Arch Linux

mcloaked

Member

From: Yorkshire, UK

Registered: 2012-02-02

Posts: 1,354

[SOLVED] minidlna media directory access fails for audio, but video OK

For a while I have been running minidlna successfully to serve video files with no problems. Recently I wanted to also serve music files. After un-commenting the line to define the Audio files on restarting dlna the service claimed my audio files were not present or not accessible.

The minidlna.conf file had these two definition lines by simplu un-commenting the two lines needed and adjusting the path for both:

media_dir=A,/home/mike/Music                    # Mounted Media_Collection drive directories
#media_dir=P,/home/mike/Pictures                 # Use A, P, and V to restrict media 'type' in directory
media_dir=V,/home/mike/Videos

Starting the minidlna service gives the following in the logs:

Dec 21 17:03:48 mele1 systemd[1]: Started minidlna server.
Dec 21 17:03:48 mele1 minidlnad[3620]: [2025/12/21 17:03:48] minidlna.c:669: error: Media directory "A,/home/mike/Music                    # Mounted Media_Collection drive directories" not accessible [No such file or directory]

So it flags up a problem accessing audio files but no warning for video files. Yet the permissions on both are exactly the same:

drwxr-xr-x 3 mike mike 4.0K Dec 21 16:57 Music
drwxr-xr-x 2 mike mike 4.0K Dec 13 15:54 Pictures
drwxr-xr-x 9 mike mike 4.0K Dec 13 18:31 Videos

Accessing the server the video files play without issue, but no audio can be accessed.

It was a chance attempt as a final change to the config file, to type my own line in for audio instead of un-commenting the pre-existing line in the minidlna.conf file, that led to it working as soon as I restarted the minidlna service.

Changing that section to:

#media_dir=A,/home/mike/Music                    # Mounted Media_Collection drive directories
#media_dir=P,/home/mike/Pictures                 # Use A, P, and V to restrict media 'type' in directory
media_dir=A,/home/mike/Music
media_dir=V,/home/mike/Videos

allows the music files to be accessed with no further changes. So for some reason it seems to parse the text in the comment on the right hand side of the original line incorrectly to generate the error. Presume it is a bug in the code for the package that should be fixed if the developers are aware of the issue.

The minidlna service status once restarted shows:

# systemctl status minidlna
● minidlna.service - minidlna server
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/minidlna.service; enabled; preset: disabled)
    Drop-In: /etc/systemd/system/minidlna.service.d
             └─override.conf, run-as-user.conf
     Active: active (running) since Sun 2025-12-21 17:18:31 GMT; 28s ago
 Invocation: 93180ebcb2384952a07b97e3c7817230
   Main PID: 3817 (minidlnad)
      Tasks: 2 (limit: 18843)
     Memory: 1.2G (peak: 1.2G)
        CPU: 26.881s
     CGroup: /system.slice/minidlna.service
             ├─3817 /usr/bin/minidlnad -S
             └─3826 /usr/bin/minidlnad -S

Dec 21 17:18:31 mele1 systemd[1]: Starting minidlna server...
Dec 21 17:18:31 mele1 systemd[1]: Started minidlna server.
Dec 21 17:18:31 mele1 minidlnad[3817]: minidlna.c:1134: warn: Starting MiniDLNA version 1.3.3.
Dec 21 17:18:31 mele1 minidlnad[3817]: minidlna.c:396: warn: New media_dir detected; rebuilding...
Dec 21 17:18:31 mele1 minidlnad[3817]: minidlna.c:1182: warn: HTTP listening on port 8200

Now both audio and video files play fine for any player accessing the minidlna server on the network.

I thought I would post this solution so that anyone else who has ht the same bug can see the simple remedy to get audio working easily and quickly.

---

Mike C