AT&T Speedport - DLNA/UPnP setup

I’m reaching out here because the networking pdf section seems pretty quiet lately.

I've been trying to get my router—the one mentioned in the thread title—to act as a DLNA server so that the hard drive full of movies I have plugged into its USB port shows up on all my DLNA clients.

In the router's web interface under media playback (DLNA), I shared the specific folder containing my movies, and everything seems to indicate it's active; I even made sure UPnP is enabled, yet not a single device on my network can see it, whether it's my two TVs, my PC, or my phone.

Interestingly, when I shared that same drive via the router as standard network storage (a Windows share), I was able to access it, though it wasn't exactly seamless since it doesn't just pop up automatically—I have to manually type in the IP address and the directory path to get in.

Does anyone have any thoughts on how to fix this? It's becoming a bit of a headache because my plasma TV doesn't support Windows shares, and my other TV, which actually does support them, won't connect to any Windows share at all—not even the one on my PC, despite me entering the credentials perfectly. Could the fact that the second TV is failing to connect be a sign that there's an underlying issue with my network setup? I've already gone through the trouble of resetting everything I possibly could.

Thanks

Not sure if this helps since you're still waiting on an answer, but check out this manual below.
It mentions it on page 116.
https://help.cosmote.gr/system/templ...Manual_eng.pdf

Maybe try searching YouTube for something...
https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...port+Plus+dlna

I'm out of ideas, but there...

Man, that USB drive is basically a SATA drive to you now, isn't it?

Think of it this way: your router is acting as the SATA host and controller.

But here's the real question—how exactly is the router presenting that drive to the rest of your network?

If you're trying to set it up as a Windows share, you're essentially turning that router into a Windows SMB server. That means all your other devices have to act as Windows SMB clients, all tied together by their IP addresses.

George Murphy12 said:Not sure if this helps since you're still waiting on an answer, but check out this manual below.
It mentions it on page 116.
https://help.cosmote.gr/system/templ...Manual_eng.pdf

Maybe try searching YouTube for something...
https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...port+Plus+dlna

I'm out of ideas, but there...

Thanks. I've actually already gone through those instructions and followed everything exactly as described. Honestly, it really couldn't be any simpler than it is right now.

Jack Cook7 said:Man, that USB drive is basically a SATA drive to you now, isn't it?

Think of it this way: your router is acting as the SATA host and controller.

But here's the real question—how exactly is the router presenting that drive to the rest of your network?

If you're trying to set it up as a Windows share, you're essentially turning that router into a Windows SMB server. That means all your other devices have to act as Windows SMB clients, all tied together by their IP addresses.

Hmm, the drive is SATA inside a USB enclosure, so the enclosure should be handling the SATA-to-USB conversion itself.

My goal is to have both working. My home network—the part using the Windows share—is functioning perfectly fine, so that side of things is all set. It’s just this media server component within the router that's being stubborn; the router simply won't show up on any of the DLNA clients, even though UPnP is definitely enabled. Both of my TVs can see each other, and they can both see my PC, and the PC sees them just fine. But for some reason, they just won't recognize the router as a media server.

P.S. maybe I should check the technical specs in the PDF.

wanderingbison9 said:Thanks. I've actually already gone through those instructions and followed everything exactly as described. Honestly, it really couldn't be any simpler than it is right now.

Hmm, the drive is SATA inside a USB enclosure, so the enclosure should be handling the SATA-to-USB conversion itself.

My goal is to have both working. My home network—the part using the Windows share—is functioning perfectly fine, so that side of things is all set. It’s just this media server component within the router that's being stubborn; the router simply won't show up on any of the DLNA clients, even though UPnP is definitely enabled. Both of my TVs can see each other, and they can both see my PC, and the PC sees them just fine. But for some reason, they just won't recognize the router as a media server.

P.S. maybe I should check the technical specs in the PDF.

Ugh, you're mixing up two totally different networks. You've got Windows SMB and then you've got DLNA. DLNA is basically a local broadcast network specifically designed for a handful of devices doing real-time streaming.

Then you've got Windows SMB, which is based on IBM networking. Paradoxically, just like DLNA, it's built for small networks without a router, since it's all based on Ethernet broadcasting.

