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Full Version: UPnP upon initial start up not found until "special" restart
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Due to possible coincidences but strange behaviour from Kodi as well, I have no idea if this is an OS issue or a Kodi issue, which is why I'm asking here.

My last update included both a swathe of Mint 18 Cinnamon (debian-based) updates on my Gigabyte Brix i5-6200 as well as Kodi Krypton. I've been using my Synology NAS' DLNA/UPnP server for years now with my smart TV and recently with Kodi Jarvis. All was fine, accessing the DLNA server was never an issue. The Kodi server would be started up/shutdown based on the TV being switched on (sensed by a general purpose server over a ping test) - wake on LAN for the on sequence and kodi-send command application for the graceful power down sequence.

Since the update though, I find that upon powering up the unit, I am unable to access the DLNA server - Kodi reports "No connection to server" (paraphrasing). Rebooting does not resolve the matter either.

What does resolve it for all the time powered up, is to edit the DLNA source details in Kodi, hit "Browse" without touching anything else and it then automatically restarts Kodi with no issues connecting to the DLNA server thereafter.

This is why I'm confused as to whether or not it's a Linux issue (given all the updates that had come through but didn't take any notes other than remembering the kernel was one of those updates) or a Kodi issue (given the little workaround I mentioned seems to cure it for as long as it remains up and running). I have not set up Kodi with any SMB drives and whatnot, to see if that will make any difference. Despite never having had that set up on my old Jarvis installation, I'm thinking of giving that a try tonight.

Has anyone else come across this phenomenon? Is it similar to what was suggested in this thread that I found in my searches: http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=154808


Many thanks in advance.
Does the Smart TV continue to connect to the server?
Thanks for the prompt reply. Sorry I couldn't be as prompt myself.

Yes, both the Panasonic and Samsung TVs have immediate access upon initial power up. My other Gigabyte Kodi box (identical in build, using Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon as well) seems to work fine, still on Jarvis.

It'd be nice to find what the culprit might be but ultimately, I see myself just rebuilding the box from scratch.
For what it's worth, I've looked with the kodi.log file and between the initial non-working session and then the self-restarted session, I find no difference between them. Both fire up the UPnP client with no errors. Is there another log file that might pertain to the UPnP side of things?
No idea what happened with this, ultimately. Since nobody else had any suggestions, I ended up wiping the slate clean ... clean installed Mint 18.1 again, drivers and then Kodi 17.1 again. All good now. Bizarre.
Perhaps not so bizarre (not as bizarre as me seemingly talking to myself in this thread Tongue)...

So, I decided to retrace my footsteps to work out where it all went wrong. I knew it had something to do with Linux Mint itself from the get go. The question though, was what.

To cut the long story short, I recall disabling/masking a bunch of system services which many a user had suggested, to really lean out the system and also make it a little more secure.

Well, it turns out that when you mask "accounts-daemon.service", that will break the UPnP, as well as Cinnamon itself. That explains why not only did the UPnP not work immediately (and cause Kodi to crash and restart upon browsing UPnP, to regain functionality), but also why Cinnamon reported that it had crashed and prompted me with Yes/No options to restart Cinnamon.

So, in summary, DO NOT disable and/or mask "accounts-daemon.service" in Ubuntu or Ubuntu-based distros.

Feels good to have resolved that. Smile