Home Entertainment Center

 Nothing has changed since last post, but, now when I boot the system in the morning, I just have to wait and the library will be online and accessible after a few minutes. In brief, a Raspberry Pi 4B computer was loaded with the miniDLNA software to provide network access to the 12TB video library. An unexpected benefit and byproduct of the project is a database file of the drives' video contents. This will be used with the router's DLNA database file for the WD Passbook 4TB drive connected to one of the router's USB ports. The drive access project is done. Addendum: Things are so inconsistent due to the slow reaction of the system and system variable respones (AI of a sort). I keep having to restart the minidlna service after the system has booted. There is indication the drives are not mounted when the service begins execution. I'm looking at the  ' RequiresMountsFor' option in systemd. The recent flurry of problems were caused by a single drive that was adde...

 The system is almost done. Currently, the home network is powered up then, after a few minutes, the RPi is plugged in. The RPi is the only mechanical connection not made before network boot. About two ot three minutes after plugging in the RPi, an SSH session is attempted fro my laptop. No monitor or keyboard is used with the RPi. This is known as 'headless' operation of the RPi. Once a SSH session is started, the next step is to check for minidllna operation. At this time, the software does not function correctly, however, by running a couple of commands, the software functions as expected. Before the commands, the drives are listed, but empty when viewed from the TV or the VLC player on my laptop. The drives and contents are visible from a SSH session on the laptop. The commands to be run are: sudo systemctl restart minidlna && sudo systemctl force-reload minidlna I may end up plaing them at the end of the service file or writing a boot script for them. I suspect the...

  At this point in time, I have tried connecting USB drives to the LG oled Smart-TV, and the TP-Link router. Both approaches have issues. The router recreates a database for all drives attached to the router. This means drive access is not available until some time after booting up. Remember, I live off-grid and power down the house every night. This means I have to wait on the router to make the database every day. The TV has limits on the drive space as well as the number of drives. Bottom line: only some of the drives would be accessible. When I first began the study, I ran across mention of a software program, miniDLNA. I had installed the Windows version on my laptop but had access issues and quickly moved on. Some months ago, I purchased a new version of the SoC(System on a Card) Raspberry Pi. A model 3B+ has been running 24/7 on my system as a controller and monitor for my solar power station. I new I would probably want the newer model 4B as a media server for my entertainm...