Why does DLNA/UPnP suck?

[rccarguy]

I've tried various DNLA servers

Asset
Minimsever
Synology
Twonky

And various apps, bubble, wiim home app

Asset initially looked ok as it has decent amount of customisation and through the wiim app, the main menu looks ok, however non music items for the wiim device are still on the screen taking up space, and currently I'm reading/writing to the NAS and whilst this is happening Wiim app/asset is SLOW. Like one minute to go into A branch. It also doesn't cache the images so as you scroll it loads then it's ok.

Then with apps unless you pay for them you get ads

Cannot access the UI/music player over IP from a computer. If this is the state of DNLA I can see why people don't use audio streamers.

And yet with all the above issues and limiations there is one specific server/app that doesn't have any of those problems. Any guess what?

 

[FuckaZip]

I have been running MinimServer version 0.8.5.2 on my QNAP NAS for almost 10 years (my NAS is not connected to the internet). With almost 40K tracks/3K albums, it works very quickly and without any problems

 

[mrehorst]

I see many mentions of speed in this thread. Speed of what? Scanning the music files to create the database? Does it really matter? You typically only do that on initial setup, and then again if there's some problem, which should be infrequent, and can be scheduled for convenience. Or is it something else?

When I am selecting music to play from LMS using my phone or tablet, the lists or albums, artists, etc., all respond instantaneously. When I select music to play it starts and plays instantly. I have about 23k tracks on my server. Complete rescans take a few minutes.

 

[rccarguy]

I see many mentions of speed in this thread. Speed of what? Scanning the music files to create the database? Does it really matter? You typically only do that on initial setup, and then again if there's some problem, which should be infrequent, and can be scheduled for convenience. Or is it something else?

Navigation of the artist structure.

All that should be cached into a database and should be fast

 

[FuckaZip]

I see many mentions of speed in this thread. Speed of what? Scanning the music files to create the database? Does it really matter? You typically only do that on initial setup, and then again if there's some problem, which should be infrequent, and can be scheduled for convenience. Or is it something else?

...after adding new albums/titles, the server library needs to be scanned again. There is also the aspect of the speed accessing the server from the control point with cover art preview,, music playback, etc.

 

[simbun]

and currently I'm reading/writing to the NAS and whilst this is happening Wiim app/asset is SLOW. Like one minute to go into A branch.

Your network is clearly the bottleneck if you only experience delays when uploading/downloading to the NAS.

It also doesn't cache the images so as you scroll it loads then it's ok.

You mean just like Lyrion/Material Skin? Images are downloaded and cached as required.

 

[rccarguy]

Your network is clearly the bottleneck if you only experience delays when uploading/downloading to the NAS.


You mean just like Lyrion/Material Skin? Images are downloaded and cached as required.

Gigabit cable network.

Strange how it's not slow when navigating in lms huh?

 

[mrehorst]

...after adding new albums/titles, the server library needs to be scanned again. There is also the aspect of the speed accessing the server from the control point with cover art preview,, music playback, etc.

There's an auto rescan plugin that rescans the DB whenever it detects addition of new files. In my server that type of rescan takes 12 seconds. The dump-the-DB-and-do-a-full-scan takes ~7 minutes.

Everything else has instantaneous response, including cover art display.

 

[simbun]

Gigabit cable network.

Strange how it's not slow when navigating in lms huh?

Not strange given LMS isn't running on the NAS.

yup that's my go to reference...LMS on a Pi, LMS app on android.

File uploads aren't usually CPU intensive, so it can only be bandwidth related.

 

[FuckaZip]

There's an auto rescan plugin that rescans the DB whenever it detects addition of new files. In my server that type of rescan takes 12 seconds. The dump-the-DB-and-do-a-full-scan takes ~7 minutes.

Everything else has instantaneous response, including cover art display.

View attachment 32504

Yes, thank you. I don't have any speed issues either. It was just meant as a response to the previous question.

It probably depends most on the network speed.

In addition to Minim, I also use Navidrome with Symfonium. Navidrome doesn't require a separate scan; the newly added albums/tracks are available immediately after adding them. Only Symfonium requires synchronization, which is also quick.

 

[Aquaman]

how so? With it enabled I can use my AVR and TV as a Squeezebox.
It's just I cannot see the LMS server on my LAN as a UPNP server from Kodi

You can‘t see it because the bridge doesn‘t support genuine streaming. It will not make LMS appear as a UPnP server visible to endpoints. What it does is to support casting to endpoints.

 

[Aquaman]

I have tried Minim several times, with different NAS. The issue is that, even though it's really fast when you install it, it starts slowing down a lot after a few days of usage. Has anyone noticed that?

No, I have no such problem.

 

[simbun]

You can‘t see it because the bridge doesn‘t support genuine streaming. It will not make LMS appear as a UPnP server visible to endpoints. What it does is to support casting to endpoints.

There's a plugin called "UPnP/DLNA Media Interface" that exposes the LMS library to UPnP control points, but it's really limited and hasn't been maintained for ~10 years or so.

 

[Aquaman]

There's a plugin called "UPnP/DLNA Media Interface" that exposes the LMS library to UPnP control points, but it's really limited and hasn't been maintained for ~10 years or so.

Yes, I know. That‘s the old one. I would have been happy to use it, but it couldn‘t even distinguish between Track Artist and Album Artist. I may have missed some setting though.

 

[MotleyG]

You‘ll have to pay for Asset as well after 30 days.

I have been using Asset for a very long time. It is a pay-once product. I don't have any speed issues through WiiM or any other older DLNA devices on my network.

I have just started to try MusicBee as it is both a music manager and DLNA server. From the DLNA side it cannot be customized like Asset can. Definitely need to do more research before I can recommend it.

 

[rccarguy]

Emby has been scanning for a couple of days, it's still doing it- cancelled the process

 

[rccarguy]

And now Emby cannot be stopped or uninstalled, and it's not allowing me to reboot NAS