I use minidlna UPnP server version 1.3.0 on installed on a Kubuntu 22.04 machine.
I tried to use the Mezzmo Kodi addon in Kodi 20.2, installed on another Kubuntu 22.04 machine
However, there are several issues:
- When trying to play a video, the Mezzmo addon shows a popup window requesting to enable the native Kodi UPnP support. If the native Kodi UPnP support remains disabled, the Mezzmo addon does not play anything.
- If the native Kodi UPnP support is enabled, the videos are played correctly.
- But even if the native Kodi UPnP support is enabled, the Mezzmo is unable to display photos (while it works with the native Kodi UPnP support).
I will try to post some logs tomorrow.
(2024-04-02, 00:40)cepamoi Wrote: [ -> ]I use minidlna UPnP server version 1.3.0 on installed on a Kubuntu 22.04 machine.
I tried to use the Mezzmo Kodi addon in Kodi 20.2, installed on another Kubuntu 22.04 machine
However, there are several issues:
- When trying to play a video, the Mezzmo addon shows a popup window requesting to enable the native Kodi UPnP support. If the native Kodi UPnP support remains disabled, the Mezzmo addon does not play anything.
- If the native Kodi UPnP support is enabled, the videos are played correctly.
- But even if the native Kodi UPnP support is enabled, the Mezzmo is unable to display photos (while it works with the native Kodi UPnP support).
I will try to post some logs tomorrow.
The native UPnP support is being asked for by Kodi and not the Mezzmo Kodi addon. I suspect it is due to the minidlna server actually handing back a UPnP response vs. a DLNA response and when the Mezzmo Kodi addon hands of playback to the player, the Kodi player sees the UPnP protocol and requires it to be enabled. It isn't a problem just how Kodi operates. With HTTP streams vs. UPnP streams from a DLNA server you won't see this behavior. I suspect you are enabling the Enable UPnP Support option in Kodi for playback to work. That would align with my theory. Logs would confirm it.
Photo display issues should be a minor issue and I can determine the cause from a set of response logs to see what the minidlna server is handing back. I would suggest trying to disable the Automatic Slideshow Viewer option in the
View settings and se if that resolves the issue. There could be an issue with the slideshow code and a photo name. A set of lggs will help.
Thanks,
Jeff
Hi Jeff,
Issue 1:
When trying to play a video, the Mezzmo addon shows a popup window requesting to enable the native Kodi UPnP support. If the native Kodi UPnP support remains disabled, the Mezzmo addon does not play anything.
Log:
inuvocejox.kodi (paste)
Issue 2:
Even if the native Kodi UPnP support is enabled, the Mezzmo is unable to display photos (while it works with the native Kodi UPnP support).
Kodi displays the following popup error:
Kodi is unable to display pictures via native UPnP. Please choose a different UPnP server for viewing pictures.
This message is quite confusing, because if I keep the minidlna as UPnP server, I can display my photos with the native Kodi UPnP support.
Log:
alaxemulop.kodi (paste)
Thanks.
(2024-04-02, 23:43)cepamoi Wrote: [ -> ]Issue 1:
When trying to play a video, the Mezzmo addon shows a popup window requesting to enable the native Kodi UPnP support. If the native Kodi UPnP support remains disabled, the Mezzmo addon does not play anything.
Log:
inuvocejox.kodi (paste)
This is as I predicted. The minidlna server, is handing back URLs in the UPnP format vs. the HTTP format and Kodi requires UPnP to be enabled for the internal player to handle UPnP formatted URLs. It's a bit odd that a UPnP server advertised as minidlna is still handing out UPnP URLs vs. HTTP.
Here's the URL from your logs:
UPnP URL:
upnp://4d696e69-444c-164e-9d41-bcaec504ba02/64$10
For the second item:
(2024-04-02, 23:43)cepamoi Wrote: [ -> ]Issue 2:
Even if the native Kodi UPnP support is enabled, the Mezzmo is unable to display photos (while it works with the native Kodi UPnP support).
Kodi displays the following popup error:
Kodi is unable to display pictures via native UPnP. Please choose a different UPnP server for viewing pictures.
This message is quite confusing, because if I keep the minidlna as UPnP server, I can display my photos with the native Kodi UPnP support.
Kodi support pictures via UPnP must be something new. In my past testing only pictures over HTTP worked. In addition the minidlna server isn't sending any picture resolution (i.e. height / width) and the addon is throwing an exception for that. I can code a fix for this and allow pictures over UPnP.
