RT-AC66U: Minidlna Issues After 374.39

[Dmitry_N]

Hi there,

I have a Philips 47pfl6007t TV, and it stopps playing large (3D mostly) movies after upgradig the routier's firmware to a version higher than 374.39.
The TV just starts trying to open the file and then says "Missing", then stops or proceeds to the next file in the folder.
This also applies to the latest official firmware by ASUS.

Downgrading to 374.39 solves the issue.

Any ideas please?

Thanks.

 

[lwizard]

I use DLNA only for music with android Bubble UPNP as controller (wifi) and cocktail audio X10 LAN as renderer.
With 0.38_2 everything was stable.
Now I jumped to 0.43 and sometimes after the end of a song it tries loading the next but fails and stops or jump to next..
It happens very seldom but it is annoying.. I don't now if it's a routing problem or minidlna problem..
I also run transmission and using a swap partition, but happens also when transmission queue is empty..

 

[Dmitry_N]

With 0.38_2 everything was stable.
Now I jumped to 0.43 and sometimes after the end of a song it tries loading the next but fails and stops or jump to next..

This does look similar indeed...

 

[Piker]

I missed this thread, I too have had problems:
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18367
Its annoying because I have MediaTomb running on a Debian PC elsewhere on the LAN, without any issues at all, but I just cant work out whats going on with this...

 

[lwizard]

DLNA simply works bed

I'm sorry, but my main problem is with DLNA.
Till 0.38 was quite good (but not perfect as with tomato and netgear) than jumped to 0.43.
Now AC68 library appears only randomly. I have to open my DLNA controller (which correctly sees every DNLA device except AC68U) and wait after minutes AC68U magically appear.
This problem is present also with other controllers.

So there is a problem with AC68U miniDLNA library broadcasting I think.
After restarting minidlna, it seems to works better for a while. Then library begins again to disappear.

Merlin.. it's driving me mad since it is the main feature for me together with SAMBA and Transmission.

Does it worth trying disabling virtual memory partition?
maybe I'll try minidlna through Debian even if it's terrible that an expensive router does not handle DLNA as it should be...
I always think about trying Tomato but I fear it's too soon for ARM devices and Tomato..

Is there any log useful to diagnose what's happening?

 

[RMerlin]

Merlin.. it's driving me mad since it is the main feature for me together with SAMBA and Transmission.

Just be patient. I didn't want to waste time on this because I was waiting for newer Asus code. Asus has updated to the latest version (1.1.3) in their internal development code, so we'll have an up-to-date base to work with once we get there.

Note that minidlna will always be more quirky than a full-featured, PC-based DLNA server however. Minidlna was designed for portability and low resource usage, not for accommodate the numerous quirks of all the DLNA clients that exist on the market - and believe me, a LOT Of those clients are very buggy and require special workarounds by DLNA server authors. Look at the changelog of a product such as Mezzmo sometime, and see how many fixes, workarounds and hacks they have to do to support different clients.

Quite honestly, trying to get minidlna, Samba AND Transmission to work at the same time on a device with 256 MB of RAM will be asking for trouble. The router simply doesn't have the muscle to handle all of this at the same time in a reliable way. Transmission alone can easily overload a router.

 

[lwizard]

Cpu loads in my situation are very low. Ram is never full.. always around 30MB free.. transmission and minidlna had never crashed till now.. the problem is that other dlna devices in my house connects without problems. The only problematic device is ac68u library which is not advertised reliably.. anyway I'll wait for new release. Just one question: do you think minidlna through debian is heavier or too heavy than integrated minidlna for ac68u?

 

[RMerlin]

Cpu loads in my situation are very low. Ram is never full.. always around 30MB free.. transmission and minidlna had never crashed till now.. the problem is that other dlna devices in my house connects without problems. The only problematic device is ac68u library which is not advertised reliably.. anyway I'll wait for new release. Just one question: do you think minidlna through debian is heavier or too heavy than integrated minidlna for ac68u?

It's the same thing, except possibly using newer versions of ffmpeg to extract metadata info from video files. The larger amount of RAM will also reduce the chances that a corrupted media file will take down the whole system as it starts eating large chunks of memory.

A decent alternative under Linux is Mediatomb, tho it's no longer actively developed. You could also go overkill and install XBMC, which can also be configured as a DLNA server.

Under Windows, Serviio (free) and Mezzmo (commercial) are my favorite picks. I used Mezzmo for a year or two here with my WDTV and PS3.

 

[lwizard]

I think I'll wait for new firmware, than if not fixed will try minidlna on debian.
Then.. if not fixed yet, how to install XMBC? Is there for Optware or on Debian? Mediatomb seems to be available for Optware ARM.
In a far future I will buy a NAS to act as download station and media server, but in my actual house has no sense having a NAS. I have bought AC68U for is powerful ARM processor and USB speed to use it as a download and media station. Also asus seems to believe it should handle these functions.. minidlna is integrated and Transmission should be even lighter than download master since download master is Transmission + edonkey + usenet.

 

[RMerlin]

I think I'll wait for new firmware, than if not fixed will try minidlna on debian.
Then.. if not fixed yet, how to install XMBC? Is there for Optware or on Debian? Mediatomb seems to be available for Optware ARM.
In a far future I will buy a NAS to act as download station and media server, but in my actual house has no sense having a NAS. I have bought AC68U for is powerful ARM processor and USB speed to use it as a download and media station. Also asus seems to believe it should handle these functions.. minidlna is integrated and Transmission should be even lighter than download master since download master is Transmission + edonkey + usenet.

When talking about Debian, are you talking about running Debian on a desktop, or on your router? Mediatomb and XBMC are definitely out of the question for the router, those would be desktop-based solutions.

 

[lwizard]

I was talking about debian on router as a service. I would like to try minidlna through debian on ac68.. too heavy?

 

[RMerlin]

I was talking about debian on router as a service. I would like to try minidlna through debian on ac68.. too heavy?

You won't gain much from running minidlna under Debian. Chances are in fact that the Debian version is probably out of date compared to Asus's or Entware's.

 

[Dmitry_N]

Hi,
The issue seems to be fixed in 376.44
Thanks a lot!!!