DLNA issues(?)

[ViBE]

I would like to setup my router to share a content of the connected network driver. I used DLNA on several router softwares but AsusWRT looks very limited to me.


First of all, am I wrong or UTF-8 characters are not supported for naming the server? If yes: WHY? Is there any workaround for this case?
My other issue is that I cannot select subfolders. There is a folder with mixed contents and it contains a few another folders but don't want to share everything. I would like to share those and not the main folder but the router does not list them. Is this a restriction? If yes how can I manually add subfolders?

 

[ColinTaylor]

The media server on the router is very simplistic. If you need more flexibility you'd be better off running a media server on a LAN device rather than fighting the router's limitations.

 

[bennor]

See the following link that explains how to use the very basic UPnP Media Server in the firmware. It does have the capability of assigning specific media folder paths but again it's very basic and very limited.

[USB Application] How to set up Servers Center - Media Server

 

[ViBE]

The media server on the router is very simplistic. If you need more flexibility you'd be better off running a media server on a LAN device rather than fighting the router's limitations.

I mean these are maybe software limitations and not the hardware if these are really limitations. Cause MiniDLNA is not as dumb like on AsusWRT. And as I understand AsusWRT use MiniDLNA. I used it too on several OpenWRT routers. Or what kind of fork AsusWRT use?

 

[bennor]

And there is also the following link from the Asus-Merlin Wiki that may have additional information assuming its not out of date, no longer valid, or been superseded.

Minidlna: Common Issues & Solutions

 

[gk802]

The only solution I might suggest for the mixed content issue would be to create a new high level folder for the content to be indexed and then create logical references (Linux ln command with option -s) for the media files or subdirectories you want to include. I use that process to include a handful of files in the minidlna structure that are on a different device. It's a pain to maintain but it does work. New links get properly added to the index when created, but old links do not get included for some reason when the index is rebuilt in its entirety (e.g. after a reboot or restart_media), so you will have to have a script to wipe and re-add the links after an index rebuild. You'd also have to include a manual "wide_links=yes" in your minidlna.conf file.