Since my PC blew up – and took Windows with it – I’ve been gradually making the switch to using Linux as my everyday desktop operating system. Although I’ve been using it on my laptops and netbooks for years, I’ve usually kept Windows on the desktop for one simple reason: TVersity.
TVersity is an excellent UPnP media server which works perfectly with my media playback devices – the PS3, the Xbox 360, and the Roku SoundBridge in the bedroom. Sadly, it’s Windows only – and most of the Linux equivalents have left me cold.
I stumbled across a small daemon called miniDLNA, written by a Netgear engineer for the company’s ReadyNAS range of network attached storage devices, which works like a charm as a TVersity replacement, with one exception – the damn thing refuses to be seen by the Xbox 360. Thankfully, I’ve figured out why.
In the configuration file – /etc/minidlna.conf – the software makes reference to a “presentation URL,” which by default is commented out. This results in an invalid default of http://192.168.0.1:80/, which everything except the Xbox 360 happily ignores. The 360, however, decides to go visit this URL – and falls over.
To fix the issue, simply change the line to the IP address of your server and the port you’ve got miniDLNA working on – 8200 by default. The entire line should end up reading:
# default presentation url is http address on port 80
presentation_url=http://192.168.0.20:8200/
Once that’s done, restart miniDLNA and everything should spring into life.