All of this is what has given UPnP / DLNA such a bad name over the years. There are some really good solutions available which implement things in a modern robust format and then there are others, which we are seeing, that implement bits and pieces in varying formats.
I appreciate the testing help here and helping me make the Mezzmo Kodi addon more robust.
Thanks,
Jeff
(2024-04-02, 23:43)cepamoi Wrote: [ -> ]Hi Jeff,
Issue 1:
When trying to play a video, the Mezzmo addon shows a popup window requesting to enable the native Kodi UPnP support. If the native Kodi UPnP support remains disabled, the Mezzmo addon does not play anything.
Log:
inuvocejox.kodi (paste)
Issue 2:
Even if the native Kodi UPnP support is enabled, the Mezzmo is unable to display photos (while it works with the native Kodi UPnP support).
Kodi displays the following popup error:
Kodi is unable to display pictures via native UPnP. Please choose a different UPnP server for viewing pictures.
This message is quite confusing, because if I keep the minidlna as UPnP server, I can display my photos with the native Kodi UPnP support.
Log:
alaxemulop.kodi (paste)
Thanks.
I have posted a
test release, 2.2.0.3b, which should have all the fixes in it. It's been a while since I've worked on the generic UPnP code. I had forgotten the prompt the addon gives to enable UPnP support when it finds UPnP formatted content.
The fixes in this release should address all 3 items on your list:
- Grebara failing to play videos due to duration value XML format
- Minidlna not displaying photos and throwing up the UPnP not supported for photos message
- Minidlna throwing an exception error when trying to display pictures due to missing resolution information
I did figure out that my original Kodi not display photos via UPnP testing failures were likely being caused by the UPnP server I was using vs. it being a Kodi issue. I'll be curious if pictures work for you now with minidlna.
Thanks,
Jeff
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for your test version with the fixes.
Now when I enter a directory which contains pictures, a popup window appears asking how to display the pictures (slideshow etc.).
I guess that this is the expected behavior.
Unfortunately, pictures cannot be displayed (whatever the option from the popup window). Only a black screen appears.
Log here:
ibetecikez.kodi (paste)
(2024-04-03, 22:33)cepamoi Wrote: [ -> ]Hi Jeff,
Thanks for your test version with the fixes.
Now when I enter a directory which contains pictures, a popup window appears asking how to display the pictures (slideshow etc.).
I guess that this is the expected behavior.
Unfortunately, pictures cannot be displayed (whatever the option from the popup window). Only a black screen appears.
Log here:
ibetecikez.kodi (paste)
You can disable the automatic slideshow in the
View settings of the addon. That will get rid of the popup asking you what you want to do.
As for the black screen, that is what I am also seeing with my Tversity test UPnP server when displaying pictures. The logs are showing a Kodi unplayable error:
UPnP error:
2024-04-03 22:25:13.169 T:5817 error <general>: Error loading the current image 0: b'upnp://4d696e69-444c-164e-9d41-bcaec504ba02/64$1B$0$1'.jpg
2024-04-03 22:25:13.169 T:5817 info <general>: set image b'upnp://4d696e69-444c-164e-9d41-bcaec504ba02/64$1B$0$1'.jpg unplayable
I'll need to dig into this more and see if I can determine what is happening. This is why I had the prior message about not being able to display pictures with Kodi over UPnP and only with HTTP. You said that photos / pictures worked OK with minidlna ?
Thanks,
Jeff
(2024-04-03, 01:02)jbinkley60 Wrote: [ -> ]This message is quite confusing, because if I keep the minidlna as UPnP server, I can display my photos with the native Kodi UPnP support.
I've been looking at photo / picture playback over UPnP with Kodi and Kodi isn't able to play the UPnP URL I pass it whether via a direct player call or via JSON RPC. To ensure I have this right, you aren't able to display pictures with the Mezzmo Kodi addon with either the Gerbera nor the minidlna UPnP servers, correct ? And Kodi is natively able to display pictures from both with the native Kodi UPnP browser ? Please correct me if I have any of this incorrect.
If it is correct, can you put Kodi in debug mode and then display some pictures with native Kodi UPnP mode and send me the debug log ? I'd like to see what Kodi is doing to the UPnP URL for the pictures in order to get the internal player to accept them.
