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[Gio300ZX]

I recently bought a Seagate Personal Cloud NAS https://www.seagate.com/gb/en/consumer/backup/personal-cloud/ to replace an old Seagate GoFlex. Media Centre 24 can see this NAS in the Playing Now tree but when I try to load it as a Library, I get an error which says "There was a problem retrieving files from the selected DLNA server".

As you can see from the attached screenshot the old GoFlex NAS is there and it works fine in MC24, I can load the Library as expected.


I have other devices (STB and Sony TV and PCs) which can see and use the Personal Cloud no problem. Windows Media Player on the same PC as my MC24 can use it OK. So it looks like something to do with MC24? Or a setting I don't know about?


Suggestions gratefully received, thanks.

[AndrewFG]

Add the files to MC by means of a network shared folder on the NAS, and not by means of a DLNA digital media server on the NAS. Indeed I suggest to turn off the dms on the NAS entirely, since it will probably confuse you..

[Gio300ZX]

Thanks. I had considered that. However, since the plan is to put everything I've got on this one DLNA server so I don't have to have a PC on to play music and have it accessible on multiple devices, it's not really the answer. If all my other devices (2 PCs, tablet, STB, TV) and software (WMP, VLC) can see and use the Seagate Personal Cloud, it seems that MC is the one out of step in this case.

What I was really hoping for was a way to make MC work with this DLNA Server like everything elseand like MC does with the GoFlex.

[JimH]

You don't need to load the server to play from it.  Usually, you would use a remote as a controller.  The DLNA topic on our wiki might help.

[Gio300ZX]

You don't need to load the server to play from it.  Usually, you would use a remote as a controller.  The DLNA topic on our wiki might help.

Thanks for your input. I don't understand "use a remote as a controller". In the past, I just used my PC and did the Play to and it worked. In order to get more flexibility, I downloaded MC24 to my Windows Tablet and I was intending to use that as a remote device. However, the DLNA server has the same issue on that device as on my other 2 PCs. I can use WMP on any device to Play To because they can all see and use the DLNA server. It is only MC24 that has the issue in not being able to use the Seagate Personal Cloud server.

I checked the DLNA Wiki first before posting the question (I am an RTFM type of person). I tried the trouble shoot under Issues with DLNA Discovery "You may need to turn off Windows Media Sharing services" however a) the WMS was already set to Manual and not running and b) the issue does not seem to be with the discovery, just that MC24 can't load it. It can load the older device but not the more up-to-date one which is odd.

All I want it do to is, as it says in the Wiki

6. DLNA Servers are displayed under Playing Now. Once you select one, you can browse its library as if it were a normal MC library.
The process is to choose a server to play from, and then to choose the renderer you want to play to.

and

Two DLNA Servers are shown in the list below (from File/Library). Selecting one will open it as a library in MC.

I have this scenario - both are shown in the list but only one works in MC24 (they both work in every other device and in WMP).

[bob]

The DLNA server on the NAS doesn't support the search function.
That is required for using it with MC.
Your only option in this case to use the NAS as a file share with MC.

[Gio300ZX]

The DLNA server on the NAS doesn't support the search function.

Is that the case even though the other devices can list albums / folders from the same DLNA server? Are you saying that MC requires the search function but WMP, Sony Bravia TV and Humax media renderer does not?

That gives me something to investigate with Seagate so I'll try that, thanks.

[bob]

Is that the case even though the other devices can list albums / folders from the same DLNA server? Are you saying that MC requires the search function but WMP, Sony Bravia TV and Humax media renderer does not?

That gives me something to investigate with Seagate so I'll try that, thanks.

Correct.

[AndrewFG]

Are you saying that MC requires the search function but WMP, Sony Bravia TV and Humax media renderer does not?

WMP has an interesting behaviour when it connects to a library and starts downloading the list of media therein. In the first step it does a Search(*) just as MC does. But if the Search(*) command fails, it embarks on a long series of Browse() requests starting from the root of the browse tree and iterating down through all branches and levels of the tree, to get the full media list that way instead. If you are a UPnP geek, it’s rather cool to see. If bob had a quiet weekend sometime, he could probably implement the same in MC.

(PS as far as I remember, Search() is a non mandatory method in the UPnP standard..)

[Gio300ZX]

@bob - thanks

But if the Search(*) command fails, it embarks on a long series of Browse() requests starting from the root of the browse tree and iterating down through all branches and levels of the tree, to get the full media list that way instead.

Thanks. The implication is that Sony and Humax also do that. Plus Seagate's DLNA implementation changed from one that supports Search(*) to one that doesn't. I'll see if I can get a response from them but, going on previous support requests, not holding my breath...

[AndrewFG]

The implication is that Sony and Humax also do that.

Not necessarily. Some control points (like MC and WMP) pre-load the full list of all media into their own local database, and then the user browses through that local database via the user interface of the control point application. Whereas other control points do not load the full list of all media, but rather allow the user to navigate the browse tree of the server screenful by screenful dynamically in real time..

[Gio300ZX]

Ah right, thanks. That could explain some odd things I saw yesterday. I created a test album with 6 tracks in different formats to make it easier for me to test which device can use which format (flac, wav, wma lossless, wma lossy, mp3 and m4a). In browsing through the Humax, sometimes the album showed up and sometimes not. The files shown were different if I browsed Albums compared to browsing Folders. It would only play the wav file if I was using Folder view but not Album view. So I then copied the same album onto the old GoFlex and my PC, then gave up

Is this flakiness typical of the DLNA world - or should it be rock solid and maybe my wireless network is having issues (although it can stream TV programmes from BBC and ITV no issue)?

[JimH]

Like computers, DLNA implementations vary.  Most are pretty good now.

You can tell MC's DLNA Server to convert.  Tools > Options > Media Network > Servers

[bob]

WMP has an interesting behaviour when it connects to a library and starts downloading the list of media therein. In the first step it does a Search(*) just as MC does. But if the Search(*) command fails, it embarks on a long series of Browse() requests starting from the root of the browse tree and iterating down through all branches and levels of the tree, to get the full media list that way instead. If you are a UPnP geek, it’s rather cool to see. If bob had a quiet weekend sometime, he could probably implement the same in MC.

(PS as far as I remember, Search() is a non mandatory method in the UPnP standard..)

That sounds like fun.
I suppose it recursively does browse children until it finds an item, then browse metadata?

[AndrewFG]

That sounds like fun.
I suppose it recursively does browse children until it finds an item, then browse metadata?

Yes indeed. (I think the code is probably really quite simple because it is all recursive. I just love recursive code..)

[bob]

Yes indeed. (I think the code is probably really quite simple because it is all recursive. I just love recursive code..)

Starting to look at this.
Since anything past container Id 0 is pretty much implementation defined (like album, genre, folder, etc) I wonder what is a consistent method of getting the items? For example, one could parse down an Album tree (if it exists) and iterate each until all of the album tracks are found but what if a track  isn't part of an album? What if the metadata for the same track is reported differently depending on what one browses (like genre vs album)? I'm not seeing anything that says that can't be the case...

[AndrewFG]

Hi bob. I think that even though MC doesn’t support doing Browse() on other servers, it does support others (such as WMP) doing Browse() on it. So I would suggest you let WMP loose on MC and observe what it does. The trick is to fail the first Search() that WMP issues, and that will force WMP to switch over to using the Browse() method instead.