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[dhiggins]

Hey
Just a note to you guys and to anyone else that might be searching for an issue like this

I've been a long time MC user, and have a number of Google assistant devices plus chromecasts around the house.

Recently, I'd been trying to resurrect an old server of mine to be able to stream audio and video to my entertainment system.

I'd updated machines in the interim and had updated to 64bit MC, and updated the BubbleUpnp server that runs on a server machine.

Struggled for DAYS to make things work. Tried different settings in JRiver, BubbleUp, etc. It'd work, kind of, but would just mysteriously stop, or fail to recognize the devices around the house, all sorts of failures.

I was browsing google this morning for possible answers and I saw several mentions of the 32bit MC....

Hmmm....

So I backed up my library, uninstalled the 64bit MC, and installed the 32bit version, on the server and my desktop. Restored the library, fired things up, and..... it worked.

Literally, it worked perfectly. Used BubbleUp to create DLNA renderers for ever chromecast in the house and had different tunes streaming to each one, with video streaming to the TV.

Been hammering it for several hours now and not a hiccup.

My suspicion is that possibly there are some structs in the code that aren't +quite+ right when compiled 64bit, but that's just a guess.

In any case, with the 32bit version, it appears to work flawlessly, so I'm not complaining. and I don't have a library big enough to warrant the 64bit version anyway.

Still, I thought I'd post to:

1) let you  JRiver guys know there may be issues with the 64bit version and DLNA support.
2) Give any other users that have run into this kind of problem a heads up that maybe it's worth trying the 32Bit version.

Great stuff. Excited again to be able to get my systems all up and playing with each other nicely!

[JimH]

32 bit and 64 bit are compiled at the same time, from the same code.  It's not that.

You may have a 32 bit driver somewhere, or more likely, some antivirus software treats them differently. 

[RoderickGI]

Please report whether 32 bit MC continues to work well for a week or so, or if the problems return. I am definitely interested to hear your experience after an extended time.

[dhiggins]

@JimH I am using Norton AV so that could def be an issue.

I'm going to run in this config for a few weeks to verify everything's stable, and then I may try going back to 64bit on client, then server.

My machine's are typically on 24/7 so that should be a good workout

Thanks for the reply!

@RoderickGI I'll post back when I have more info.

One thing though, I was using ESET AV for the longest time, and ended that several years back to switch to norton because they had the only decent solution for AV as well as family protection (I have 2 girls that had just gotten phones back then).
No longer need Norton, so I'll likely be switching back to eset soon, so that could def have been a contributing factor. We'll see.

[JimH]

If you run Windows 10,  just use Windows Defender and uninstall any other antivirus software.

[dhiggins]

Thanks JimH

I'll take a look at that on my desktop. My Server is still on Win7 (it's an older machine, just used for serving up files). I'll double check that as well though.

Might be time to update it to win10 anyway

I'm just hesitant of throwing too many changes into the mix at once.

Thanks again for the info.

Darin

[RoderickGI]

Concerning Norton, I have completely removed it in an attempt to fix a niggling ongoing DLNA issue on my network. It didn't make any difference. I think Norton is pretty well behaved these days, as long as it is set up correctly. I'm using the "new" Norton 360 product.

Hence my interest in your solution Darin.

I now think my issue is probably the router, but I haven't switched that out yet to confirm it.

[dhiggins]

Well, I spoke too soon about the AV stuff. Forgot I'd removed norton a while back because of other issues, so it's definitely not Norton or Eset AV.

I did realize that Windows Firewall was turned off on my server. Turned that back on and things started failing.

I found on this forum that ports 1900 and 52100-52200 need to be open (at least on the specific Server machine) for BubbleUpnp and MC to properly be able to see UPNP devices on the network.

At this point, everything seems to be working fine. Was finally able to stream movies consistently with literally no hiccups all day yesterday.

Plus a digital PictureFrame that I'd added a Raspberry Pi to to automatically pull images from a MC Smartlist is working again as well.

When I get time, I'm going to uninstall 32bit MC from my desktop and switch back to 64bit as a test.

But for now, things seem to work fine.

Not sure what Router you have or your config. Everything I'm doing is behind my router, and I haven't touched it.

If you're trying to make things accessible from the inet, that'd be a whole different story. I've actually got plans to do something like that eventually. Integrating MC with Google assistant and Alexa.

[RoderickGI]

Thanks for the update. I'm looking forward to hearing if the 64-bit version now works for you.

