PhotoCloud unable to connect to Nasdrive

[chris]

I have Photo Cloud loaded on a 65" Sony Bravia smart TV that is exclusively used to show slideshows via wifi from a Synology nasdrive.

This has worked wonderfully for a couple of years but earlier this month, whilst PhotoCloud appears to access the nasdrive and proceed though the various folders of photos, when I attempt to select a specific folder for a slideshow, it will not load the photos - I get the following error message: "Error polling stream, showing cached content: Java.io.IOException: Timeout waiting for remote device uuid:00113290-9d45-0011-459d-459d90321100". If I attempt to select a specific folder to start a slideshow, I get a very large message centre screen: "The stream failed, retrying. Please wait", along with a smaller message across the top of the screen: "Warning: error while polling for photos, showing cached photos until the stream and unmetered network does back online: java.util.concurrent. TimeoutException: Failed to find DNLA device uuid:00113290-d45-0011-459d-459d90321100". 

I am sure that the nasdrive is okay as I have accessed it from my iMac and have today successfully loaded another folder of 20 photos - this new folder does not appear on the screen in PhotoCloud - presumably because it is only showing 'cached content'. I have also switched the nasdrive off and unplugged it for 2 minutes and switched it back on - to no avail.

I have also tried using 'Album' (another photo app on the Sony - not as good as PhotoCloud) and it also cannot find the nasdrive (it does however find our Sonos audio devices), suggesting that it may be something to do with the Sony. I wonder whether anyone else has had this problem.

     

[Martin Vysny]

Hi Chris,

thank you for sharing. Just a quick guess: could it be that the
Synology software has been upgraded and changed its DLNA UUID in the
process? Could you please try to remove and add the Synology DLNA back
to PhotoCloud, to see whether it would fix/improve the problem?

I wonder whether the Synology DLNA is working properly. Perhaps if you
could try another DLNA client app on your phone to check whether it
would work?

In the worst case, you can try to share your photos on Synology in other
ways, too: PhotoCloud supports SFTP/SSH access, Samba access and there
may be others as well.

Best regards,
Martin

On 28.9.2021 22.14, chris wrote:
> I have Photo Cloud loaded on a 65" Sony Bravia smart TV that is
> exclusively used to show slideshows via wifi from a Synology nasdrive.
> This has worked wonderfully for a couple of years but earlier this
> month, whilst PhotoCloud appears to access the nasdrive and proceed
> though the various folders of photos, when I attempt to select a
> specific folder for a slideshow, it will not load the photos - I get the

> following error message: /"Error polling stream, showing cached content:

> Java.io.IOException: Timeout waiting for remote device

> uuid:00113290-9d45-0011-459d-459d90321100"/. If I attempt to select a

> specific folder to start a slideshow, I get a very large message centre

> screen: /"The stream failed, retrying. Please wait"/, along with a
> smaller message across the top of the screen: /"Warning: error while

> polling for photos, showing cached photos until the stream and unmetered
> network does back online: java.util.concurrent. TimeoutException: Failed

> to find DNLA device uuid:00113290-d45-0011-459d-459d90321100"/.

> I am sure that the nasdrive is okay as I have accessed it from my iMac
> and have today successfully loaded another folder of 20 photos - this
> new folder does not appear on the screen in PhotoCloud - presumably
> because it is only showing 'cached content'. I have also switched the
> nasdrive off and unplugged it for 2 minutes and switched it back on - to
> no avail.
> I have also tried using 'Album' (another photo app on the Sony - not as
> good as PhotoCloud) and it also cannot find the nasdrive (it does
> however find our Sonos audio devices), suggesting that it may be
> something to do with the Sony. I wonder whether anyone else has had this
> problem.
>

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[Martin Vysny]

Hi Chris,

no problem! Let's walk through the problem one step at a time.

Synology is able to provide photos to clients using certain "protocols".
DLNA is one of those protocols; it is really popular these days and has
even been implemented by a bunch of Smart TVs and the like.

However, DLNA is really a complex standard and it's really hard to
implement it correctly. Since you told me that your iMac works just fine
with Synology, it could be that Synology+iMac works just fine while
PhotoCloud's DLNA client is just not somehow compatible with Synology's
DLNA server. That might happen, even though I haven't seen reports for
DLNA in particular.

