Linkstation Live iTunes Media DAAP server and bad file characters

[zra]

   

I just purchased a Link Station Live LS-CHL 1 TB. in the USA I have been trying for several days to get my 25000+ song library to show up in iTunes via the media server. I have spoken with tech support twice and searched this board. I updated to Firmware 1.02 and reset to defaults etc. but the server would not work.

 

Finally I discovered what at least one of the issues was by adding files a group at a time.  It seems that the media server will choke and stop running if it finds files that contain a "." in the file name for example a folder named P.O.D. or D.O.A. or a file like "my song pt.1_other info.mp3" these files seem to kill my server dead and I have to remove them from the folder and reset to default and start over. For all I know there are more things that the server can die from. tech support didn't tell me about this issue.

 

I wish there were a list of illeagal characters or better yet if the server had some kind of warning or would trap out the files with bad characters. This would have saved me several hours of trial and error. Also these files do not have an issue when published via my Mac through iTunes, only on the Linkstation.

 

I hope this helps someone.

[Paul]

We will be releasing a new firmware update for this soon, however we until the release please also avoid spaces. 

[jrab]

   Is this still an issue? Does firmware 1.03 fix this? I see a firmware update for PC, but not OSX. I am wondering if it's related to why my library doesn't get created when I have all my music in it, but it seems to if I slowly add directories to it (see http://forums.buffalotech.com/buffalo/board/message?board.id=0101&thread.id=10705). I'm searching the character thread since some of my files have accents (for instance Beyoncé or Béla Fleck) and in iTunes it looks like they have oriental characters instead of accents. I dread the thought of renaming half the library and babysitting this process.

[mdntblu]

   

 

I was able to get mine to work by go into my Twonky configuration screen : http://IP ADDRESS:9050/config and in the iTunes Library file section I browsed to the .xml iTunes Library file on my Linkstation.  My address location was /Music/iTunes/iTunes Library.xml which may be the same as yours.

Then when I go into iTunes on my computer it sees my Media Server and I can play music from it. 

Only problem is there are no playlists shown up.  However my daugher has a Linksys Wireless-B Music System and it shows the playlists when I browse to the mediaserver playlists section. Weird. 

 

[jrab]

   

wow - i missed the twonky config screen in searching for solutions. That looks handy.

 

All in all though, it turns out I just needed something that would have logged problems. It turns out that 1 file out of over 16000 was bad. Consequently, the server couldn't start up. A logger would have indicated where things broke so I could have spent a more enjoyable day. Instead I had to move a bunch of files to the store, restart the server, move more, restart, remove half when it broke, restart, find the bad file by doing that a bunch more times and then cautiously moving the rest. It took hours.

[jrab]

   

Still didn't fix the bad character problems though. Maybe there is something in Twonky for that?