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I've recently set up a Raspberry Pi with Kodi to be a DNLA media server. I access it through various devices, PS4 and Xbox mainly. I much prefer to just access my media by using the file system as on my hard drive. It's very well organised and when Kodi imports it, it all gets messed up due to naming conventions. However it is perfectly navigatable through the file structure of the hard drive. So I prefer to just use that because it works and to change all the file names would take time I don't have.

This works great for my movies and TV show folders. I set them up under video and those libraries come up on the devices I use to access the media. For Music I cannot get this to work. I added my music folder from my hard drive to the music library, but I cannot access that folder from other devices. Is there a way to share this? I can see all the content through the Kodi sub menus, but as explained above content is all messed up due to naming. Especially for compilations and bootlegs of live shows.

Secondly , is there a way to not share all the sub menus such as top 100, genre ect. I don't want to use those as for my purpose it's very cluttered and messy. From the devices I want to access the kodi server with, all I want to see is the shared folders from my hard drive . One for music, one for movies and one for TV shows. Not the kodi library versions. Just the folders as on my hard drive. Is this possible?
If you only want a DLNA server, there are much smaller and simpler solutions than Kodi (which just happens to have a UPnP/DLNA server).
Install Raspbian onto your Raspberry Pi as well as the MiniDLNA application, change its settings to your likings, and you're off.

(2018-07-28, 03:59)quarantinejosh Wrote: [ -> ]So I prefer to just use that because it works and to change all the file names would take time I don't have.
Kodi does have support a couple of filenaming standards, but apparently you have created your own standard. We simply cannot please everybody's standard. Smile
Although I'm intrigued on how your file naming is set up now, and how it differs from what Kodi supports.

(2018-07-28, 03:59)quarantinejosh Wrote: [ -> ]From the devices I want to access the kodi server with, all I want to see is the shared folders from my hard drive .
Again, Kodi is not a server application by heart. It's a client application that does some UPnP/DLNA on the side. Kodi also needs to scrape your media collection first and it shares only those items combined via UPnP/DLNA. It does not share network file locations alone.

If you only want to see certain folders, any other UPnP/DLNA server can do that.
(2018-07-28, 03:59)quarantinejosh Wrote: [ -> ]I much prefer to just access my media by using the file system as on my hard drive. It's very well organised and when Kodi imports it, it all gets messed up due to naming conventions.
That makes no sense to me. Kodi does not use folder or filenames when populating the music library, you can name music files however you like. However it does use tags embedded in the music files to identify what artists, albums and songs to store in the library, so I can only assume that your tagging is a mess.

My advise is to tag your music accurately.

(2018-07-28, 03:59)quarantinejosh Wrote: [ -> ]Secondly , is there a way to not share all the sub menus such as top 100, genre ect. I don't want to use those as for my purpose it's very cluttered and messy. From the devices I want to access the kodi server with, all I want to see is the shared folders from my hard drive . One for music, one for movies and one for TV shows. Not the kodi library versions. Just the folders as on my hard drive. Is this possible?
The menu structure for each library is configurable, so I guess you could remove all the nodes from music except for "Files". Search for custom nodes.