The workaround would be to try to share photos from your Synology using
a different "protocol" in addition to DLNA. I'm pretty sure that
Synology supports at least something called "Windows Share, or Samba, or
SMB" and something called SSH/SFTP, both of those are supported by
PhotoCloud as well. So, while this requires a bit of technical skills,
still this is something you can fix yourself rather quickly.

You can visit the following links to help you:

[1]
https://kb.synology.com/en-ca/DSM/help/DSM/AdminCenter/file_winmacnfs_win?version=6

[2]
https://kb.synology.com/en-ca/DSM/help/DSM/AdminCenter/file_ftp_sftp?version=6


Alternatively would be for me to somehow investigate what's going on;
unfortunately I don't have local access to your network and also DLNA is
rather a complex standard, effectively preventing me to diagnose+fix
this issue properly :(

Best regards,
Martin

On 1.10.2021 19.19, Chris Helmore wrote:
> Many thanks for the prompt reply Martin
>
> Unfortunately I am not very tech-lit, so I don’t really understand what you are suggesting I should try, particularly in the last two paragraphs. As far as I am aware, the Synology software has not been upgraded or changed - I think I would have had notification of this if it had? I will perhaps try removing and adding back the Synology to PhotoCloud, but I am not 100% sure how to do this, and the fact that it does not appear in the other photo app ‘Album’ either on the Sony suggests that the problem is at the Sony end rather than the Synology. As I said, I can access the folders and view the photos on the Synology from my iMac, so I think that the Synology is working okay.
>
> Before I do anything drastic, I think I will try to contact Sony first - we were annoyed when they announced that they were no longer going to allow access to BBC iPlayer, so maybe they have something against Synology too?
>
> Presumably you have not come across this problem before?
>
> I will let you know if I get anywhere with Sony.
>
> Regards
>
> Chris

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[Martin Vysny]

Hi Chris,

thank you for letting me know. This new issue is certainly an
improvement, since it means that PhotoCloud was able to connect to DLNA
service.

I've investigated the issue a bit and I found out that PhotoCloud only
supported version 1 of urn:schemas-upnp-org:service:ContentDirectory:1
service, while your Synology might only support version 4 of the
ContentDirectory service. I've made PhotoCloud to accept version 4 as
well, let's hope it's backward compatible :-D

I'll modify PhotoCloud to also accept ContentDirectory v4; let's see
whether it will work.

Best regards,
Martin

On 29.11.2021 21.57, Chris Helmore wrote:
> Hello Martin
> Many thanks for the time you spent responding to our problem. We have
> been away for couple of weeks and have not had time to follow through on
> your response until now.
>
> Before attempting to use a different protocol as you suggested in your
> previous email, I tried using ‘DSPhoto’, yet another photo app which we
> had loaded onto the Sony before we found Photocloud. DS Photo is nowhere
> near as good as PhotoCloud, but surprisingly it _does _connect directly
> to our Synology nasdrive and can give us slideshows from any of the
> folders - however, it does not show captions, the maximum display time
> is 60 seconds, it takes a long time to load and has to be reconfigured
> each time it is opened - so we really want to be able to use PhotoCloud.
>
> We have visited Sevenoaks, the specialist retailer from whom we
> purchased the Sony, and they could not give us any answers as to why we
> are not able to access the nasdrive except in DS Photo - they mentioned
> that Sony had done some deal with Google (probably when we lost access
> to BBC iPlayer) and that this may have had some impact, but we cannot
> find out any more about this.
>
> As it may have had something to do with an out-of-date Sony operating
> system, we have tried uninstalling and reinstalling Photocloud - this
> was partially successful, in that we do not get the error messages
> mentioned in my first email.
> However, when we go into PhotoCloud and hit ‘Add new stream’ / 'DLNA
> Server', the Synology appears at the bottom of a list of audio programs,
> but when we select it, we get this message: /’Synology DS218j DS218j
> 6.2-25556 does not provide content directory and is thus not browsable
> for photos’/. Does this mean anything to you?
>
> We have not changed anything on the nasdrive (which is solely for
> photos) and a ‘content directory’ has never been mentioned in the past
> when we were able to view photos with no problem on PhotoCloud!
>
> If this is still not something you have a definite remedy for, we are
> happy to give you access to our network (if this is technically
> possible!) if you re willing and able to help us. We’re happy to meet
> your (reasonable!) costs if needs be.
>
> I look forward to hearing from you.
>
> Best regards
> Chris
>> On 4 Oct 2021, at 09:51, Martin Vysny <mar...@vysny.me

