Whatever version of minidlna that I use, (be it Asus or vanilla), it fixes things for some people, but someone else complains about a new issue. So, I give up on it.....
As a long time asuswrt-merlin user I fully support RMerlins position. I have some thoughts from first hand experience to recommend/share.
Some brief background. A few years back, I had an AC66U running asuswrt-merlin. I liked the router and really wanted minidlna - I could stream photos, videos and music to phones, Smart TV's etc. all from my router.
Over time, it would work and not work. As I added more photos (in my case over 9 years of digitial photos), minidlna would crash. Memory issues, file issues etc. Much what many of you are experiencing - and this was over 2 years ago!!
Along came the AC68U. What the heck - give my son the AC66 and use the more powerful AC68U. Again, great router.
But, same old minidlna. Don't get me wrong, minidlna is actually a pretty impressive piece of work. But asking it to manage the amount of media I was throwing at it is a bit our of bounds. Thats why its called "mini"dlna. ;-)
RMerlin, being very helpful and in many cases working with the dev's on fixes, one day told me - "You have a lot of photos. You really should consider a NAS box".
I finally decided he was right! I purchased a QNAP TS-212 for ~$140. Added a couple 2TB drives, plugged it's ethernet right into the AC68U and, the most important, found the Twonky Media Server.
Believe me, Twonky is a much more professional and polished media server. It runs serving up 10's of thousands of photos, hundreds of videos - without a burp. It will transcode, generate thumbnails and has a polished web based intercface. And, it works with all my client devices. Also, plugging storage devices into the USB ports is much more stable then the Asus devices (I suspect the more modern kernel in the NAS to be a prime reason)
So, my 2 suggestions - pick 1:
1) Buy a low cost NAS box. Both Qnap and Synology make great sub-$200 boxes. Both come with the Twonky Media Server. You just need to add storage.
Pros - Raid class storage to keep videos/photos safe.
Twonky - a more polished and functional media server
USB ports work well
Fairly easy to configure
Cons - will run around $300 by the time you are done with adding disk drives
2)
This is actually my new preferred method - by a $35 Raspberry PI 2.
The Pi 2 has a quad core ARM processor running at 900MHz (easily clocked to 1GHz) and 1GB of on-board ram.
It also has 4 USB ports and a 10/100 Ethernet.
I now own an AC87U and have the Raspberry Pi plugged directly into as my application server. The AC87U routes and does the wireless side and the Pi does Twonky, rsync back ups to some USB based external disks (which all seem to work fine).
It runs Debian based Linux (much more modern then Asus/Broadcom 2.4 vintage stuff) and you will find the world of apt-get as a much more expanded way to add applications and services.
Twonky is available for the Raspbian Linux on the Pi. It costs $20 - lifetime license. Believe me it was the best $20 I have spent in a while.
Total cost - $35 for the Pi 2, $10 for a microSD, $20 for a USB charger to power it all, ~$90 for an external 1TB USB drive and ~$15 for a case = $170.
Pros - Great app co-processor for Asus routers.
Runs much newer Linux kernels - Debian with aptitude for adding applications etc.
Runs Twonky Media Server
All for ~$170 including paying for a 1TB USB
Cons - Will require some learning curve to set things up.
Twonky costs $20
Anyway, either works great. But lets face it, it's time to put minidlna in the rear view mirror...