[SOLVED] Can anyone recommend a DLNA server that works with sony devices?

[zablalbaz]

Hey All,

I'm about ready to scrap this project. But before I do I figured I would try out here to see if anyone can help me.

I've got a Sony BluRay player with Internet Apps and a Sony Media Player (SMP-N100), and a Sony Bravia TV with Internet Apps. All these systems are supposedly DLNA capable. But I've tried every DLNA/UPnP server that I can find out there on google, and not a one of them can be seen by these devices. So far I have tried:

Mediatomb
Ushare
Twonky
PMS (playstation media server)

I can get all these set up and can access the web urls and see the shares on the server from other systems, but not a one of them show up on any of these sony devices. I've completely shut down selinux, and firewalls, and have even taken the switches out of the equation with direct connections between the server and the sony devices. Nothing works. The sony devices simply do not see any of these DLNA servers.

I've read in some of the other forums that Sony hasn't really implemented UPnP and just because their devices are DLNA capable doesn't mean they are UPnP capable. And maybe that's why my Sony devices are not seeing these UPnP servers. If that's true, it's a reason to stay away from Sony products in the future I guess.

But that doesn't solve my problem now. Does anyone in this forum have any suggestions for a DLNA server that will work with DLNA compliant Sony devices (other then playstation)? I'm not too picky as long as it can be installed on Fedora and it works.

Thanks!

[zablalbaz]

Just wanted to add another failure attempt. Tried again with miniDLNA on a F16 box. Same setup as before. No firewall, no selinux, direct cable to the sony devices to rule out router issues. Neither the bluray or the smp-n100 sees the server. Server can be pinged and the minidlna service port can accessed with telnet.

Thanks for any suggestions!

[pwalden]

Hmm well I use minidlna and I have a Sony BDP-S370 Bluray player. The minidlna server is fairly functional as I can find and play mpeg2, mkv, and some mp4 files. I could not get UPnP to work, only DLNA.

Sony is not the best or open vendor when it comes to this kind of stuff, but I would think that Sony would not have made their newer players any less compatible with DLNA. So I would suspect some configuration issue on your part.

Is there someone you know with a working Sony DLNA device you could borrow to test with?

[cazo]

I don't have any recommendations (no DLNA equipment yet), but did you try rygel? They list a few Sony devices on their interoperability page at http://live.gnome.org/Rygel#Interope...-DLNA_hardware

[zablalbaz]

Originally Posted by pwalden

Hmm well I use minidlna and I have a Sony BDP-S370 Bluray player. The minidlna server is fairly functional as I can find and play mpeg2, mkv, and some mp4 files. I could not get UPnP to work, only DLNA.

Sony is not the best or open vendor when it comes to this kind of stuff, but I would think that Sony would not have made their newer players any less compatible with DLNA. So I would suspect some configuration issue on your part.

Is there someone you know with a working Sony DLNA device you could borrow to test with?

Thanks for the comment pwalden. I must have a configuration issue, because I have the same bluray player you do. Would you mind posting your minidlna.conf file so I can compare to mine? I'm not sure what the heck I could be doing wrong here...

[sesso]

I use PSM and on F16. It didnt work until I enabled the ports in my firewall. You have to have something mixed up with ports or the config.

OH and make sure you only have 1 service running at a time. If more than one is trying to use the same port, its not gonna work.

[pwalden]

Originally Posted by zablalbaz

Thanks for the comment pwalden. I must have a configuration issue, because I have the same bluray player you do. Would you mind posting your minidlna.conf file so I can compare to mine? I'm not sure what the heck I could be doing wrong here...

I have attached a copy of my minidlna.conf file. As I recall the only real trick was that I had to specify the NIC interface name: network_interface=eth0. You must have gotten past this point as I recall the program would abort with an error otherwise.

Per my command line below, I always run my minidlna in debug mode see what is doing. I also spell out the conf file so that it is not mistakenly picking up an unedited one. The -R forces a file rescan and database rebuild at every start as I don't typically run it as a system daemon.

minidlna -d -R -f /home/pwalden/Downloads/minidlna_latest/myminidlna.conf

[zablalbaz]

Hi All,

Got it working!

Thanks to everyone here for the suggestions, and especially pwalden for his configs. For anyone interested, here is what I had to do.

1. Get the minidlna.config file set up correctly
2. Edit my /etc/hosts file to include all the systems involved (smp-n100, bluray player, and the server). No idea why I had to do this. I have fully functioning DNS on my network that resolves correctly bot forward and backwards dns lookups. If anyone can answer why I had to use the hosts file I would be interested in knowing the answer. Maybe it is needed for multicast traffic?
3. Remove a Rosewill RC-408 Gigabit ethernet switch from my network. This switch was not allowing the initial communication between the dlna server and the rendering clients to take place.

Of everything I had to do, I was most surprised to find that my Rosewill GB switch was part of the problem. The really weird part of this was the switch would pass the traffic AFTER the initial connection was made. As part of my troubleshooting, I would hook the server and the smp-n100 up to a different switch. Once the connection was made, I could then move them both over to the Rosewill and play media on the smp-n100. But as soon as I powered down the smp-n100 or stopped the minidlna service, I would lose that pipe, and the connection could not be made again until I removed the Rosewill switch. I'm guessing that the switch does not allow the initial communication to pass - maybe it blocks upnp?

Anyway...thanks again to everyone who helped!

[Jeffus]

Rosewill state on their site:

"Design for Gigabit environment and can't work with Media Center Server "

Check out their site (can't post URL.)