Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[PhDSM]

Hello,
  I got a strange problem with my Media server.
When I access from Gizmo, Web, MC from another PC, everything is fine.
When I access from my TV interface (Samsung), I find the DLNA server, I  can navigate through all the "folders" (Audio, artist, image video...) but It never shows any Item.  The navigation tree is there and complete  but empty.
If, from the same TV interface, I try to  access the same PC thru a PS3 DLNA server instead of MC DLNA server, I can get all the files.
For info I installed the PS3 DLNA server, under the recommandation of Samsung support to check whether the problem was due to MC DLNA server or the TV inrerface. From Samsung point of view as it works well with the Sony PS3 DLNA server but not with MC server indicate a problem with MC DLNA server.
I check configuration, and I didn't find anything. How can I investigate further ?
Regards

Philippe

[JimH]

In MC, under Media Network, you can change settings for the DLNA Server.  One of the options is for PS3.  You could try that and others.

[~OHM~]

I have found TV's have a limit on how many files they will show. If you have to many files I would suspect nothing will show, I experienced this on a 55in LG smart TV.....

[AndrewFG]

In MC, under Media Network, you can change settings for the DLNA Server.  One of the options is for PS3.  You could try that and others.

Also try the DLNA setting and DLNA Extra setting in the same place.

[PhDSM]

Thanks for all your recommendations. However it didn't help.
I tried, without success, DLNA extra, PS3, flat url, full URL, and several other  mix.

So let give more details on what I found:
On Media Center, I run now on MC21.0.50, but the problem was already there with MC 20.
The TV is a Samsung JU7000. Regarding Samsung support they told me that as the TV works ok with other DLNA servers (PS3, Windows Media), they can’t help.
The problem is weird but stable and reproducible.

- For videos, it looks that it works OK, despite the "tree path" I use.

- For images, a few "tree paths" works but most didn’t . It is not linked with the number of items (some works with 200 images and some didn’t with 2 images), neither with the depth of the tree.
However it seems that when something is shown it is when it contains only recent images. But not in all the case. For example I have  Christmas 2015  mages with people. When I acces thru the Event /Date, I can see them. I f access with People name/Year , for people that are only on Christmas 2015 images are shown, but if the people have other images in other album (like vacation august 2015), none are shown.

- For Music, none are shown with Audio tree, but some are shown in recently imported playlist or in Album imported last 6 months, but not in recently played.

As I said, when I access the server thru Gizmo or Webgizmo, everything is fine.

Other information: I guess the TV receive items lists but can’t interpret them, so it didn’t show any item. I can guess that because when I access tree path that ends on long list of items, response time of the TV is slower.

Is it due the coding of items list ? Why some list of items are correctly interpreted by the TV and some are not.

What can I do to investigate further ?
Regards

Philippe

[bob]

First are you sure you are browsing the audio tree under the audio category on the TV?
Most devices won't show files if for example you browse the audio tree under the video category on the renderer.

Second, Samsung has a funky namespace that we use to try and hide that top level (audio/images/video/playlists).
It's possible that doesn't work on yours because they changed something.

[Darth B]

I ran into a similar problem setting up DLNA to work with my Dish Network Hopper and Joeys.  The problem for me was coverart in my FLAC files.  After removing the coverart from within the files, everything worked just fine.

Hope this helps.

[PhDSM]

Yes I check the filter, it is set to show all.
If it was an audio file filters, I wouldn't get the case of having  playlist "Last 6 months album" working and "recent plays"not woking. none of them would work.
Regards
 

[bob]

Tried duplicating this with a samsung bd player (they often have the same firmware). No luck.

Maybe try setting the audio format to specified format and make it an mp3 for a test? That eliminates the coverart. For images, try one of the specific sizes.

[PhDSM]

I've continued my investigation and that's what I found :

For audio, it shows only audio which has been imported roughly last 4 months but not consistently.

For Images it shows only images which has been imported roughly last 5 months but ONLY if all items in the view are in this case, otherwise none is shown.


