WiiM mini client with KODI / libreelec server

[Robert. servos]

Hello to the WiiM Forum.

Since yesterday I have a WiiM Mini on my network.
The UPNP/DLNA server is Kodi/libreelec on an Intel NUC i3.
Commissioning the Mini worked perfectly, and the DLNA server was found immediately by the WiiM Home app.

The problem is that it only shows me 200 artists, but I have almost 1000 artists in my collection.
Unfortunately I can't get further than the letter B.

If I take the detour via the video library and display all folders, I can select and play all artists, albums, tracks.
However, I can't see any artwork displayed this way.

Other DLNA clients like VLC and similar do not have this problem.

Anyone an idea what it could be?

Greetings,
Robert

​

 

[simbun]

I have a small sample loaded into a test KODI instance and I see this too. Is your Albums/Songs listing also truncated?

WiiM requests 2000 at a time so I can't see a reason for this, and accessing KODI through BubbleUPnP works - although it requests in smaller chunks.

 

[Robert. servos]

Hello simbun,
Yes, the albums/songs list is also truncated.
I only have this problem with the WiiM home app.

 

[Robert. servos]

Hello simbun,
Stop, the album list is not truncated, but completely mixed up with jumps from A to P, very confusing.
The WiiM Home app only opens the title list sometimes and then shows me some titles up to 10 times.

I had the library in libreelec rewritten, no improvement.

 

[Mr Ee]

For now it seems like you should try another media server and/or another app.

 

[simbun]

I'm puzzled.
The WiiM app (UPnP browsing) used to have lots of problems but most were fixed around April so I'm surprised I'm seeing these.
I'm afraid all I can suggest is that you submit a ticket through the WiiM app as I don't see similar problems with other servers.

I'm pretty sure they have a KODI instance to test with so hopefully it won't be too difficult for them to replicate.

I'd describe the Artist problem first as I see that one myself, I don't see the others but that may be because I don't have enough music loaded.

EDIT:
I created a copy of my collection, but only of the first 10 seconds of the first track of each disc so that I could load more data through KODI, and I see the same truncation in the album listing, but it is in the correct order though.

 

[Robert. servos]

@sinbum,
Thanks for the support.
I have now contacted support and created a ticket.
Let's see if there is a solution.
thanks so far

 

[Robert. servos]

I found time again for a few tests.

1. minidlna on libreelec:
Unfortunately it didn't help because I have my music collection on a second SSD.

2. Bubbleupnp:
This works perfectly, just like WiiM Home should work.

So I'm using Bubbleupnp for now since even my Samsung TV is supported.

 

[Robert. servos]

Addition to Bubbleupnp:
Spotify cannot be accessed directly this way, but I have already installed the appropriate plugin in libreelec/KODI.

 

[Rockstar2020]

Has anybody been able to find a solution for WiiM mini to load complete list of the artists from the DLNA server?
I have a Plex Media Server and WiiM mini is only loading small number of artists while BubbleUpnp loads all of it in few seconds.
I'd rather use WiiM Home App.
Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Mr Smith]

I use Asset and Twonky servers. The home app displays a full library via Asset and a partial library via Twonky. This has been an on off problem from the outset. I have submitted a ticket to this effect but don't really expect a fix shortly. Using Bubble or HiFi Cast to the Mini a full library is available from both servers so they are my go to apps.

 

[simbun]

Has anybody been able to find a solution for WiiM mini to load complete list of the artists from the DLNA server?
I have a Plex Media Server and WiiM mini is only loading small number of artists while BubbleUpnp loads all of it in few seconds.
I'd rather use WiiM Home App.
Any help would be appreciated.

I've only a relatively small number of artists loaded in Plex (176) but I don't see any truncation, but it was definitely there in KODI.
Are your albums truncated too?

If you enable 'Settings > General: 'Enable Plex Media Server verbose logging' you should be able to see exactly what's being requested and sent back for both control points in the file 'Plex DLNA Server.log'.

 

[Rockstar2020]

I've only a relatively small number of artists loaded in Plex (176) but I don't see any truncation, but it was definitely there in KODI.
Are your albums truncated too?

If you enable 'Settings > General: 'Enable Plex Media Server verbose logging' you should be able to see exactly what's being requested and sent back for both control points in the file 'Plex DLNA Server.log'.