All inside my Home Network for me. All ports open with default rules in Norton Firewall (Norton is acting as firewall on server, not Windows Defender). I just added a "Let every possible packet through on those ports" rule, and my specific issue still didn't work. I think it is the router. It is an ISP router, a "Telstra Smart Modem Gen 2 ", which is made by Arcadyan. Model LH1000. I would ditch it, but it provides my landline phone via VoIP and failover to Broadband Internet, and better Wi-Fi. 

[dhiggins]

An update on this issue.

I turned up a post on the WIKI about setting the DLNA server as a Sony BD/TV and then "Associating" it with the DLNA Renderer (my actual TV).

Once I set Video to "Specified FOrmat output" set the output format to MPEG2 DVD NTSC stream, and the set the Video DLNA Override to "MPEG_PS_NTSC", I have been able to consistently stream vids to the tv.

I've tried MPG, MP4, MKV, and even a Bluray MKV and they all transcode and render to the TV properly!

A couple things to note.

1) there appears to be caching or something going on, because often, I would make a change to the server settings, and just exit out of the setting dialog. Then go to the TV and try to view a vid and it wouldn't work. HOWEVER, if I did various combinations of 1) resetting the TV, 2) restarting JRiver, or 3) both, things would generally start working again. I wasn't doing that when I first started this process and that could be why I was seeing so many issues.
2) JRiver has a Video "Conversion Cache Folder" (Search for Cache in settings). That folder had a quite a bit of "stuff" in it, that I thought was very suspect. At one point, I could not get anything to render right, even after resetting things back to a known good state.
I deleted everything in that CACHE folder, restarted JRiver and everything started working again.

So far so good. Just some notes in case someone else comes across this thread.

[dhiggins]

Another very related question.

So it looks like the DLNA Server needs to be set to Sony BD/TV. Fair enough

And it looks like in that config, the server needs to transcode everything to MPEG2 PS DVD NTSC format. Ok. That works.

BUTTTTTT...

If I have a 4k Sony, that format will end up being a standard DVD image.

So, anyone have any idea what the "Format Override" might be to transcode to a 4k format instead of normal DVD?

I tried the various MKV options and also tried an override of "AVC_MP4_BL_CIF15_AAC_520" but no joy.

I realize it'd be wasted work to transcode a DVD rip to 4k just to serve it to the tv, but for BluRay rips, it'd be nice.

[RoderickGI]

Rebooting my TV has often been a requirement to get MC to push video to the TV via DLNA working.

Clearing the video cache is a good idea. I think MC will use existing conversions in there if when a video is sent again, even if the format doesn't match the Specified Format exactly.

Sending a MPEG2 DVD NTSC stream is not a solution, unless that is all that the TV supports. What is supported is often hard to work out.

[AndrewFG]

What is supported is often hard to work out.

If you run my DMRA against the TV, the renderer report will tell you what formats (audio, video, and image) that it claims to support.

Personally I have been trying to encourage JRiver for literally years to have MC query (GetProtocolInfo) the renderer in the same way as the DMRA does, because they could then auto-magically choose the best quality, yet playable, format. (The Upnp specification recommends this too; the technical term is to find a match between the server’s SourceProtocolInfo and the renderer’s SinkProtocolInfo). But sadly my words have always fallen on deaf ears..

[dhiggins]

@AndrewFG

Wow, that looks like a fantastic tool. I gave it a try (several actually) and I could never get it to see my TV (a Sony Bravia). Tried "Use windows discovery" and not. Reset the TV, reset JRiver, even BubbleUpnP (which really shouldn't be part of the scenario because it's visible to JRiver even without BubbleUpnp.)

Anyway, I checked out the Chromecasts and my Onkyo. They reported pretty reasonable results, but no luck with the TV.

Is there something specific I have to do. or maybe some log results I could check out?

[dtc]

Rebooting my TV has often been a requirement to get MC to push video to the TV via DLNA working.

I also see this on my Sony TVs.  I hold down the Power button on the remote for several seconds, which reloads the software, including DLNA.  The Sony DLNA seems to develop problems pretty regularly.

[AndrewFG]

and I could never get it to see my TV (a Sony Bravia)

Is there something specific I have to do?

Just a thought, but I guess it is worth mentioning that Sony TVs only advertise themselves when they are fully on; they become invisible when they are in sleep mode.. (so unfortunately you cannot push a track to a sleeping Sony and expect it to wake up and play)

[dhiggins]

Hi

Yeah, I've noticed that behavior. Not great, but, ah well.