For Video, everything is shown.

(remember that if I access the DLNA via WebRemote everything is shown,  and I didn't put any filters on imported date)

So it is like there was a kind of filter that shows :
- Audio if ALL of them in the view are less that 4 months imported (if one in the list is older, nothing shown)
- Images if ALL of them in the view are less that 5 months imported
- Video  everything ok

Sounds very strange ?
Regards

[JimH]

Are the files different in some other way (other than age)?  File types, for example?

In MC, look carefully at the locations, etc.

[AndrewFG]

So it is like there was a kind of filter that shows :
- Audio if ALL of them in the view are less that 4 months imported (if one in the list is older, nothing shown)
- Images if ALL of them in the view are less that 5 months imported

Sounds to me like an issue with the Samsung locally caching the folder items, and checking for dirty cache / refresh by means of the UPnP ContentDirectory LastChange flag.

First thing to do would be to check if the date, clock, and time zone are set correctly (and the same) on the Samsung and on the MC server PC.

If that does not work you could try a factory reset on the Samsung to force it to delete all cached folder items.

You might also need to check that your media files do not have file time stamps with future dates etc.


 

[PhDSM]

I did a new test

This time I create a new MC library a a different PC and loaded 2000 images (The one that doesn't show) and Guess what ?
It works, they are all shown on my TV.
Why the same set of files works with a brand new Library and doesn't in my 70000  files / 12 years old library (initialy created with mediajukebox, and updated all along with new version) ?
Regards

Philippe

[AndrewFG]

I did a new test. This time I create a new MC library a a different PC and loaded 2000 images (The one that doesn't show) and Guess what? It works, they are all shown on my TV.

I am glad to hear that you got it working.

Why the same set of files works with a brand new Library and doesn't in my 70000  files / 12 years old library (initialy created with mediajukebox, and updated all along with new version) ?

What you describe is certainly consistent with my earlier reply.

The UPnP ContentDirectory service provides an UpdateID argument in its response to Browse and Search commands. (Note I said "LastChange" in my earlier post, but it is actually called "UpdateID"). This flag is used to tell the Control Point if the contents of the Content Directory have changed or not. There are actually two UpdateID flags, either ContainerUpdateID which indicates any change in one particular folder, or SystemUpdateID which indicates any change in the whole Content Directory.

If the Control Point receives a SystemUpdateID from the ContentDirectory service that is larger than the previously supplied value, this tells it that it needs to reload fresh meta data concerning all tracks. Whereas if the SystemUpdateID is equal to (or lower than) the previously supplied value, this tells the Control Point that it has already got the latest data, and so does not need to reload anything.

Typically MC uses the date when files were added to its library as the value it provides in the UpdateID argument responses. So I suppose that your old library may have been built on a system that had a wrong PC clock setting, or a different date-time format, or wrong file date tags, etc. so that it was causing MC to build and send SystemUpdateID values that were the same as (e.g. always "0"), or lower than, what the Control Point had seen before.

Presumably re-creating the MC library has caused it to reset SystemUpdateID to a value that is consistent with the newness of the library.

JimH: you may want to add this one to your "weird and wonderful" thread...

[bob]

Wow Andrew, nice find!

[JimH]

I agree.  Thanks!  As always.

[PhDSM]

Thanks for your reply.
I said I got it working on a new MC database, but this one only contains  3% and it is just a test database.
I would like to make it work on my full  database which contains 70000 items and  a lot of customization.
Is there an easy  way to rebuild it in order to make it work without loosing years of customization ?

[AndrewFG]

I would like to make it work on my full  database which contains 70000 items and  a lot of customization.
Is there an easy  way to rebuild it in order to make it work without loosing years of customization ?

Please don't try the following immediately. Lets see how others (e.g. the JRiver guys) respond first. There is a utility out there called "touch.exe" which iterates across all files in a given directory, and does nothing other than change the Windows date stamp on the files. My guess is that if you were to "touch" your 70'000 files it would force MC to refresh the UpdateID flag values...

