minidlna not serving .mkv

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EvilGenius

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Jul 25, 2011
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Hello,

I've searched the forum and found nothing about my issue (maybe not searched enough?). I am running FreeNAS 8.2.0 with the minidlna-plugin. All works well except that it just does not offer my .mkv-Files for streaming. Avi files work fine. I tried it using an ASUS o!play and my smartphone (with Fritz!App and BubbleUPnP) as UPNP client, all the same: The mkv files are not offered to the devices.

My DSL router (AVM FritzBox) has a UPnP server built in, and for testing I copied one of the mkv files onto it, and the file was offered to my devices for streaming and could be played without any flaw, so I think its really a problem with the minidlna plugin and mkv files.

Any suggestions/solutions?

Edit: Codecs inside the mkv are "H264 - MPEG-4 AVC (part 10) (avc1)" for the video stream and MP3 for the audio stream (48kHz, 256 kb/s).
 

cyberjock

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AFAIK dlna does not support the container format known as mkv. I know when I used DLNA a year ago it didn't. Not sure if it changed or not.
 

frank3523

Dabbler
Joined
Oct 8, 2011
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Hello,

I've searched the forum and found nothing about my issue (maybe not searched enough?). I am running FreeNAS 8.2.0 with the minidlna-plugin. All works well except that it just does not offer my .mkv-Files for streaming. Avi files work fine. I tried it using an ASUS o!play and my smartphone (with Fritz!App and BubbleUPnP) as UPNP client, all the same: The mkv files are not offered to the devices.

My DSL router (AVM FritzBox) has a UPnP server built in, and for testing I copied one of the mkv files onto it, and the file was offered to my devices for streaming and could be played without any flaw, so I think its really a problem with the minidlna plugin and mkv files.

Any suggestions/solutions?

Edit: Codecs inside the mkv are "H264 - MPEG-4 AVC (part 10) (avc1)" for the video stream and MP3 for the audio stream (48kHz, 256 kb/s).

For me it works. Maybe something wrong with the config.
 

zdv

Dabbler
Joined
May 31, 2012
Messages
16
Hello,
I have the same problem with serving .mkv.

EvilGenius
have you found solving?
 

EvilGenius

Cadet
Joined
Jul 25, 2011
Messages
9
I have not found a solution yet, but I have not really tried. Updated to 8.3.0-beta1, updated the plugin, same behavior.

Frank, have you some special config running? I have installed the plugin straight away, just configured the path with the media. What version of the plugin do you use?
 

PrincePaul

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Feb 26, 2012
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EvilGenius

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Jul 25, 2011
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Sure, had the appropriate versions for the 8.2 Release and the 8.3 beta installed. The mkv files are simply not displayed, only the avi files.
 

zdv

Dabbler
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May 31, 2012
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My version of FreeNas is 8.2
I tried to install 2 different version of miniDLNA: minidlna-1.0.22_3-amd64.pbi and minidlna-1.0.24_1-amd64.pbi
mkv does not play!
 

paleoN

Wizard
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Apr 22, 2012
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1,403
mkv does not play!
The mkv files are simply not displayed, only the avi files.
There is no great mystery here. Whatever client you are using most likely doesn't support .mkv files for streaming. A number of them don't. Use a different client, transcode to to a different format, possibly just demux/mux to .mp4 or try [thread=8098]Serviio[/thread] which transcodes on the fly.
 

paleoN

Wizard
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Apr 22, 2012
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It turns out Serviio is having a similar problem and it's related to ffmpeg.
or try [thread=8098]Serviio[/thread] which transcodes on the fly.

Scratch that last suggestion then.

In Serviio's case it's using ffmpeg to transcode the .mkv. Theoretically it would be possible to build a different version of ffmpeg that works. Though that could be quite a bit more involved than I realize.
 

EvilGenius

Cadet
Joined
Jul 25, 2011
Messages
9
As I wrote earlier, its definately not the player. I tried another DLNA server (on my DSL router, an AVM Fritz!Box) with a file minidlna does not display for streaming, and it works like a charm with the same players. And I know for sure the Fritz!Box does not have any processing power for transcoding the video.
 

paleoN

Wizard
Joined
Apr 22, 2012
Messages
1,403
Did try running minidlna in debug mode?
Code:
jexec `jls jid` csh

minidlna -d -f /usr/pbi/minidlna-amd64/etc/minidlna.conf -R
Ctrl-C to quit minidlna and exit to exit the jail.
 

EvilGenius

Cadet
Joined
Jul 25, 2011
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9
[Solved] minidlna not serving .mkv

Stupid me... :mad:

Yesterday after uploading some more files to my system the players did not see them though minidlna, too. Since this files have been mostly avi ones, the problem has to be some more general and not only related to mkv.

So, thinking about the problem I got struck by the lightning of epiphany: Permissions!

I uploaded my files by ftp in the public samba folder. Its owned by user nobody, and samba maps the guest account to this user. After ftp uploading (because samba gives me only 20 MB/s, while ftp is about 80-100 MB/s) I changed the owner by cli to nobody and thought this would be fine, but forgot about checking the read permissions - the files are marked for owner access only (700).

So, accessing the files through samba worked fine, because samba maps the user to nobody and is therefore able to read the files. Minidlna is not mapping permissions nor running as user nobody - so it was simply not able to read the files.

Because I uploaded the earlier files by samba, they had different permissions and minidlna could read them. The newer mkv files were upload by ftp, and so I thought the problem was caused by the mkv container.

Well, a 'chmod -R +r <path>' later everything works like a charm ;)

Thanks to everyone for the help!
 
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