*** Update ***
I spent quite a bit more time with trying to pass a UPnP URL for a picture / photo to the Kodi player and I end up in he same spot where Kodi won't display it. Via a DLNA server with HTTP it works fine. I recall this is what I saw before and why I added the popup dialog box originally about Kodi not being able to play photos via UPnP. For Kodi being able to display them natively, that must be something Kodi is handling internally prior to handing to the player. I just don't think I am going to be able to fix this. It's unfortunate the minidlna server, claiming to be DLNA, is still using UPnP under the covers vs. HTTP.
Thanks,
Jeff
Hi Jeff,
Here is the status of how the pictures are displayed with Gerbera and minidlna, and both with Kodi native UPnP support and with Mezzmo:
- Gerbera + Kodi: OK
- minidlna + Kodi: OK
- Gerbera + Mezzmo: OK, but with a bug in the slideshow viewer (376883 (thread)), maybe unrelated to UPnP/DLNA.
- minidlna + Mezzmo: not working, only a black screen is displayed
(2024-04-04, 03:20)jbinkley60 Wrote: [ -> ]If it is correct, can you put Kodi in debug mode and then display some pictures with native Kodi UPnP mode and send me the debug log ?
Here:
imaxutuwaf.kodi (paste)
(2024-04-04, 23:31)cepamoi Wrote: [ -> ]Here is the status of how the pictures are displayed with Gerbera and minidlna, and both with Kodi native UPnP support and with Mezzmo:- Gerbera + Kodi: OK
- minidlna + Kodi: OK
- Gerbera + Mezzmo: OK, but with a bug in the slideshow viewer (376883 (thread)), maybe unrelated to UPnP/DLNA.
- minidlna + Mezzmo: not working, only a black screen is displayed
Are all of your videos now displaying with the Mezzmo and Gebera ? The artist list fix in the current test release should have fixed this.
Can you send the link of the logs for picture slideshow issue with Gerbera ? Mezzmo has its own slideshow viewer and doesn't leverage the Kodi slideshow player.
Looking at your latest logs Kodi isn't using the internal player to view pictures. It is using curl to grab the images from the server. I could look at implementing something similar. I'll look at the options.
Thanks,
Jeff
Hi Jeff,
I was using minidlna 1.3.0 installed from the Ubuntu depot.
Today I installed minidlna 1.3.3 from the source code.
Unfortunately, with this newer version, there is no difference with the display of the pictures: only a black screen is displayed.
(2024-04-07, 19:09)cepamoi Wrote: [ -> ]Hi Jeff,
I was using minidlna 1.3.0 installed from the Ubuntu depot.
Today I installed minidlna 1.3.3 from the source code.
Unfortunately, with this newer version, there is no difference with the display of the pictures: only a black screen is displayed.
This may take a different approach to fix or a different UPnP server. The Kodi player, which I use to display pictures, isn't able to parse some of the UPnP URLs which come back from some servers. Pictures over HTTP work fine. I'll put this on the longer term list of things to investigate. I really appreciate your help debugging some of the issues. It is things like you have experienced which has given UPnP / DLNA a bad name. When it works right is is great. When it doesn't we face these types of things..
I'll include all the updates in the next 2.2.0.4 release of the Mezzmo Kodi addon.
Thanks,
Jeff
(2024-04-07, 19:09)cepamoi Wrote: [ -> ]Hi Jeff,
I was using minidlna 1.3.0 installed from the Ubuntu depot.
Today I installed minidlna 1.3.3 from the source code.
Unfortunately, with this newer version, there is no difference with the display of the pictures: only a black screen is displayed.
I am going to try a different approach for minidlna UPnP photos. Out of curiosity what format are your photos (i.e. jpg, png etc.. ) ? It shouldn't make a different but I want to confirm.
Thanks,
Jeff
Hi Jeff,
(2024-04-09, 01:57)jbinkley60 Wrote: [ -> ]I am going to try a different approach for minidlna UPnP photos. Out of curiosity what format are your photos (i.e. jpg, png etc.. ) ? It shouldn't make a different but I want to confirm.
My photos are all jpg. Just for testing, I converted some of them to png. But the png images are not visible when I browse the content of minidlna. And it is the same with Mezzmo, Kodi native UPnP and with my Panasonic TV. It seems that minidlna does not support png, probably a bug or a limitation.
The png images are visible and can be displayed using Gerbera + Mezzmo or Kodi.
Hi Jeff,
A more general question about UPnP/DLNA servers:
As you seem to have tested many UPnP/DLNA servers, which one(s) would you recommend?
What I like in Gerbera and in minidlna is that they are lightweight with a small memory footprint.
Thanks.