>>>>> <mailto:photocloud-fra...@googlegroups.com

>>>>> <mailto:photocloud-fra...@googlegroups.com>>.
>>>>> To view this discussion on the web visit
>>>>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/photocloud-frame/38225747-d963-4ae7-91cb-39c16786ccdfn%40googlegroups.com
>>>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/photocloud-frame/38225747-d963-4ae7-91cb-39c16786ccdfn%40googlegroups.com>

>>>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/photocloud-frame/38225747-d963-4ae7-91cb-39c16786ccdfn%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer

>>>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/photocloud-frame/38225747-d963-4ae7-91cb-39c16786ccdfn%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>>.
>>>>
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>

[Martin Vysny]

Hi Chris,

I'm sorry to hear that the DLNA is not working for you. DLNA is a
complex protocol and as such it's really easy to get things wrong.

I wouldn't put too much stress into the repeated DS218j - it's basically
the Cling library putting together model name, number and other things
and it's easy to get something repeated. It's just a display issue,
nothing else.

The reason is as previously: Synology doesn't offer the
urn:schemas-upnp-org:service:ContentDirectory: DLNA service which is
required for photo browsing. Perhaps it offers some other photo-browsing
DLNA service? I have no idea - DLNA is very complex and it's easy to
miss things.

It's good that you went the SSH/SFTP route - that thing is rock-solid.

Host name is the IP address of your Synology device, it will look like
192.168.1.25 or similar. You can figure the IP address via
https://linuxhint.com/how-do-i-find-the-ip-address-of-my-synology-nas/

If I remember correctly, when you enable SSH/SFTP on your Synology, you
can add users allowed to "log in" via SSH in your Synology. Say you have
"admin" user, then the user name is "admin". Just try it out a bit and
you'll eventually get there.

Best regards,
Martin

On 9.9.2022 18.00, Chris Helmore wrote:
> Hello Martin
>

> You may (or may not!) recall the email communications we had last December (below). For various reasons I have not been able to get around to attempting to sort out our problem until now - we are still unable to get the Sony TV to communicate with the Synology NASdrive using PhotoCloud. As before, it will connect using DS Photo (and give access to recently created folders), but not with ‘Album’ (the preloaded Sony photo app) or PhotoCloud.
>
> I have today uninstalled PhotoCloud and then reinstalled it from the Google app store, but we are still having the same problems. If I try to ‘Add new stream’ via DLNA server, the NASdrive comes up at the bottom of the list of devices, but we still get the message ’Synology DS218j DS218j 6.2-25556 does not provide content directory and is thus not browsable for photos’ - the same message as we were getting last year. I am rather puzzled by the repeat of ‘DS218j’ in the identity of the NASdrive, but I am not sure that I can change that?
>
> As the DLNA server didn’t work, I tried the SSH/SFTP Account option, but I am not sure how to respond to the ‘User name’ and ‘Host name, plus optional port’ prompts. Is this something you can help with?
>
> I’m sorry to trouble you again, but we really would like to be able to get PhotoCloud up and running again in time for a significant birthday party next Saturday and for slideshows during the winter months!

>
> I look forward to hearing from you
>

> Best regards
>
> Chris Helmore

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[Martin Vysny]

Hi Chris,

excellent work! Yup, you need to enable SSH server on your Synology, in
order for PhotoCloud to be able to access your Synology via SSH. To
enable ssh on Synology, please follow this article
https://krypted.com/synology/enable-ssh-access-synology/

(or just google for your synology + how to enable ssh).

The article actually states a very important fact: that the user should
be "root". So, simply type in root as Username.

Best regards,
Martin

On 10.9.2022 23.53, Chris Helmore wrote:
> Hello again Martin
>
> Many thanks for your prompt response.
>
> I have managed to establish the IP address for our NAS using the link you provided, but I still haven’t managed to connect the Sony to the NAS in Photocloud.
>
> Having opened the SSH/SFTP page, I am asked for a ‘User name’ and a ‘Host name, plus optional port’.
>
> I am assuming that the ‘Username’ is the name we have given our NAS - in our case ’thegallerybj’ - when we open the NAS from an iMac it tells us it is ‘connected as: thegallerybj’ - am I right in assuming that this is the ‘User name’?
>
> I have then used the IP address (192.168.0.11) found through ’SynologyAssistant’ as the ‘host name’ but it still will not connect.
>
> Am I still missing something? You mention ‘enabling SSH/SFTP on the Synology’ - I have not been prompted to do this and cannot figure out how to do it! Could this be the problem?
>
> Sorry to be such a pain!!
>
> Regards
>
> Chris