Ditch the phone and disable that Windows share
And the devices should be able to see each other over the physical UTP Ethernet network plugged right into the router.

Once you get the physical Ethernet setup sorted out, then we can worry about the phone's Wi-Fi.

Your phone is probably just hitting the router as a WAP. You gotta make sure there's actually an option in the router settings to present that SATA drive as a DLNA device.

The phone isn't really the priority right now.

I’m thinking that by unchecking the "use network storage" option in my router settings, I might have accidentally disabled SMB as well. Does that sound plausible?

I have my PC and an Apple TV both connected via Ethernet, yet neither of them can seem to find the media server on the router.

wanderingbison9 said:The phone isn't really the priority right now.

I’m thinking that by unchecking the "use network storage" option in my router settings, I might have accidentally disabled SMB as well. Does that sound plausible?

I have my PC and an Apple TV both connected via Ethernet, yet neither of them can seem to find the media server on the router.

Ugh, clearly they’re being super vague about this. That "Use network storage" option could mean literally anything.

At the end of the day, it might mean you have to
- first, toggle "Use network storage" on (which might actually refer to using a USB SATA drive (!)
- and then, you also have to enable DLNA on the local network.

DLNA is basically just a glorified plug-and-play upgrade for a Windows share SMB setup. They *should* be compatible, but honestly, it feels like a total pipe dream. Try turning one or the other off. It's a Layer 2 network, so you don't need DHCP or an IP or any of that junk. But you won't be able to reach anything outside that specific network.

Once you get everything humming internally, then we can start talking about accessing stuff from the outside through the gateway.

Something feels completely off here. To make matters more confusing, I have a Samsung TV that supports SMB shares, and it worked perfectly fine at my other apartment when I was using an old AT&T Speedport. But now, in this place, the exact same TV just can't seem to access the shares on my PC; it actually detects them—the icon shows up white instead of gray—but then it just hangs. It sits there saying "Please wait..." before eventually throwing a "Connection to server failed" error.

Hold up, let’s slow things down for a sec.

That hard drive inside an external enclosure is almost definitely just a standard SATA HDD tucked behind a SATA-to-USB converter. So, on the PC side, you've basically got a USB-to-SATA bridge making that drive look like a local SATA drive. From there, you can set it up to show up however you want. If you want it to act as a Windows share via SMB, it needs to be visible on the network.

So, how are all these devices actually hooked up? Is everything running through Ethernet straight into a router that's acting as a switch or a hub?

Jack Cook7 said:Hold up, let’s slow things down for a sec.

That hard drive inside an external enclosure is almost definitely just a standard SATA HDD tucked behind a SATA-to-USB converter. So, on the PC side, you've basically got a USB-to-SATA bridge making that drive look like a local SATA drive. From there, you can set it up to show up however you want. If you want it to act as a Windows share via SMB, it needs to be visible on the network.

So, how are all these devices actually hooked up? Is everything running through Ethernet straight into a router that's acting as a switch or a hub?

My PC and the Apple TV are both permanently wired to the router—though the PC is actually running through a Powerline adapter. The TVs are all on Wi-Fi. I'm not entirely sure if the router is behaving like a switch or a hub in this setup. For testing purposes, I even tried plugging the Apple TV directly into the Samsung TV, but the result was the same: the TV can see the shares on the PC and the router, but it can't actually access them. Interestingly, it sees the media servers on the PC and the other TV and can reach them just fine, yet not a single device can see the media server on the router, almost as if it isn't "announcing" itself at all, even though UPnP is definitely turned on.

I just happened to stumble upon this. It looks to me like you’ve got a few different issues all piled up on top of one another, doesn't it? If you haven't managed to sort it out yet, let me know.

In short, if you're running a newer version of Windows, that headache where you can't access shared drives on your Samsung TV is probably because the SMB1 protocol has been disabled by default on most PCs these days. You could try following this, though keeping track of all these shifting settings isn't exactly a walk in the park anymore— https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...l-windows.html

Hey,

Does anyone have any advice on how to set this thing up so the kids get cut off from the internet after an hour?
With my old routers, I could just schedule when the internet *wasn't* working—pretty straightforward—but this interface seems to work the exact opposite way. It’s a bit backwards, if you ask me, and honestly, a little frustrating to navigate.