Accessing MP3s on a NAS via "My Music"

[kihilind]

Noob here - first time on the forum

A while back, my C4 installer told me that I couldn't play my MP3s collection via Sonos, so I bought a NAS and moved my music there.  All was good... until I tried to add more music.  He claimed to connect the C4 to the NAS so all I need to do was to drag it to the folder in Windows File Explorer, but that doesn't work.  He's been a bit of a jerk, saying that it's not his issue and that I have to talk to a PC networking expert.  Before I do that, I wanted to check here for ideas.

Here's the situation:

• NAS ia a Western Digital My Cloud Home
• Set up as a Z drive
• I see the NAS listed as a local disk, below my other drives
• I see the NAS listed under "Network" as DESKTOP-XXXXXXX
• I see the new music in the "Music" folder I created in both the local disk location and the Network location
• I see my old music on C4 under My Music
• I can't find any of the new music in the NAS when I look for it via My Music

Any ideas?

[Amr]

Did you scan your NAS from Control4? You need Composer ME for that, download it and use it.

[kihilind]

Great idea - I had no idea that COmposer Me existed!

I downloaded it, went to the Network File Storage --> Audio Media, saw all my music on the C4, and tried to add the Music folder in MyCloud_XXXXXXX and got this error message.

[thegreatheed]

https://engineerisaac.com/post.php?id=101&fbclid=IwAR1ziZRgMD0Rv7Ua6ZTJo0Ex6RDJ1yp7HycTvaRTkRlTr3mWiNcQkqTQi7Y

[LollerAgent]

2 hours ago, kihilind said:

Great idea - I had no idea that COmposer Me existed!

I downloaded it, went to the Network File Storage --> Audio Media, saw all my music on the C4, and tried to add the Music folder in MyCloud_XXXXXXX and got this error message.

Yeah - it's sort of ridiculous that C4 requires that you use SMB1, but it is what it is.. You'll need to enable SMB1 on your NAS for this to work.

Have you considered a DLNA server running on your NAS instead?  I think there is Plex integration that is also available that you may consider.

[kihilind]

4 hours ago, thegreatheed said:

https://engineerisaac.com/post.php?id=101&fbclid=IwAR1ziZRgMD0Rv7Ua6ZTJo0Ex6RDJ1yp7HycTvaRTkRlTr3mWiNcQkqTQi7Y

Yikes!  "Open an elevated PowerShell" is way out of my comfort zone (and knowledge)...

[kihilind]

2 hours ago, LollerAgent said:

Yeah - it's sort of ridiculous that C4 requires that you use SMB1, but it is what it is.. You'll need to enable SMB1 on your NAS for this to work.

Have you considered a DLNA server running on your NAS instead?  I think there is Plex integration that is also available that you may consider.

I would love to solve it any way I need to.  Is there an easy way to convert the NAS to DLNA or Plex without being a Control 4 dealer?

[zaphod]

This doesn't answer your question directly, but why not using a Music streaming service like Sonos (edit - Spotify)?  It likely has all of the music that you have on your hard drive, and 99% of the other music that you will ever want to listen to, and it is easy to control from your phone, etc.  Ever since C4 2.10 you can connect to C4 audio zones via Spotify connect.  If you have an iPhone you can use Shairplay in pretty much the same way as well.

That's the way that the world is going - does anyone still buy music files when you can get access to everything you want for $10/month and have it on any device that you want?

Edited May 3, 2019 by zaphod
Correct Sonos to Spotify

[LollerAgent]

3 hours ago, zaphod said:

This doesn't answer your question directly, but why not using a Music streaming service like Sonos?  It likely has all of the music that you have on your hard drive, and 99% of the other music that you will ever want to listen to, and it is easy to control from your phone, etc.  Ever since C4 2.10 you can connect to C4 audio zones via Spotify connect.  If you have an iPhone you can use Shairplay in pretty much the same way as well.

That's the way that the world is going - does anyone still buy music files when you can get access to everything you want for $10/month and have it on any device that you want?

Assuming you mean Spotify here?  Even though this question wasn't directed at me, I'll answer

I have a very large music digital music collection in FLAC and MP3.  I have a lot of music that isn't available on streaming services.  There is also a good chance that my local music is much higher quality than what is streaming from Spotify (I know there are FLAC-ish streaming services like Tidal, etc).  This is why I prefer my local library to any streaming service.  With this being said, I'm a pretty avid Spotify user as well.

[kihilind]

3 hours ago, msgreenf said:

Sonos is not a music streaming service. It's a device

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...but it used to stream the music on my hard drive to my C4.  So, in a way, it is streaming software.

[Amr]

You need a dealer to setup DLNA Music driver, this will connect to your NAS and saves you the hassle.

[zaphod]

Sorry, my bad.  I meant Spotify, not Sonos.  

I agree that you can have much better quality music if you have lossless rips and that not everything is on Spotify, but for most users Spotify, or other streaming services, are the best answer and there are other streaming services with higher quality music.  But for most folks Spotify's 320kbps service is good enough.  The OP is new here and doesn't seem to have the most enlightened dealer so she/he may not be aware of the other options.

[Matt Lowe]

if it has not been mentioned the new DLNA driver has been released a little while back and is great for accessing your music library. works much better.

[Tokead]

if it has not been mentioned the new DLNA driver has been released a little while back and is great for accessing your music library. works much better.

