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MC26 DLNA functionality has changed

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berniel99:
I have used MC for Linux for many years and been extremely happy with all aspects of this software.  All of my music is stored on a Synology NAS and the NAS is running a media server (which provides the DLNA functionality).  For all versions of MC 21 through to MC 24 connecting to the NAS was as simple as double clicking on the server icon and select "connect".  Everything worked, including album art, 5.1 channel streaming, FLAC, DSD and MP3 files, etc.  The server detected the JRiver application running on the LINUX box and using the "default DMA profile" .... just worked!

I recently upgraded to MC26 and to my surprise, MC no longer works as it did.  It just spits out the error message "Please ensure that the server you are connected to supports search....".  After some extensive trial and error, I found a DMA profile on the NAS which worked.  DMA device profile = "Windows Media Center".  Unfortunately, this profile does not work for any of the other applications I run on the Linux box.  To me this is therefore an unacceptable/annoying  workaround.

I looked in other parts of the JRiver forum and found comments which tend to suggest that what I have done for all of the years I have used JRiver is incorrect and I should be using SMB file sharing to connect.  I hope these comments don't mean that DLNA is no longer supported in JRiver.   I would really appreciate a definitive answer to the changed DLNA support.

berniel99:
On further testing, I found that the NAS will tend to automatically determine the client application when it runs on a PC and will change the DMA profile to suit.  It does this perfectly for PCs running Foobar 2000.  That fact that the NAS does not switch from the default profile to something that works, e.g. DMA = "Windows Media Center", suggests to me that that JRiver no longer announces itself correctly when it initiates the DLNA connection.  This would explain why I and others have now got difficulty connecting automatically with DLNA.

JimH:
If you have a NAS, you're better off to just import the files into MC.  You don't need to use DLNA.

berniel99:
Using DLNA is extremely safe and simple, compared to "import and sync" with a NAS that has been securely setup with users and passwords.  Furthermore, once the source media has been properly tagged and filed, it is available to any DLNA device in exactly the same format and quality, as it only streamed from the server. (This is a read-only operation by definition).

Suggesting that I don't use DLNA, rather than telling my why, worries me.  DLNA is not extinct yet with over 6 billion DLNA devices in use as I write this.  I can't work our why DLNA is still promoted on the JRiver website, if it is being phased out, or abandoned.

As I said initially, MC26 functionality has been changed to decrease the DLNA compatibility with other equipment and this I find concerning (considering the high quality of the software as a whole).
 

bob:
Nothing has changed in the way DLNA servers are parsed in MC26 from MC25.
Search support has always been required for MC to use DLNA libraries.
If your NAS updated the DLNA server this may be where your issue lies.
Another possibility is that your library increased in size to the point where it's can't handle the search request.
Just for your information, the way this works is that MC will do a search for all audio files and ask for them 1000 at a time to avoid overloading the server.
Then it does the same for images
and then one more time for video.

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