound rules:

TCP C:\program files (x86)\java\jre6\bin\javaw.exe

UDP C:\program files (x86)\java\jre6\bin\javaw.exe

I enabled those applications for port 5001 on the interface "Local Area Network" and I finally got a connection.

Also, make sure that C:\windows\syswow64\java.exe is enabled.

Me guessing on why this happens:

As I understand it, it seems like the issue is that PS3 Media Server is using the java binaries to handle network communication. Thus even if PS3MS is allowed communication through firewall the communication will still be dropped. Worst part is that all of this information and all this blocking is hidden for the user making it close to impossible to understand why something was blocked...