I've tried everything I can think up. Had it turned on, was streaming to it just fine from JRiver, paused playback and fired up your analyzer and it found everything else on the network but not the TV.

I'm going to try a few more times under different scenarios. I'd have thought maybe the windows firewall or something, but again, the analyzer can see other DLNA renderers.

Thanks for the reply. I'll keep you posted.

[AndrewFG]

Make sure all your devices are on the same IP sub-net. As a general rule this means that all devices get their IP addresses via DHCP from the same router.

[RoderickGI]

Is your TV getting its IP Address via DHCP from your router?
The connection type is shown as a Private Network in Windows Network Status?

All devices need to be on the same subnet for DLNA to work, and it is best if they all get their IP Addresses from the same DHCP server. In fact, I recommend using IP Address Reservation (also known as Static Leases), rather than just letting DHCP assign the next available address. I definitely recommend against using Static IP Addresses defined in the devices directly, as that then requires the router to discover the device, rather than already know about it. I believe Andrew recommends the same.

However, I still have issues getting my Workstation PC to see my Sony TV, while my HTPC see it easily and (fairly... okay, somewhat) reliably. This is an ongoing issue with my Workstation PC, which shows up in other ways as well. i.e. The Workstation often isn't visible to JRemote2 or Gizmo but is visible to PingTools, JRiver BingoSSDP, and BubbleUPnP. Also, my phone running BubbleUPnp or JRiver for Android often isn't immediately visible to the MC Server on the Workstation. In fact, usually, I have to connect JRemote2 or BubbleUPnP to the MC Library on the Workstation before the phone becomes visible as a Dynamic Zone under Playing Now. All this while the TV is sending network packets to the Workstation server, as shown in the "Services & Plug-ins > Media Network" screen.

I used to be able to get the TV to show up in MC on the Workstation by going to the TV, opening the Music App, connecting to the MC Server on the Workstation, and playing some audio to the TV. But I just tried that again and it didn't work. 

Anyway, the point of sharing that is that your PC may be having the same issues that my Workstation is, and getting the Sony TV to show up may be difficult.  In my case, I currently suspect my router is the problem, but it seems to be quite a selective problem in the way it manifests.


EDIT: Oops. I write too much, because I test stuff as writing to confirm. So Andrew beat me to it. We are consistent though!

[dhiggins]

Yep. Verified that TV is used DHCP and is on the same net as the rest of my devices.

I'm seeing exactly what Roderick sees. My desktop sometimes doesn't seem to "see" the tv, but, generally, the server running JRiver as a DLNA server DOES see it.

Whitebear's DLNA utility oddly does NOT see it from my desktop. Haven't tried it on the server yet.

BubbleUpnp also appears to see the tv from the server.

Not sure if this is related or not. This particular TV appears to expose (2) renders, both named "Living room TV" (which is what I set the name to on the TV).

This is NOT because of BubbleUpnp. It appears to be because the TV is a renderer itself, AND it exposes itself as a Chromecast.

Also interesting. The TV appears to have a number of issues, but, I fired up my XBOX One and loaded the media player on it. It seems to have +much fewer+ issues with playback than the Sony TV. FFW/Rew still doesn't quite work consistently, but it's much better than the sony.

Getting to a point where I may just drop a few $$ for a small factor pc and just build up a "Media Player" pc to attach directly to the TV....

[AndrewFG]

Apropos difficulties with device discovery:

1) The UPNP discovery mechanisms rely on UDP multicast and UDP monocast messages. Unlike TCP, the UDP mechanisms are not immune to clashes when two devices try to send packets at the same time and neither gets through. To reduce the risk of clashes, the discovery messages are repeated several times, but nevertheless if you have a very “chatty” network there is a risk of non discovery. Some streaming channels use UDP so might be a major cause of “chattiness”..

2) UDP messages are forwarded between switches with a “hop count”. With each forwarding the hop count is decremented and if it reaches zero the message is forwarded no further. The purpose is to prevent UDP discovery from try to find devices in another house/city/country:) — Typically UPNP sets a hop count of 4, so if you have four boxes between the renderer and the Control Point, the messages may also not get through. By “box” I mean routers, active switches, or WiFi access points. If you have a mesh WiFi system then the messages may indeed need to hop through four boxes between render and Control Point. There are usually settings for the WiFi system where you turn off the hop count tracking.

[RoderickGI]

Interesting. I have always thought my network was "chatty", but not so much that it would be a problem. My router regularly sends out 25 SSDP broadcasts and repeats that pretty often. My HTPC can send just as many, even when in standby, though not so frequently. But I am only seeing about 225 packets a minute in the MC Media Network screen.