Is there a recommended DLNA for Synology devices? The OEM one can't be searched


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[Matt Lowe]

1 minute ago, Tokead said:

Is there a recommended DLNA for Synology devices? The OEM one can't be searched


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

if the nas supports dnla then you can use it with the new driver

 

[Tokead]

if the nas supports dnla then you can use it with the new driver
 

Yes, I'm set up with the driver. It just doesn't do searches, per C4's notes. Just wondering if there's a 3rd party I can mount in the NAS and point to


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[Matt Lowe]

you can use the regular network attached storage driver and that will work if the dnla does not.

 

[South Africa C4 user]

On 5/4/2019 at 12:54 AM, Matt Lowe said:

if it has not been mentioned the new DLNA driver has been released a little while back and is great for accessing your music library. works much better.

As a matter of interest, what has improved? I have never had issues accessing My Music on my Synology NAS and am not using DLNA... not sure whether I should be trying to upgrade or just leave it as is (if it’s not broken, don’t fix it principle)?

[msgreenf]

6 hours ago, South Africa C4 user said:

As a matter of interest, what has improved? I have never had issues accessing My Music on my Synology NAS and am not using DLNA... not sure whether I should be trying to upgrade or just leave it as is (if it’s not broken, don’t fix it principle)?

no scanning. DLNA picks up new music in real time.  No huge meta data library in c4....

[Lawexec]

I too want to have my own FLAC and mp3 music files on a NAS. I can get a QNAP multi-bay NAS chassis and would put two 2.5" SSD drives in it. Each will be 2TB and they'll mirror each other in RAID1. My music collection would reside on the RAID1 mirrored drives in 2 if the QNAP NAS chassis bays.

A Q4 employee specialist in Utah said music files must reside in a FAT32 file system drive for a Q4 EA5 to read and play those files. 

 

But, the Q4 same guy said QNAP NAS equipment has been proven as compatible with the Q4 EA series. I just learned that QNAP formats drives mounted in their chassis bays into the EXT4 file system - FAT32 is not possible. 

 

So, I'm confused. Will my incoming, to be installed EA5 read and play music files residing on my QNAP EXT4 formatted drive (set in RAID1)? This music in the NAS bay would be connected via network, not via the USB cable port on the EA5.

I could get a 2TB FAT32 external hard drive to host the music and connect that drive to the EA5 USB 2.0 port but the C4 employee said frequent unplugging of that drive from the EA5 (to plug it into PC to add music, then plug it in again to EA5) is not recommended by C4.

If anyone has any experience with this issue or good guesses, I'm all ears and will be most appreciative. 

[msgreenf]

15 minutes ago, Lawexec said:

I too want to have my own FLAC and mp3 music files on a NAS. I can get a QNAP multi-bay NAS chassis and would put two 2.5" SSD drives in it. Each will be 2TB and they'll mirror each other in RAID1. My music collection would reside on the RAID1 mirrored drives in 2 if the QNAP NAS chassis bays.

A Q4 employee specialist in Utah said music files must reside in a FAT32 file system drive for a Q4 EA5 to read and play those files. 

 

But, the Q4 same guy said QNAP NAS equipment has been proven as compatible with the Q4 EA series. I just learned that QNAP formats drives mounted in their chassis bays into the EXT4 file system - FAT32 is not possible. 

 

So, I'm confused. Will my incoming, to be installed EA5 read and play music files residing on my QNAP EXT4 formatted drive (set in RAID1)? This music in the NAS bay would be connected via network, not via the USB cable port on the EA5.

I could get a 2TB FAT32 external hard drive to host the music and connect that drive to the EA5 USB 2.0 port but the C4 employee said frequent unplugging of that drive from the EA5 (to plug it into PC to add music, then plug it in again to EA5) is not recommended by C4.

If anyone has any experience with this issue or good guesses, I'm all ears and will be most appreciative. 

I would recommend setting up dlna on it and connecting to c4 that way. 

[Lawexec]

msgreenf just wrote "I would recommend setting up dlna on it and connecting to c4 that." 

I'm not sure what that means. More specifics would be appreciated.

Does that mean use DLNA through my Windows 10 PC to recognize an EXT4-formatted drive in the QNAP NAS chassis holding music files?

[msgreenf]

10 minutes ago, Lawexec said:

msgreenf just wrote "I would recommend setting up dlna on it and connecting to c4 that." 

I'm not sure what that means. More specifics would be appreciated.

Does that mean use DLNA through my Windows 10 PC to recognize an EXT4-formatted drive in the QNAP NAS chassis holding music files?

Don't worry about the format of the qnap. Run a dlna service on the qnap and connect to c4 that way. 

[msgreenf]

https://docs.qnap.com/nas-outdated/QTS4.4.x/en/GUID-DD14ADC9-C1C0-4E79-8BCC-1C0DF3A5F239.html

[JR2]

2 hours ago, Lawexec said:

connect that drive to the EA5 USB 2.0 port but the C4 employee said frequent unplugging of that drive from the EA5 (to plug it into PC to add music, then plug it in again to EA5) is not recommended by C4.

I created a shortcut on my desktop to my EA.  I add and remove files as needed via network share.

\\ip_address_of_EA\media\usb\

Most routers that have an USB port have media services built in.  I use an RK-1 and have enabled file / media sharing.  The reason why I went away from hosting files on my EA was due to 1x USB 2.0 vs 2x USB 3.0 on the router and I can share and stream video content easier.  

I have two drives plugged in, one named music and the other named video.

 

I would run a NAS, but, my router does a fine job for my needs and it's one less item to power and manage.

 

[msgreenf]

Sonos is not a music streaming service. It's a device

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