DLNA stopped working after upgrading to Windows 11

Hi Dave. I'm Greg, here to help you with this.

Try these fixes for DLNA server not working in Windows 11:

https://www.surfacetablethelp.com/2022/05/canno...

https://www.elevenforum.com/t/enable-or-disable...
(The great thing about MVP Shawn Brink's tutorials is that he is normally the best expert on the subjects he writes about, and is usually easily accessible in the Comments section of his tutorials where you can contact him if you need further help.)

https://thegeekpage.com/enable-disable-dlna-ser...

https://www.thewindowsclub.com/media-streaming-...
(Avoid ad links which intrude into editorial copy, especially DO NOT INSTALL Restoro, PC Repair Tool and Reimage ads)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hazYgPPAgIY

Feel free to ask back any questions. Based on the detailed results you post back, I will have other suggestions if necessary.

______________________________________________

Standard Disclaimer: There are links to non-Microsoft websites. The pages appear to be providing accurate, safe information. Watch out for ads on the sites that may advertise products frequently classified as a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Products). Thoroughly research any product advertised on the sites before you decide to download and install it.

Thank you, Greg. Those links are mostly generic and deal with activating the service. It is activated for me and I can browse all the folders available in my Video library. I've spent quite a bit of time Googling my issue and a lot of people have trouble enabling DLNA but I couldn't find any reports of just individual files (avi, mkv) not showing up.

Dave -

So the issue is that after upgrade to Windows 11 your video files are not showing up from the DLNA server, correct? This almost always requires setting up the server again, which is why I gave you those fixes and also a referral to the best expert on doing this.

Often problems like this get fixed with an enabling Windows Update that hasn't been installed yet. Expedite all WIndows Updates from Settings > Windows Update > Check for Updates. Install all including Optional, watch for prompt for Restart, then go back to check again until no more are offered.

You can also go back to Windows 10 where it was working. Since this happened due to upgrade, you have ten days to roll back in Settings > System > Recovery or from WinRE Repair Mode as shown here: https://www.elevenforum.com/t/boot-to-advanced-... Then block it following https://www.itechtics.com/block-windows-22h2-up...

This fix from Windows 10 might also work here:
https://www.tenforums.com/network-sharing/17630...

There are special steps that need to be enabled to play DLNA files with VLC that may need refreshing in Windows 11:
https://videoconverter.wondershare.com/vlc/play...

If you cannot get this to work, you might also want to try different media server software which has some good free options here:

https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/best-media-...

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/home-me...

Feel free to ask back any questions. Based on the detailed results you post back, I will have other suggestions if necessary.

______________________________________________

Standard Disclaimer: There are links to non-Microsoft websites. The pages appear to be providing accurate, safe information. Watch out for ads on the sites that may advertise products frequently classified as a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Products). Thoroughly research any product advertised on the sites before you decide to download and install it.

I should add that after ten days if you still want to go back to Windows 10 it requires a Clean Install which is a vastly superior install to an Upgrade or Downgrade anyway, and solves most problems - especially doing this gold standard Clean Install that has been used by millions without any I've ever seen coming back with further problems:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wiki...
I hope it helps.

It's weird. I've been swapping external drives around and at some point this cleared my video library so I re-created it and lo and behold, videos are now showing up! But not all... some of the folders that did not work before now list all the files correctly (e.g. episodes of a show) but some remain empty.

Incidentally, I have another PC at home, running Windows 10, and I was able to bring up the DLNA server there and the same files missing on Windows 11 are showing fine there.

So... maybe it's an issue with how the library is scanned/indexed, or maybe I just need to wait? I wish there was an easy way to debug this (e.g. inspect indexing progress). Are there log files/events I could check for?

I'm going to wait a bit and see if more files pop up. Worst case, the other Windows 10 PC can become the designated media server :)

I do see one crash in the Windows Application event log but maybe it's a red herring. For example:

Faulting application name: SearchIndexer.exe, version: 7.0.22621.755, time stamp: 0x93900456

Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 10.0.22621.900, time stamp: 0xa97a9ed6

Exception code: 0xc0000409

Fault offset: 0x00000000000a7788

Faulting process id: 0x0x1E6C

Faulting application start time: 0x0x1D92EBB95C98B63

Faulting application path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\SearchIndexer.exe

Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll

Report Id: 45c3c370-1853-4bf3-8dee-f29589262b30

Faulting package full name:

Faulting package-relative application ID:

Interesting, maybe it's the Search service that's causing those other video files to not be added.

Go over Windows Search to make sure the files you want searched are added to index and then Rebuild the Index:

https://www.howtogeek.com/272158/how-to-choose-...

https://www.winhelponline.com/blog/reset-rebuil...

Once you have everything selected you want to be searched and rebuilt the Index per the above tutorials and it should work now.

If not then try these repairs to fix Search not working in Windows 11:

https://www.webnots.com/how-to-fix-windows-11-s...

https://allthings.how/7-ways-to-fix-windows-11-...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HEJj4oyjlQ


Feel free to ask back any questions. Based on the results you post back I may have other suggestions if necessary.

______________________________________________

Standard Disclaimer: There are links to non-Microsoft websites. The pages appear to be providing accurate, safe information. Watch out for ads on the sites that may advertise products frequently classified as a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Products). Thoroughly research any product advertised on the sites before you decide to download and install it.

I tried rebuilding the index by resetting the registry value and restarting the Search service but it looks like if anything, it made things worse - now I'm back to no files showing up at all. I am going to give up - this is too much of poking in the dark and becomes very time consuming. I wish there were log files, something I could inspect and see "processing E:\Data\Videos\Shows and skipping BestShow.avi because Search Index is corrupt" or something like this, but without logs, I don't want to be playing the guessing game.

I had a lot of trouble trying to get DLNA to behave properly and finally gave up on it and used SMB instead. I use VLC on all devices (Smart TV, Chromecast, Android phone, PC). Browsing and playback are flawless. I had to enable SMB 1.0 on the PC because my server (Linksys router) only supports 1.0, but I don't see that as a security issue on a home network.