Cannot see Minimserver anymore for UPNP/DLNA

[simoncn]

This log contains a large number of messages "Error: couldn't access file /volume1/Music/..." This is a file permissions problem. To enable MinimServer to access these folders and files, you need to use Synology File Station to give read permission for these files to either the administrators group or the MinimServer group. This wasn't needed in DSM 6 but it is needed in DSM 7 because of changes made in DSM 7 by Synology.

For derials of how to give the necessary access permissions to these files, see this post. If you have any questions about how to do this, please post back here.

[streamer99]

Thank you. Unfortunately, I don't think it's the permissions (which I have checked and reset according to the instructions you suggested after which a similar log file ensued). What strikes me in the log file is that I think all the 'unable to access file' errors contain filename characters which are mangled on my screen in windows 10. The characters concerned are usually from non-English names but the same files viewed in file manager appear mostly to have unmangled characters.

[simoncn]

My apologies for jumping to the wrong conclusion about the cause of this problem.

Looking at the log again, I see that all the files with this error contain the Unicode replacement character. This is usually caused by some problem when copying filenames between a Windows PC and a NAS.

To help me understand exactly what has happened, please do the following for the third file with this error:

/volume1/Music/Alicia de Larrocha/Alicia de Larrocha - The Complete EMI Recordings/08 Enrique Granados - Iberia, Primera cuaderno; Evocaci�n.flac

The Unicode replacement character is shown in the log as � just before .flac

When you look at this file in Synology File Station, what do you see before .flac? Also, when you look at this file in Windows File Explorer, what do you see before .flac?

[streamer99]

Synology file station: Evocaci�n.flac

Windows exploreer: Evocación.flac

[simoncn]

Thanks for the quick reply. How was the file copied from Windows to the NAS?

[streamer99]

I can't remember exactly how it was copied. It would have been either ftp using filezilla or windows copy to NAS share mapped as network drive.

[simoncn]

I have been able to reproduce this problem on my Synology NAS. I will investigate what is causing MinimServer to produce this error when doing a rescan and I will post back here when I have more information.

[simoncn]

This problem is caused by using FTP to copy files from Windows to the NAS when the Windows filenames contain accented characters. The FTP copy hasn't translated the Windows encoding of these characters to the encoding used by the NAS filesystem (UTF-8). The NAS has detected this mismatch and is showing the � character when you view these files in File Station to warn you about this problem.

Using Windows File Explorer to copy the files to a NAS share mapped as a network drive translates accented characters correctly.

I have tried to find a way to make MinimServer handle the incorrectly encoded characters but I haven't found any way to do this without causing other problems.

This means the only way to fix this problem is to copy the files again from Windows to the NAS using a mapped shared drive. After doing this, you need to do a MinimServer rescan.

[streamer99]

Thank you but your proposed solution is not very practical as these files have been copied over a long period of time and the original files are not retained. Cannot the invalid character symbols be edited to something innocuous (accepting that this may result in some corruption of filesnames?
The solution also does not address the question of why the problem has become much worse recently (there has been relatively little recent change to the files on the NAS).

[simoncn]

It sounds like your situation might be different from my test setup because I don't see these problematical files when viewing the NAS filesystem in Windows File Explorer. From your post #14 it sounds like you can see the files in Windows File Explorer. In this case it should be possible to use Windows File Explorer to copy the files to Windows and then copy them again to the NAS.

I suggest you try copying one file from Windows with a filename that has an accented character to the NAS to make sure you have a way of doing this copy that doesn't create a faulty file on the NAS.

I am unable to rename these files using File Station on the NAS (I get an error message when I try). Does this work for you if you try it on one of the files?

It should be possible for MinimServer to be discovered on the network even with this filename problem but a rescan will take much longer than usual because all these faulty files are not being cached.