Solving playback issues

[RedRabbit]

Setting up a new Roku Ultra, I love it so far, but i'm having trouble connecting to my NAS ( Buffalo LinkStation 510 ).

I haven't had any issues before with my NAS.  I can connect to it via either the Media Player or the VLC apps on my XBox One and X and it works great.

But when I connect from Roku Media Player i get an endless spinning circle. ( its been like that for a few days! ).  I confirmed that DLNA is turned on.

Ideas?  Its the only thing not working on the Ultra. 

[atc98092]

RMP has not had any real development work in over two years. It's unfortunate, but that's the way it is. RMP will connect to my DLNA servers just fine, but there's likely something about your NAS that RMP isn't liking. I'm not familiar with what you're using on your NAS for DLNA, so can't make any suggestions about making it connect. 

If your NAS supports installing Plex server, that might be a better solution for you. Or, you can install Plex (or even some other DLNA server) on a computer on your network and let that feed the media from your NAS. I use Serviio, but there are a number of different DLNA servers to feed your media from the NAS to your Roku from a computer. 

[RedRabbit]

Thanks for the info, Dan.  Unfortunately the LinkStation doesn't let you install Plex/your own DLNA server, just the one it comes with.

As far setting up Plex or Serviio on a computer, I'd prefer not to have a dedicated computer running all the time, we just have laptops in our house which constantly go to sleep...  (The nice thing about the LinkStation is they aren't much bigger than a harddrive and just live under the TV with all the other equipment).  But i'll think about your suggestion!

[atc98092]

Yes, there certainly is the issue of power consumption with a computer running full time. Although if your media doesn't require transcoding the computer could be quite small and low powered. There are some very small form factor computers that don't take much more power than a NAS, especially if you don't leave a monitor connected and turned on at all times. One of my media computers is connected to my family room TV, but I almost never use the TV to see the screen. I use a VNC client/server and connect from a different computer, which means the computer is only drawing minimal power when it's not doing some sort of work. I use that computer as my TV tuner/recording device if there's something I want recorded over the air. But it too could be a really simple low powered device. I just used an old PC that wasn't being used for anything. 

[RedRabbit]

Good to know! 

But actually I just found a low tech solution.  After upgrading the firmware on my LG TV, I can now see my LinkStation NAS as one of the TV Inputs and i'm able to browse via LG's Photo/Video app.  Not as elegant, since i'll need to use the LG remote in addition to my Roku remote, but it works!

[atc98092]

Nice work! Yeah, the TV interfaces are not much to look at. I have both LG and Samsung sets, and their lousy user interface is one of the reasons I started using Roku players about ten years ago. But as you found, they at least do work. Usually... 😛