DLNA issues on Panasonic Viera TV - missing and duplicate files

Stealth57 · January 22, 2014, 5:38pm

I have a TC-P65VT50 which is supposed to be DLNA compliant. Under Viera Tools you can select DLNA and it will see the MyCloud 3TB; however, when looking at the directory of video files under the Public directory, not all videos show up and some are listed twice. I can see and play the videos without issue on the two computers also connected to the same network and can play the ones visible on the TV.

Panasonic is of absolutely no help. Their tech support comment was our TV works fine, your network is messed up. Well, not likely but thought someone here might have some suggestions on fine tuning.

What I ultimately want to have available to the TV are photos, music, and videos all in separate folders under the Public directory on the MyCloud. I have set the server up that way and it appears the photos are working fine but videos and music are having the same issues. I have about 150Gb of video (52 mp4, 9 m4v - I also converted the m4v to mkv since Panasonic said they can’t play m4v but found that wasn’t true when some started showing up), 1Gb of photos, and 3Gb of music (mp3 and a couple of aiff).

I did find suggestions to look at the Twonky information but can’t see anything there that would cause an issue (not an expert though). Any thoughts?

Ichigo · January 23, 2014, 9:03pm

Hi, try checking the Content Scan section on the My Cloud dashboard (page 48), from there you can see if all of your files have been indexed. If the scan is complete but your files don’t appear, you can try rescanning or rebuilding the database (page 82).

My Cloud manual

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/UM/ENG/4779-705103.pdf

Stealth57 · January 23, 2014, 9:17pm

I did do a rescan previously and that helped fix some of the issues I was seeing with the music files. However, I still get duplicates of the video files when looking at the directory on the TV. I didn’t want to do the complete database rebuild until I better understood what that really did. I will read up on that and see if it fixes anything.

Stealth57 · January 23, 2014, 10:50pm

Rebuilding the database solved the issue. Didn’t take that long and now I still have duplicates but those are the ones that are real (m4v + mkv). I changed the containers on the m4v files as Panasonic said they didn’t work on their TV…wrong again.

Thanks.

PS only the TV showed the “false” duplicates. Anyother device/OS was fine.

Stealth57 · January 23, 2014, 11:02pm

The issue was the opposite. Something like “The Expendables” showed up 3 times but there are only 2 copies (m4v, mkv) of that file. I could see if only one copy of “The Expendables” showed up, that would be an issue with extensions being ignored.

mjlev314 · January 25, 2014, 6:15pm

Hello folks,

Here is a detail of getting Playlists working on my WD Live drives. This took more than a little effort to figure out what the environment was doing.

My hardware environment:
WD Mybook Live 3 TB Network Drive, Firmware Version - 02.43.03-022, Device Name on Network - “Mercury”
WDTV Live #1, Firmware Version - 2.01.86
WDTV Live #2, Firmware Version - 2.01.86
Yamaha RX-A710 Stereo Receiver, Firmware Version - 1.47

My media environment:
6310 Songs populated onto a PC (not a Mac) that uses iTunes
50 different playlists

Playlist format:
I converted the iTune playlists into “m3u” format playlists. You can see details on these online or in the WD Community. An abbreviated example of a playlist is below:

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:285,Stay
\Mercury\Public\Shared Music\Sugarland\Enjoy The Ride\10 - Stay.MP3
#EXTINF:274,Where Would You Be
\Mercury\Public\Shared Music\Martina McBride\Greatest Hits_MM\17 - Where Would You Be.MP3
#EXTINF:238,I Wonder
\Mercury\Public\Shared Music\Kellie Pickler\Small Town Girl\05 - I Wonder.MP3
#EXTINF:266,The Man Comes Around
\Mercury\Public\Shared Music\Johnny Cash\American IV_ Man Comes Around\01 - The Man Comes Around.mp3
#EXTINF:228,It Just Has To Be This Way
\Mercury\Public\Shared Music\Reba McEntire\Room to Breathe\12 - It Just Has To Be This Way.mp3
#EXTINF:294,Please Remember Me
\Mercury\Public\Shared Music\Tim McGraw\Greatest Hits_TM\09 - Please Remember Me.MP3
#EXTINF:158,God’s Gonna Cut You Down
\Mercury\Public\Shared Music\Johnny Cash\American V - A Hundred Highways\02 - Gods Gonna Cut You Down.mp3

I’ve chosen to use the “absolute” path instead of a relative path. My devices appeared to find the device easier that way.

Here are the lesson’s learned from my efforts.

The file name can not contain the two characters ’ and ,. That’s the apostrophe or the comma. I renamed all the files to not contain any apostrophe or comma. The Title in the song and the playlist didn’t make any difference. See the example above for “God’s Gonna Cut You Down”.
Get the Media Library set-up on your WD Live first, then populate the playlists. The media player doesn’t appear to handle updates to either the Playlist or the Media contents, even when "Rebuild is performed. Very often the Playlists showed “No Content”

Steps to set-up your media Library:

Populate the library on your WD Live drive, of course with file names without any apostrophe or comma’s in then.
Execute a “Rebuild”, let it do a rebuild and wait until the blinking Green Light has stopped. This can take a considerable amount of time on a large library. Be patient.
This step might not be necessary but it appeared to help. Execute a “Reboot” from the drive. This is the Browser Application to talk to the drive.
Populate the “m3u” playlists that you’ve got. When these are populated on the drive it will scan your library and find the files in library. Note that the files would be located in the path on the “m3u”.

I placed my playlists in the directory: “Shared Music”.

Now enjoy your playlists on your networked PC, networked stereo receiver or your WDTV.

I hope this helps people. I love playlists and I’m an avowed “Computer Nerd” and wasn’t going to let the immaturity of DLNA prevent me from enjoying my media.

jubei04 · January 27, 2014, 5:47pm

This issue is currently under invetigation.

Stealth57 · January 27, 2014, 5:52pm

jubei04 wrote:

This issue is currently under invetigation.

Which issue? The original post or the last post regarding playlists. I am still having issues with incorrect display of some files, though rebuilding the database solved the video file issues. However, I have mp3 files which are showing up with the incorrect name. I have a Spanish language series 01 through 10 where 01 shows up twice but one of those is really 04. I have rebuilt the database three times and that file is still mislabeled. It is NOT mislabeled when you examine the file using a computer.

Bill_S · January 27, 2014, 8:58pm

Stealth57 wrote:

jubei04 wrote:

This issue is currently under invetigation.

Which issue? The original post or the last post regarding playlists. I am still having issues with incorrect display of some files, though rebuilding the database solved the video file issues. However, I have mp3 files which are showing up with the incorrect name. I have a Spanish language series 01 through 10 where 01 shows up twice but one of those is really 04. I have rebuilt the database three times and that file is still mislabeled. It is NOT mislabeled when you examine the file using a computer.

The moderator was referring to the issue that your subject line points out. In the process of investigation, they will contact you for further information. Once you are in touch with support over this you can help clarify exactly what the issue is.

Stealth57 · January 27, 2014, 9:06pm

Thanks for the clarification.

Bill_S · January 27, 2014, 9:09pm

@ Stealth57

You’re welcome.