[Martin Vysny]

Hi Chris,

good that you have the SSH server enabled. Hmm, the JSchException:
failed to send channel request’ error is really puzzling. Perhaps you
could try connecting to your Synology from your personal computer, to
obtain a more meaningful error message. If you're using Windows on your
PC, you can try WinSCP. Just google for youtube videos on how to use it
to connect to SSH server. If you connect successfully, you can type in
`ls -la` to see the contents of the directory.

Best,
Martin



On 13.9.2022 19.00, Chris Helmore wrote:
> Sorry Martin - still no joy!
>
> I have enabled SSH on the Synology, and have managed to get to the
> ‘home’ page in Photocloud with SSH access as one option in the ‘Play all
> streams’ menu. But I have done this using ’thegallerybj’ as the username
> - using ‘root’ as the username didn’t enable connection. Having opened
> Photocloud, the SSH access now appears as ’thegal...@192.168.0.11
> <mailto:thegal...@192.168.0.11>_:22_’  - the username, and IP address
> + port 22 - which seems to be the default. The SSH option includes ‘All
> photos on your account’, so I am at least as far as I used to be using DLNA!
>
> However, when I select the SSH option, and hit ‘browse’ I get an error
> message: ‘failed to browse root:com.jcraft.jsch.JSchException: failed to
> send channel request’.
> If I hit ’slideshow’ I get an error message: ‘Fatal error
> java.lang.RuntimeException: java.lang.RuntimeException:
> java.lang.RuntimeException: com.jcraft.jsch.JSchException: failed to
> send channel request’.
>
> Is this because I haven’t got a ‘root account’? If so, do you have any
> advice as to how to sort it, as the Synology assistant app doesn’t seem
> to be very helpful - it mentions logging into the system with SSH as a
> user belonging to the local administrators group and running the command
> *sudo -i. *I am really not sure which ’system’ I am supposed to log
> into, how to make SSH a user or how to ‘run a command’.
> *
> *
> I suspect that this is something I need t sort out with Synology, but if
> you happen to have any answers, I would be eternally grateful!!
>
> Once again, sorry to be such a pain!
>
> Regards
>
> Chris
>
>
>> On 12 Sep 2022, at 08:12, Martin Vysny <mar...@vysny.me

>> <mailto:mar...@vysny.me>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Chris,
>>

>>>> <mailto:mar...@vysny.me>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi Chris,
>>>>

>>>>>> <mailto:mar...@vysny.me>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi Chris,
>>>>>>

>>>>>>>> <mailto:mar...@vysny.me> <mailto:mar...@vysny.me

>>>>>>>>>> <mailto:mar...@vysny.me> <mailto:mar...@vysny.me

>>>>>>>>>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/photocloud-frame/ad459203-9ed2-624d-5b21-b49cb370ed9d%40vysny.me
>>>>>>>>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/photocloud-frame/ad459203-9ed2-624d-5b21-b49cb370ed9d%40vysny.me>

>>>>>>>>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/photocloud-frame/ad459203-9ed2-624d-5b21-b49cb370ed9d%40vysny.me
>>>>>>>>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/photocloud-frame/ad459203-9ed2-624d-5b21-b49cb370ed9d%40vysny.me>>.
>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>> <mailto:photocloud-fra...@googlegroups.com>>.
>>>>>>>> To view this discussion on the web visit

>>>>>>>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/photocloud-frame/f24bc4b3-5da1-c11f-6624-21163fbdae84%40vysny.me
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>>>>>>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/photocloud-frame/f24bc4b3-5da1-c11f-6624-21163fbdae84%40vysny.me
>>>>>>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/photocloud-frame/f24bc4b3-5da1-c11f-6624-21163fbdae84%40vysny.me>>.
>>>>>>
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>

[Martin Vysny]

Found something:
https://forum.knime.com/t/ssh-connection-failed-to-send-channel-request/24587

On my Diskstation SSH was enabled, but SFTP wasn’t. The Node “SSH
Connection” needs a SFTP connection and not a SSH connection.

Please try enabling SFTP on your Diskstation as well.

Best regards,
Martin