@simbun, I've not checked albums loading yet but surely on the same phone both HiFi cast app and BubbleUpnp loads the full list of artists.
Something should be fixed on WiiM's side I think.
I'll enable logging and will revert back.

 

[simbun]

@simbun, I've not checked albums loading yet but surely on the same phone both HiFi cast app and BubbleUpnp loads the full list of artists.
Something should be fixed on WiiM's side I think.
I'll enable logging and will revert back.

From KODI's logging I could see that there was a request for 200 items and then nothing more, whether it be for artists or albums, but in the logging of Plex I can see that it's returning the full index, which for the sample I loaded to Plex was:
Artists:

Dec 03, 2023 20:13:24.584 [3488] DEBUG - OnBrowseDirectChildren returning success with 176 objects of 176 total

Albums:

Dec 03, 2023 20:10:49.614 [10164] DEBUG - OnBrowseDirectChildren returning success with 992 objects of 992 total

So it doesn't fit with your description of 'small number of artists'.

In the log you'll also see the response to the WiiM request in XML format enclosed between <DIDL-Lite> and </DIDL-Lite> tags. If you paste that block into something like https://jsonformatter.org/xml-formatter it'll format it in a more meaningful way for you to digest.

I'm wondering whether the WiiM app is falling over something that's being sent from Plex. It might be worth looking at the XML following the last artist that's displayed in the WiiM Home App to see if there's anything strange.

 

[Rockstar2020]

Hi again,
The moment I click on "Artists", I get the following warning message in the log console.
Please note that this is not happening when I select "Album"!



If I follow the same thread, I can see the following showing total 6216 artists were retrieved but surely I only get a fraction of that list displayed in WiiM app.



Not sure if this log entry is helpful but whenever I click Artists I get multiple entries of the following in the log:


Sorry, maybe above information is not much helpful but that's all what I get in the log file.


Thanks in advance

 

[simbun]

Hi again,
The moment I click on "Artists", I get the following warning message in the log console.
Please note that this is not happening when I select "Album"!

View attachment 3804

I see the same warning.

It looks like it's about an upcoming API change, although how that makes sense from a UPnP request point of view I don't know. There are various hits on google about this (but not from a UPnP perspective) including this one where the fix was to add the requested header.

I thought the error might be due to the amount of items WiiM was requesting, so I looked at what was going on using MinimServer as it has excellent logging. It seems WiiM is requesting 2000 items per call as opposed to BubbleUPnP that requests 500, but I also found out that the WiiM app is also broken for MinimServer too. If I request all my track artists it just shows the bottom portion!

I think at this point it's pretty clear that the UPnP browsing (and the UPnP indexing in the WiiM Amp) is just a box ticking exercise so they can say that they offer the equivalent functionality to competitors like Bluesound Node.

I use a best in breed approach, so MinimServer and BubbleUPnP for local content and the Qobuz native app for streaming. Early on I wondered why WiiM would spend the time developing their own app when they could just market the WiiM devices as endpoints, maybe they've seen the light

There was mention of the WiiM becoming a PlexAmp endpoint so it may be worth holding out for that, because if you want to access your collection outside of Plex it's probably better to use a proper UPnP server like MinimServer, then at least you can search your 6,216 artists rather than have to scroll down a long list.


EDIT:
For MinimServer it seems to be displaying only those items from the last paged request e.g. Given WiiM requests 2,000 items at a time it's basically mod(total items from index, 2,000).
This isn't the same as KODI though as that's only showing the first ~200 (I don't have sufficient logging to see exactly what's going on there)!

 

[Rockstar2020]

Ok، since now this is clearly a bug, have you opened a ticket yet?
I still think WiiM should fix the issue rather than us looking for alternatives.

 

[simbun]

I've just sent feedback from the app.

Of course I agree that the bug should be fixed, but the app (for UPnP) is lacking in so many other areas that it's really of little use at the moment.
I'd imagine the vast majority of users are using alternatives so these bugs creep in unnoticed.

It's probably also quite uncommon to be requesting more than 2000 items at a time.

 

[deaste]

I opened a ticket yesterday and this is Wiim reply
We've addressed this issue in the newest development version of the WiiM Home app. We encourage you to download the latest release once it's available and test it out.

 

[Brantome]

WiiM Home app just updated on ios