RT-N66U - Problems with DLNA and jpgs

[barbara-luise]

Hello,

the build-in DLNA server of my Asus RT-N66U seems to have a severe problem indexing jpg files on a hdd that I attached to the router.

Here are the details:

1. My Asus RT-N66U runs the latest AsusWRT-Merlin build 3.0.0.4.376.49.5. A 1.5 TB WDD HDD ist connected to one of the USB 2.0 ports. The HDD's filesystem is NTFS.

2. In the root directory of the HDD are three folders, "Video", "Audio" and "Photos". Each folder contains several subfolders. The folder "Photos" contains the subfolders "2008", "2009", "2010" etc. Each subfolder contains the subfolders "1" to "12". Each subfolder "01" to "12" contains several hundreds of photos I've taken in the respective month. The file format of the photos is .jpg. I've copied these photos to the hdd by plugging the hdd to one of the usb ports of my win 8.1 pc and simply drag and drop the photos to the respective subfolder via windows explorer.

3. In the router firmware, DLNA server is enabled. The folders to be scanned are set to "Video", "Audio" and "Photos". Additionally, disk spindown time is set to 600 seconds.

4. After plugging the hdd to the router's usb port and enabling DLNA in the firmware, the status of the DLNA server changes from "idle" to scanning. After 30 minutes or so, the status changes from "scanning" back to "idle".

5. I encounter the following problems: After completion of the scan none of the jpegs shows up on dlna capable devices (such as a win 8.1 pc, a samsung smart tv or an ipad air). All of these devices report the folder "photos" empty. That means that no jpegs, no subfolders "2008", "2009" etc. and no subfolders "1", "2" etc. are listed on these devices.

Since I tried accessing the jepgs with several dlna capable devices, I guess the problem must be the router, i. e. the DLNA server in the firmware.

I would appreciate any hints how to solve the problem.

Thanks in advance,
barbara-luise

 

[Hexabion]

1. Disable the inbuilt mediaserver/minidlna

2. Install/use the entware version instead (opkg install minidlna), if you dont have entware installed, then install entware first, then install minidlna entware-version. There are many threads on this sub-forum on installing entware and minidlna, I have posted a tutorial here: http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=21981

After that, you need to see the manual for minidlna though for how to set up the minidlna.conf, look here: http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/trusty/man5/minidlna.conf.5.html

3. Set (in your minidlna.conf):

root_container=B
strict_dlna=no <-- important, or else your N66u will try to downscale every JPG into a DB to make it "faster" for browsing, problem is it will overload the N66u with so many photos and it will never finish.

The entware-version of minidlna is very stable compared to the inbuilt minidlna, and dont forget to set the strict_dlna setting, that combination will most likely solve your problem.

Good luck.

 

[barbara-luise]

Thank you. I'll try this next.

 

[barbara-luise]

@Hexabion:

I've created two partitions on my hdd: the first 1 gb partition named "mediadb" is ext 3 formatted and marked primary. The second 1.4 tb partition named "elements" is ntfs formatted and marked logic. The media is stored in the "elements" partition in the subfolders Alissa, Der Bergdoktor, Fitness, Fotos and Sonstiges. Please see the attached screenshot that show the hdd in the router's submenu.

After preparing the hdd, I set up entware according to your instructions (http://pastebin.com/q6JWvXW0) and it worked so far.

Now I'm stuck with adding the dirs Alissa, Der Bergdoktor, Fitness, Fotos and Sonstiges to minidlna conf. The problem is that I don't know the syntax. I've attached a screenshot of the current content of the minidlna conf.

How do I insert the dirs Alissa, Der Bergdoktor, Fitness, Fotos and Sonstiges in minidlna conf?

 

[barbara-luise]

Ok, I did further investigations and found out the following:

When I go to 192.168.1.98:8200 (my router's ip) to see how minidlna is creating the database, all numbers are zero (0) (see attached screenshot). Therefore, I guess I haven't set the right path to my media folders.

As you may remember from my previous post, the hdd connected to my router has a primary ext3 formatted partition named "mediadb" and a logic ntfs partition named "elements". My video files are stored in "elements" in the subfolders "Alissa" and "Fitness". My photos are stored in "elements" in the subfolder "Fotos".

TeHashX kindly advised me as follows (s. here: https://www.asuswrt.eu/minidlna-upnp-media-server-through-debian-wheezy-mipsel-optware/):

"To keep things simple, put all media files in one directory, name it Media for example and should look like this:
/elements/Media/Videos/Alissa
/elements/Media/Videos/Fitness
/elements/Media/Videos/all_video_files_or_folders_with_video_files
/elements/Media/Fotos/all_photos_or_folders_with_photos
/elements/Media/Music/all_music_files_or_folders_with_music_files

Edit S99debian and to set external folder as
EXT_DIR=/tmp/mnt/elements/Media"

I tried, but I couldn't find S99debian. I guess this is because I'm not running Debian Wheezy Mipsel on my router.

Therefore, the question is: What is the path to my media files and which file do I have to edit so that the media server "sees" the files?

I have attached my router's log file to this post, maybe this helps.

 

[barbara-luise]

TeHashX installed a Minidlna UPnP Media Server through Debian Wheezy Mipsel on my rt-n66u and this worked for me.

For more details, see this guide:

https://www.asuswrt.eu/minidlna-upnp-media-server-through-debian-wheezy-mipsel-optware/

Again a big thanks to TeHashX for helping me out!