Should the router be sending out SSDP broadcasts at all? It isn't running any Media Server, or similar. DLNA and SAMBA are off.

My connection is via ethernet, and goes;
Workstation > Router > Switch > TV.

So hops shouldn't be an issue.


I do notice that the TV regularly requests information from the Workstation MC Server, but doesn't send any broadcast SSDP packets. Or at least my Workstation never shows them in the MC Media Network screen. It sends the requests as per the image. The TV is 192.168.0.12 and the Workstation is 192.168.0.10. I always assumed that meant the Workstation had advertised itself, and so the TV ask it what it could do. That conversation doesn't make the TV visible to the MC Server on the Workstation.



DHiggins, it would be normal for the TV to present as both a DLNA Renderer and a Chromecast sink/target. I guess that if you have named the TV, both would show the same name.
Andrew's Whitebear DMRA always finds my Sony TV using the Windows Discovery method. But only that method. I usually run this from my Workstation.

It would be great if the TV was reliably discovered. That opens up lots more use cases, particularly with Apps for the TV, although MC doesn't need to see the TV for those to work. I'm talking more about general reliability of the Sony on the network. Although the Music and Video Apps on the Sony always see the various servers on my network, and see them fairly quickly. So I can use the TV to pull media from MC Servers quite easily. But the App interfaces aren't very good, or fast.

[AndrewFG]

Should the router be sending out SSDP broadcasts at all? It isn't running any Media Server, or similar. DLNA and SAMBA are off.

I imagine that the router is advertising itself as a UPNP IGD (Internet Gateway Device). You’ll probably see other things advertising themselves as their respective UPnP type of device (e.g. printers, cameras, thermostats, whatever). UPNP isn’t just for a/v..

PS UPNP discovery comprises two elements: i) advertisement (the devices shout out “I am a renderer!”, and ii) discovery (the seeker shouts out “who is a renderer?”). Due to oddities of routing it is possible that one or other of these two elements may suffer difficulties.

PPS I think that MC uses discovery, and perhaps does not listen for advertisements from others. Although it does advertise itself. My DMRA also uses discovery in native mode; but it is possible that in Windows discovery mode, it (Windows) also listens for advertisements (that may be a reason why the latter may succeed when the former fails).

[RoderickGI]

Thanks Andrew.

I don't think the TV shouts out "I am a renderer", but does respond to shouts of “Who is a renderer?” it sees with "What can can you do Renderer?"

It is interesting that BubbleUPnP sees the Sony TV as a Chromecast sink even when the TV is in standby, and as a DLNA Renderer when it is on. Yet MC doesn't find it, most often.

Yet with a little bit of time MC finds BubbleUPnP as a DLNA Renderer. The BubbleUPnP discovery process seems a bit more robust than the MC process.

[AndrewFG]

I don't think the TV shouts out "I am a renderer", but does respond to shouts of “Who is a renderer?” it sees with "What can can you do Renderer?"

What are your grounds for saying this?

[RoderickGI]

What are your grounds for saying this?

I've never seen any SSDP broadcast packets from the TV in the MC Media Network screen. Of course, MC only shows some packets it sees in that function, so maybe they arrive at my PC but MC chooses not to display them. Nope - see below.

I do regularly see the HTTP GET command responses from the TV, as per the above image.

I haven't checked for them using Wireshark though. I should do that...

Nope. No SSDP broadcasts from the TV, which is on. Plenty from the Workstation MC Server and the router. Plenty of HTTP GET commands from the TV, and HTTP/1.0 200 OK responses from the Workstation MC Server though.

Wait. I had the TV sitting in the Music App to give it the best chance of being seen, as it is a DLNA Renderer. But the TV had switched to its "resting state" for want of a better description. Showing a background image and the time. When I switched it back to the Music App the TV sent SSDP packets. This is the first time I have ever seen it do that. I left the TV sitting on the Music App and active, but not playing anything. It sent more SSDP packets about five minutes later, then again about seven minutes later.

I switched the TV back to its home screen and restarted the trace. SSDP packets appeared after 20 seconds, then again after 7.5 minutes (at 470 seconds), then again at 920 seconds, 1370 seconds, 1820seconds. So at 450 second or 7.5 minute intervals. The TV seemed to pretty consistently send 32 broadcast packets.

