Solved: Delay minidlna daemon to load after mount

Installing and Using OpenWrt
#1

I have external USB HDD (ext4 FS on a rotating disk) attached to my OpenWrt 21.02.2 device.

When minidlnad loads it does not see the mount points.

Fri Jun  3 11:45:02 2022 daemon.info minidlnad[1885]: [2022/06/03 11:45:02] minidlna.c:671: error: Media directory "A,/mnt/sda3/audio" not accessible [No such file or directory]
Fri Jun  3 11:45:02 2022 daemon.info minidlnad[1885]: [2022/06/03 11:45:02] minidlna.c:671: error: Media directory "V,/mnt/sda3/videos" not accessible [No such file or directory]
Fri Jun  3 11:45:02 2022 daemon.info minidlnad[1885]: [2022/06/03 11:45:02] minidlna.c:671: error: Media directory "P,/mnt/sda3/photos" not accessible [No such file or directory]
Fri Jun  3 11:45:03 2022 kern.info kernel: [   21.572858]  sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4
Fri Jun  3 11:45:03 2022 kern.notice kernel: [   21.582665] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
Fri Jun  3 11:45:04 2022 daemon.info samba4-server: io_uring module found, enabling VFS io_uring. (also needs Kernel 5.4+ Support)
Fri Jun  3 11:45:04 2022 daemon.info samba4-server: io_uring module found, enabling VFS io_uring. (also needs Kernel 5.4+ Support)
Fri Jun  3 11:45:05 2022 kern.info kernel: [   22.807455] EXT4-fs (sda3): recovery complete
Fri Jun  3 11:45:05 2022 kern.info kernel: [   22.835553] EXT4-fs (sda3): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts:
Fri Jun  3 11:45:05 2022 kern.info kernel: [   23.010312] Adding 1552380k swap on /dev/sda4.  Priority:-2 extents:1 across:1552

I see in the system logs that minidlna fails, then hdd is recognized and mounted. I do have check fs on boot option enabled. If I reload minidlna it is able to see and serve the files. How do I delay the minidlna daemon being loaded after hdd is mounted. I have manually checked the HDD with e2fsck. There are no errors. BTW Samba4 does not seem to have this issue and has been working fine.

#2

Disable the minidlna service, and add a start, to your local start up script.

Perhaps preceeded by a sleep.

#3

I disabled minidlna and I tried putting following in /etc/rc.local. It does not work. minidlna does not start.

sleep 20
service minidlna start
exit 0

Right after reboot in ssh terminal ....

# service minidlna status
inactive
# service minidlna start
# service minidlna status
running

Where can I change the start priority of the init script? minidlna is at 81 and samba4 is at 98. Samba4 does work.

#4

It's in the minidlna file in /etc/init.d dir,
or rename the S81minidlna softlink to S99minidlna, to make it start last.

Could also try /etc/init.d/minidlna start in the local startup, instead of service.

#5

I did use this and service does start but it is still starting before the drive is mounted. So it cannot see any files. Once booted, I restart the service on a command line, and it can serve the files. Although I do not like systemd, but, is there something analogous that can use "requires" drive mounted? Can a shell script ...say... "loop until drive mounted" then start minidlna? Can I put it in rc.local? I am surprised nobody has seen this issue. And, Samba4 does not have any problems, it does load after the drive is mounted.

#6

I not going to solve this trying problem, but is there any chance you have a SSD drive you could test with media on it to see if ruling out a "rotating disk" delay issue might be pointed out as the culprit?

#7

Yes, I used to have this problem and would remove the mount point from Luci>System>Mount Points and then place the mount command in rc.local followed by the short sleep and /etc/init.d/minidlna start command that @frollic mentioned (keeping minidlna disabled in startup).

#8

Put a semaphore file on the disk, loop until it exists, then start the minidlna.

1 Like
#9

@frollic I was thinking the same. So, here is my solution that works. I did not remove the mount point as @mike suggested because samba also needs it.

Please let me know if anything is wrong or can be improved.

  1. On the root of the hard drive I have a file called mydisk.
touch mydisk
  1. In initscrips I disabled autostart for minidlna.
  2. /etc/rc.local I call my script /root/minidlna.sh
# Put your custom commands here that should be executed once
# the system init finished. By default this file does nothing.
/root/minidlna.sh
exit 0
  1. I created a shell script in /root called minidlna.sh

Here are the contents of that script.

#! /bin/sh
file='/mnt/sda3/mydisk'
while [ ! -f $file ]
do {            
        sleep 10
}
done
/etc/init.d/minidlna start
1 Like
#10

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