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Cannot enable iTunes Server on firmware 3.5.2 build 1126T

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 5:23 pm
by wjouet
Hi all,

Apologies if this problem (or a solution) has already been posted and I've missed it, but since upgrading to firmware 3.5.2 build 1126T on my TS-210 I am unable to enable the iTunes Server and was wondering if anybody else had encountered the same problem and had a solution for it.

If I go to the iTunes server page and select the 'Enable iTunes Service' option (and the option underneath to enable the web configuration page) and then click apply, after the NAS does it's thing and returns me to the page, I still cannot access the configuration page on port 3689 - my browser just comes up saying its not a valid page. I used Microsoft's PortQry utility to see if anything was listening on my NAS's ip address on that port and nothing is.

I've tried rebooting the NAS, re-installing the firmware, unselecting the option between reboots, re-selecting the option etc but to no avail, I cannot access the web page.

Can anybody offer any help ?

Thanks in advance,

Warren

Re: Cannot enable iTunes Server on firmware 3.5.2 build 1126

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 6:00 pm
by c22600
Similar problem as well on iTunes 10.5 with 3.5.2 build 1126T although after about 15 minutes from pressing "Apply", service works and can log into the Config Screen. I noticed this becuase the PW I entered and was able to log into the config screen only works once. Need to re-enter the PW each time from the QNAP iTunes page, press "Apply" and then wait 15 minutes for the service to work in iTunes again and the config screen is available.

TS-459 Pro II Turbo

Cheers..

Re: Cannot enable iTunes Server on firmware 3.5.2 build 1126

Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2011 8:40 pm
by acseven
Regarding this issue, any idea why I doesn't accept the admin and custom password combination?

I have set it up by checking both boxes, and after waiting a few minutes, the server responded again, popping up for the user/password combination.

But it doesn't accept it!

Re: Cannot enable iTunes Server on firmware 3.5.2 build 1126

Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2011 6:02 am
by boogie00
Same thing to me, this is really anoying

Re: Cannot enable iTunes Server on firmware 3.5.2 build 1126

Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 1:41 pm
by gs4mac
I haven't upgraded to the latest firmware but I believe the behavior you are describing is consistent with the older firmware. Basically when you first enable the iTunes server it builds a database of your entire library and during this time you cannot connect to the server. However, once the indexing is complete, the server will respond to requests.

Re: Cannot enable iTunes Server on firmware 3.5.2 build 1126

Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 7:45 pm
by acseven
gs4mac wrote:I haven't upgraded to the latest firmware but I believe the behavior you are describing is consistent with the older firmware. Basically when you first enable the iTunes server it builds a database of your entire library and during this time you cannot connect to the server. However, once the indexing is complete, the server will respond to requests.
My iTunes server was working just fine with the last firmware. This behavior only started after I upgraded to this new build (3.5.2 1126T). It's been over a day since I restarted the iTunes server and the behavior is still the same - it keeps popping up the login box and doesn't accept the correct data. Basically it doesn't work.

Another thing this is that I don't recall being necessary to access any "external" link to configure the itunes server (currently http://myqnap:3689/)! Weren't all the config options available at the qnap admin frontend?

Re: Cannot enable iTunes Server on firmware 3.5.2 build 1126

Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 10:02 pm
by shawnth
Ah.. can anybody from Qnap comment on this. I just upgraded to a TS-459 Pro II yesterday and now on this firmware. Never used the itunes server on my older qnap NAS so don't have a point of reference in terms of how this is supposed to work. I've enabled the itunes server, cannot access the config page link. And I see the following in the system logs which doesn't tell me much:

[iTunes Service] Disabled iTunes password. iTunes service still in use.

I do see my nas show up in itunes on a mac or PC but when I click on it, it immediately jerks the focus away to another folder.

Re: Cannot enable iTunes Server on firmware 3.5.2 build 1126

Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2011 5:14 am
by juice_of_2_limes
Exactly the same problem. Was working fine until the latest firmware. Cannot start it (well appears not to start) and nor can I select it in iTunes even though it shows up.

Re: Cannot enable iTunes Server on firmware 3.5.2 build 1126

Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2011 7:30 pm
by dipidiplop
I have the exact same issue. I was bitter at first, then after spending a couple of hour trying different things, I just pointed it to one simple folder, and it worked. Not sure what is the issue with the rest of my files, but it will be painful to clean this up :(

Update -

After using this one simple folder with one file I finally got access to the web interface of firefly. Allowing me to redirect it to the rest of the songs from the configuration panel. I then launched a full scan on the new directory and could see the progress in the web interface, giving me an estimate of 10 minutes to scan it all. Looking at the process on the nas, nothing went above 6% CPU activity and 4Mb of Ram. Still scanning, will update as it goes. While restarting itunes I could see new songs being added to the server's shared files meaning that so fare it's going well.

Update 1 -

It crashed once again...

Update 2 -

After setting up the log file, found the single faulty mp3 file that was throwing firefly into a loop of death. After deleting the file, it know works like a charm... Sensitive program.

Re: Cannot enable iTunes Server on firmware 3.5.2 build 1126

Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 10:39 am
by boogie00
Ok my experince is this:

If you have your Multimedia directory empty, and add for example 2 songs and then initialize itunes media server it will work and you can access port 3689 to see the itunes media server. But if you add a lot of music files to Media directory at the same time the system will crash. So my workaround is to add little by little my songs to Multimedia folder and then hit "start scan" on file scanner. But as I said if you add too many songs at the same time your server will crash and the only way that I found out to bring it up gains is to take some files out of Multimedia directory.