I restarted the trace and switched the TV back to HDMI input from the HTPC, then checked in MC and the SSDP packets from the TV were showing up in Media Network. In Wireshark these arrived at 80, 300, 750 and 1200 seconds. So a bit of a burst early, then back to 450 second intervals. There were even 12 OK responses from the Workstation to the first lot of packets, but none after that, and the TV still never showed up under Playing Now in MC. MC saw all 32 of the broadcast packets sent which each group, so no packets were being lost through clashes.


So it appears that the Sony TV does send SSDP packets under certain conditions, such as when the Music App is first opened, but it doesn't send them very often. I've looked quite hard for those packets in MC previously, but not using Wireshark. I'm wondering if something changed, or I just didn't wait long enough previously. I guess we shall never know.

However, if the TV doesn't show up in MC under Playing Now, the whole observation is just interesting, and doesn't solve the problem or make sending media to the TV acting as a DLNA Renderer any easier.

Inconsistency is the biggest issue for me with DLNA. For example, BubbleUPnP usually always sees the TV as a DLNA and Chromecast Renderer. However, just now BubbleUPnP couldn't see TV DLNA Renderer but could see the Chromecast Renderer. JRiver for Android could see the TV DLNA Renderer but couldn't play to it. I played a movie from the Workstation MC DLNA Server to the phone running BubbleUPnp and JRiver for Android. I was about to try playing to the TV Chromecast Renderer... when the TV DLNA Renderer appeared in the BubbleUPnP list. I was able to play the movie to the TV DLNA Renderer at that stage. The TV DLNA Renderer still never appeared in the Workstation MC Server (IP Address 192.168.0.10) Playing Now list as a Zone... even though it was serving the movie up to the TV (IP Address 192.168.0.12) at the time! See the image.

[AndrewFG]

Ok.

The GET requests and responses that you see, are not UPNP discovery. As mentioned previously UPNP discovery uses UDP and the specific commands are NOTIFY (advertisement) and M-SEARCH (discovery search). I guess that your GETs belong to the next phase of UPNP namely “description” in which devices once discovered can be asked to describe themselves.

For reference UPNP has the following phases.

• Discovery
• Description
• Commanding
• Event notification
• Presentation

[RoderickGI]

Yep, I know the GET commands aren't UPnP Discovery. The SSDP packets are UPnP Discovery.

After the analysis I did yesterday, the TV is still sending SSDP NOTIFY packets this morning, even while it is in Standby. See image. As I said above, I have never seen these from the TV before, but maybe the long period between sets of packets of seven and a half minutes, combined with the Media Network screen in MC only displaying four minutes of data, has meant that I just missed them. But as I say, I looked very hard previously.

Maybe something has changed, but I don't know what. My Wireshark monitoring shouldn't have changed anything and everything else I did I had done before.

However, even though the TV is advertising itself, and asking the MC Server for DeviceDescription, ContentDirectory, and ConnectionManager data twice every two minutes, the TV still does not appear under Playing Now, so I can't send anything to it as a Zone, via DLNA.



I just turned on the TV and it added AVTransport and RenderingControl GET packets to the list, plus a whole lot of ContentDirectory/Control POST packets. It knows about the MC Server. The MC Server knows about it. Still, no TV Zone appears. SSDP NOTIFY packets are still being sent in groups of 32, and I'm seeing some M-SEARCH packets in Wireshark now as well.


I don't know what it will take for the TV to appear as a Zone, but it looks like something is broken. It could still be my router. Maybe. But given the above, I don't think so.

Question JRiver: What enables a Dynamic DLNA Zone to appear in Playing Now? What packet or communication are required? Does the above meet that requirement?

[dhiggins]

"Inconsistency is the biggest issue for me with DLNA"

Couldn't have said it better. I really +want+ DLNA to work. But darn, pretty much every time I've sat down to watch something in the last 3 weeks, I've ended up having to go to my server and jack with things for 30 mins to get it to even begin to play.

The XBox seems to work much better, but still can't fast forward more than about 10mins into a show, before it "looses sync" and will act like it's playing, but the image is just frozen.

I'm thinking seriously about getting a cheap HTPC and sticking it in the shelves under the TV and just hooking it up directly. Hate to do that though if there's a way to get DLNA working consistently.

[dhiggins]

Well, officially gave up on DLNA (at least for playing movies).

I pulled wmcbrine's fork of pyTivo (do not get the pyTivoDesktop version, it seems to have a number of issues, at least for me).
Installed, set it up as a server, and, presto, I could see and pull every single movie I have from my server to my Tivo Premier and play it just fine.

Music and photos work great set straight out of MC.

I'll have to try DLNA in another few years I suppose.