[PhDSM]

Based on your analysis,  why the problem occurs only for Audio and Image but not for videos ?
Are processing of date for videos is different ?

[AndrewFG]

Based on your analysis,  why the problem occurs only for Audio and Image but not for videos ?
Are processing of date for videos is different ?

It could be that the CP handles video browsing differently. Or, as you say, it could be something in the way MC handles dates. One possible difference is that audio writes tag changes in the file itself (thus changing the time stamp) whereas video writes tag changes in the sidecar file (thus not changing the time stamp).

[PhDSM]

Hello

I did a new set of test with my big old MC database to better understand the date problem.

To test, I create 6 playlists with images that I tried to display on my TV with DLNA access

Here are the files organization :
3 files in a direcory called Album/relief/1976 :
  Theses were imported in MC in August 2015,  MC Date (Year) was set to 1976 (Date of the picture)
  This files were moved recently to this directory by Library Tools / Rename,Move & Copy file
   However the move had no impact  on the relut

A copy of the same 3 files in another directory called Source/relief/1976
  I imported the copied files on march 2016
      
6 playlists

#1 contains one of the first set of 3 files imported in August  with MC Date (Year) was set to 1976
#2 contains another of the first set of 3 files imported in August  with MC Date (Year) was set to Jan 2016
#3 contains last of the first set of 3 files imported in August  with the imported reseted to Feb 2016 (via API)

#4 contains one of the copy set of 3 files imported in March with MC Date set by MC based on windows last modified date to Auguest 2015
#5 contains another of the first set of 3 files imported in March with MC Date (Year) set to 1976

#6 contains all 6 files

Result on the TV

Files of Playlist 4 & 5 are shown
Files of Playlist 1,2 & 3 are NOT shown (empty)
Files of Playlist 6 (all) NOT shown, even files that were shown for playlist 4 & 5

You mentionned that it can be due to wrong date format during import, how can I check that ?
where did MC find its "xxUpdateID"e in the database, because when I reset the imported date it doesn't fix the problem (playlist #3). Are other dates stored in MC  besides  Date, Date Imported, Date created, Date release,. Date Modified, Date firstRated, Date lastplayed.
Why the playlist with all 6 files doesn't show any ?

Attached is pdf with screen capture of  Windows file properties and MC tags.
Regards

Philippe

[AndrewFG]

You mentioned "playlists" in your post, which unfortunately only adds to the confusion...

When a Control Point Browses a Content Directory it follows a "browse tree" that looks something like the following:

Audio
-Albums
--One album title
---Track 1
---Track 2
---Track n   
--Another album title
---etc.

-Artists
--One album title
---Track 1
---etc.

--Genres
--One album title
---Track 1
---etc.
 
Images
-etc.

Videos
-etc.

So can you please post a picture of your browse tree? And please explain where you are seeing the error? Are you seeing the individual MPO files in the browse tree under (presumably) "images"? And if not where are they appearing? And what do you mean by "playlists"? Are you referring to explicit playlist files such as M3U, PLS or other such physical file types? Or are you referring to implicit "playlists" aka "albums" created in MC by some kind of associative grouping of the tags on specific media files?

[PhDSM]

After long debugging, I noticed that , as my database is 77k items, it is easier for testing  to browse through Playlists rather than Images or Audios trees. In 2 clicks I see if items are displayed or not.
 (I have the same issue whereas i browse through Audio/Image/Video tree or through Playlist tree.)
So when I connect to DLNA on my TV, I goes to Playlist then TVt displays all my playlists and I select the one I want to test.

[AndrewFG]

So can you please let us know in what folder the playlist files are stored? What type of file are they? And what are the properties of those files?

[PhDSM]

Attached is a screen dump of my MC tree with the testing playlists ((bottom) and also the 6 files with their name and path.
Hope it will help to clarify my point
I also have reload my attachement with MSwindows file propoerties , MC tags

[PhDSM]

Attached is a PDF with screen dump of the TV (show how playlist are displayed) and screen dump of the same list in MC.