Help needed! How to connect Unitiserve to NAS!

Posted by: keilic on 04 February 2017

I've spent several frustrating hours trying to make my US and NAS (Synology 412+) talk.

Can anyone share tips to make this work.

What I have done:

  1. Found US "Home Menu" on my web browser.  Even this wasn't simple but didn't take too long.  (For any other beginners out there, you have to find the MAC address of your US on the back panel.  Then type into your browser "\\nssrvXXXX" where the XXXX = last 4 digits of your US's MAC address.  Magically you're hooked up with your US via the WWW.)
  2. Created a couple of share folders on my NAS ("download" for HDtracks, and "Backup" for backing up my US files).
  3. Created "Network Shares" on my US (via the Home Menu).  Initially US didn't see anything from my NAS.  But after manually entering a location, all other locations popped up (except the one that I assigned as a "Music Store" - see below).
  4. Created "Music Store".  I don't know what the difference is between Music Store and Network Share, but mapped the "download" directory (intended for HDtracks) as a Music Store.  It promoted successful "download" as a Music Store.
  5. Copied a music file from HDtrack sampler (originally downloaded to my computer hard-drive by mistake) to the NAS "download" directory. 

Took a couple of hours to do the above.  Then the next couple of hours trying to see something/anything materialize.  But alas I cannot get n-serve or web-browser Home Menu interface to see or play anything from the NAS. 

What am I doing wrong or what should I do so I can play music from NAS via the US? 

Thank you in advance for any help!

Posted on: 17 March 2017 by Adam Zielinski

One more thing - is your NAS now setup and can you stream from it? I'm confused by what you mean when you wrote 'make it run'

Posted on: 17 March 2017 by keilic

Adam, thanks for the quick response.

Re (a), HDTracks covers are PDF files.  What can I do?  However one of them works fine as PDF.  The other 3 don't work.  But you seem to be saying 2 things.  Both the file format and name of the cover could have an impact?  Perhaps I should first change the name to FOLDER.PDF as a first step.  I don't think I can convert the file from PDF to JPG.

Re (b): I can see the file directory and structure (i.e. parent folder correctly at album level, followed by individual tracks inside that directory).  Are you saying despite the directory structure that looks to be in order the metadata could be at fault?  And if so I'm guessing you have Metadatics on your computer that can interact with the US to correct the metadata sitting there?

Re NAS, yes both NAS and US are set up.  But I want the NAS to start the back-up process.  How do you do that as there does not to be a button anywhere for it.

Posted on: 17 March 2017 by Adam Zielinski

RE (a)

  • HD Tracks downloads contain PDFs (booklets) by default. Those will not be read by the UnitiServe.
  • UnitiServe will read (by default) an album cover from a JPG file, placed in the folder of the album.
  • UnitServe is configured to 'react' and read only one type of file telling it, it's an album cover. It has to be called 'folder.jpg'
  • UnitiServe will only read a true JPG - i.e. a file that has been created as a JPG to start with. So converting a PDF to JPG is not recommended
  • The best way is to look up an album cover in a JPG from the internet, change the file name to FOLDER and manually place it in an album folder BEFORE the whole album is uploaded to a UnitiServe or NAS

 

Re (b)

  • Yes - what you describe is a file layout on your server
  • UnitiServe (or any other UPnP server) is essentially a way of interpreting files on a server and presenting them to a user in a logical way. It relies on metadata to organise the presentation and pretty much ignores a filing structure.
  • So if one of the files, that is 'physically' placed in an album folder of say Artist X, is actually tagged as Artist Y, UnitiServe will ignore it. It will do it because it rightly sees that a track by Artits Y does not 'belong' to Artist X
  • That is why good metadata hygiene is paramount when handling large amounts of data / music files
  • If you decide to use Metadatics to edit any album's metadata, files have to be edited OUTSIDE of the UntiServe. The best way to do it is on a computer, before uploading the files to a server.

 

Re NAS backup

  • Have you designated a SHARE on your NAS as a BACKUP folder?

 

Posted on: 17 March 2017 by Mike-B

I'm not a US user,  but can't you remove the .pdf booklet. ???   its serving no purpose in the US other than taking up space.   When I get a download with a .pdf,  I remove it before I upload to NAS & store it in my laptop.   Then if I want to read it,  & that tends to be once only,  its easily accessible.    

Posted on: 17 March 2017 by hungryhalibut

Adam's third bullet under b above is odd. If an album is filed under X but the artist is called 'cabbage', it will show as cabbage in the Naim app regardless. The filing system and metadata are unrelated. 

Posted on: 17 March 2017 by Adam Zielinski
Hungryhalibut posted:

Adam's third bullet under b above is odd. If an album is filed under X but the artist is called 'cabbage', it will show as cabbage in the Naim app regardless. The filing system and metadata are unrelated. 

Of course it will.
Provided 'Cabbage' is an album name. But if it's sorted by Artis X, it should skip Artist Y.
That's what I was trying to say - it may sort Ok under some 'views' and incorrectly under different ones - depending on which tag is being used for sorting.