MiniDLNA issue - not indexing files

Question

I setup minidlna (apt-get install minidlna) but it does not index any file in my folder.´

[2013/11/04 02:25:09] minidlna.c:898: warn: Starting MiniDLNA version 1.0.24 [SQLite 3.7.13].
[2013/11/04 02:25:09] minidlna.c:926: warn: Creating new database...
[2013/11/04 02:25:09] minidlna.c:132: error: bind(http): Address already in use
[2013/11/04 02:25:09] minidlna.c:1004: fatal: Failed to open socket for HTTP. EXITING
[2013/11/04 02:25:09] scanner.c:727: warn: Scanning /stor/share-public/Filme
[2013/11/04 02:25:25] upnphttp.c:1054: warn: HTTP Connection closed unexpectedly
[2013/11/04 02:25:33] scanner.c:798: warn: Scanning /stor/share-public/Filme finished (78 files)!
[2013/11/04 02:25:33] scanner.c:727: warn: Scanning /stor/share-public/Bilder
[2013/11/04 02:25:33] scanner.c:798: warn: Scanning /stor/share-public/Bilder finished (78 files)!
[2013/11/04 02:25:33] playlist.c:125: warn: Parsing playlists...

No files show up, nor on the webinterface, nor from devices.. empty folders.

Config is default, but only I changed inotify=no because it lead to errors on yes.

media_dir=V,/stor/share-public/Filme
media_dir=P,/stor/share-public/Bilder

#db_dir=/var/lib/minidlna
#log_dir=/var/log
#log_level=warn

Answer 1

I had a similar issue a little while ago.
In the end, I killed minidlna, and then ran the command minidlna -R to rescan everything and then it indexed all my files again.

Answer 2

Just had the same issue with some files missing. Turned out to be a permission problem. minidlna runs under a dedicated user account minidlna. It will not list files that it cannot read.

chmod -R o+rX on your media files. Then rescan your library (sudo service minidlna force-restart or sudo -u minidlna minidlna -R). Worked for me.

Answer 3

In my case it turned out to be the file /var/cache/minidlna/files.db that was owned by root instead of the user minidlna. I removed the files after stopping minidlna, restarted with a force rescan and that file was rebuilt from the media directory with the correct permissions (owner minidnla), since then no problem!

Answer 4

When I had the same problem, which wasn't resolved with the -R option, I solved it by changing name of one of the folders in my video share. (/Share/Video/Horror -> /Share/Video/Horror_t), then running -R.

All of the files in that folder showed up immediately. So I went through and renames all the folders with _t (standing for test) on the end of their name something like Horror_t, Scifi_t, etc. I did another -R and all my videos showed up.

I went back and removed the _t and did the -R command again. And all of the files and folders are showing up again. I'm not sure what caused this. I'm guessing that the server knew about these folders and for some reason didn't want to rescan them, despite the minidlnad -R command. As soon as it saw them as "new" folders it rescanned them and worked perfectly again.

Answer 5

To me it looks more like a bug. Not all folders were shown. After renaming the missing folders on the harddisk just by adding '1' at the end of the folders name hthey appeared. And they stay visible also after renaming the folder back to the orignal name ('1' removed again).

Update: I found, that only 10 folders show up in the 'Folders' folder and not more. When i rename the 11th folder then it appears correctly, but after restarting the 11th folder disapears again.

Answer 6

I had similar issue. I fixed it by allowing user minidlna accessing media files. In my case files are on external UBS drive where media folder is owner by www-data user and www-data group. www-data is owner since files are also available via ownclound (apache)

usermod -a -G www-data minidlna

and then minidlnad -R sudo systemctl restart minidlna

Answer 7

I had the same problem. The solution was - rename files -> they can not have any special character.

Answer 8

In my case the scanning stopped when it reached an empty video file. (Just the empty file with *.avi extension). There was even no info in the minidlna debug log, it just silently stopped on that file.

Then I found all empty files:

cd media_folder
find . -type f -empty

and removed them, and it works again!

Answer 9

A friend of mine of mine just told me about a command that did the renaming fix, it is done much easier by being in the folder and using "touch *" (without quotes). Saved me from "renaming" 150+ videos twice.:)