Re: Cannot enable iTunes Server on firmware 3.5.2 build 1126

Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2011 4:30 pm
by pocki
@dipidiplop: can you tell how you set up the log file to find the faulty mp3 file?

Re: Cannot enable iTunes Server on firmware 3.5.2 build 1126

Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2011 11:23 pm
by AmpDr
pocki wrote:@dipidiplop: can you tell how you set up the log file to find the faulty mp3 file?
I'm not dipidiplop but I have been fighting to get the iTunes server working on my NAS again as well.
Here are the steps you need to take to get started:

And as always... Make sure you have a backup before you start. If you are not comfortable or something does not make sense to you; don't do it. :D
Nothing here should break anything.

From the admin screen select Application Servers > iTunes Server
Enable Server should be checked.
Check the "After enabling this service, click the following link to enter iTunes Web Server configuration page. " This will enable the iTunes admin web page.
Set the password you want to use. PLEASE NOTE: This password SHOULD not be the same password as you use for your NAS admin account. This password is NOT SECURE, it is stored and transmitted in plain text.

Apply

This will start the server. You might be able to get to the iTunes management page now. http://NAS.ip.Address:3689
If you are able to reach the iTunes/Firefly page do the following:
If you are not able to reach the Firefly page you will need to make the modifications to the config file manualy. That is beyond the scope of this posting. Some Google searchs for Firefly or mt-daapd should get you headed in the right direction.

Go to the configuration tab and then at the top of that page select "Show advanced config"
This will expand the window and show you the other options you need to set.

Set the location for your log file if not already set. should be /var/log/mt-daapd.log
You may want to set the "Truncate Logfile" to Yes. This will help you when you start looking at the log later as it will only have the events from that session.
Set the Debug Level - Level 9 is the most verbose and will show you the faulty file if that is what is stopping the iTunes server.

You may also want to make sure that your "Music Folder" is correct. This will need to be changed if you do not have your files in the default /share/Multimedia location.

Save the changes.

Now comes the fun part.

Now go back to the NAS admin screen select and select Application Servers > iTunes Server
Un-check "Enable iTunes Server"
Apply the change.

Now make sure that you have SSH enabled. You will need this to look at the logs. Go to Network Services Telnet/SSH Set the option to Allow SSH and enable SFTP.

Now reboot the NAS. You can do this from System Administration>Power Management and select the Reboot button.
The NAS will reboot.

Now you can use Putty or SCP to connect to the NAS via SSH. If you don't have them a quick search will lead you to them.

SSH into the NAS use admin and then the admin password.
from the command prompt enter: ps | grep mt-daapd
This will show you if mt-daapd (the iTunes/Firefly server is running)

It should not be running. If it is enter the following from the command line: mt-daapd stop

Now you need to start mt-daapd in the foreground so that you can see the errors or file that it is causing the problem.
from the command prompt enter: mt-daapd -d 9 -c /etc/mt-daapd.conf -f

Now you should see all the messages scrolling past...

You need to look for a error "segmentation fault"
If you see this; you have a file that mt-daapd does not like. Look at your log file, some lines above where the segmentation fault happened, you will see the last file that was processed. This should be the "bad" file. You should move or remove this file from the share.

You can/should use WinSCP for this if you are not comfortable using the shell.

If you are having problems finding the file in the log, you can pull the log file into a text editor to make things easy. the log file is in /var/log/mt-daapd.log if you configured as above.

After you have deleted the file that is causing mt-daapd to stop, you can restart mt-daapd again and see if it stops on another file or completes.

use "ctrl-c" to stop mt-daapd when it is running in the forground.

You should also look at your files for any non-media/music files such as .m3u or others. mt-daapd has problems with them if they are not formatted correctly. Another thing to look for is any file with an accent or non-standard character like "á, É, Ö, Ø to name a few. These characters can also cause problems with mt-daapd when in the meta-data or ID3 Tag.

If you don't want SSH/SFTP running; you should disable them after you complete.

Hope this helps...

Maybe QNap will move to another more reliable and feature rich iTunes server like forked-daapd that is still supported and does not have as many problems. Let's hope...

Re: Cannot enable iTunes Server on firmware 3.5.2 build 1126

Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2012 12:01 pm
by zeke_p
I can't enable Itunes server in my TS-119+ firmware_3.6.1_Build0302.
after i hit apply button,it comes back to not enabled.

Re: Cannot enable iTunes Server on firmware 3.5.2 build 1126

Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2012 7:07 pm
by jccguays
I'm sad to say that if it's necessary to do that for listen to your music, it's not worthy to have a QNAP.

Re: Cannot enable iTunes Server on firmware 3.5.2 build 1126

Posted: Sat Oct 20, 2012 12:00 pm
by dipidiplop
pocki wrote:@dipidiplop: can you tell how you set up the log file to find the faulty mp3 file?
Oh boy... Better late than never maybe? I haven't been here in ages and just came to check out how to get the itunes server to start along with the server. Anyway.

How did I get to set up the log file, when I started the server with a single file, I got access to the firefly interface where you can set up the log file location, in the configuration tab.

Sorry for the laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate reply though :)