Lost DLNA streaming and NAS connections under Windows 10 20H2

Question

I'm going crazy since I upgraded from Windows 10 v1909 to Windows 10 v20H2. Under the old system, I had no problems streaming videos from my PC to various Roku devices throughout my house by connecting to the Windows Media Player DLNA server. However, since the upgrade, DLNA has been, at best flaky, and at worst, non-existent.

Immediately after the upgrade, all Roku devices reported that there were no DLNA servers. I went through all of the procedures that everyone lists on the Web to correct the problem.

Turned on streaming under Network and Sharing Center
Turned on "Automatically allow devices to play my media" in Windows Media Player
Enabled Windows Media Player full access through the Firewall
Ensured that "Network Discovery" is turned on for both private and public
Doublechecked to make sure that all drives were shared
Ensured that the PC never goes to sleep
Turned off my VPN
Rebooted several times
Installed Plex

There was still no DLNA server detected.

I've also discovered that my NAS drive is now disconnected and cannot be reached, although it is listed in the File Explorer list. Attempting to open it File Explorer causes Explorer to hang.

I booted from a backup of my old Windows 10 v1909 and everything worked as it should, so it's not a Roku, router or WiFi problem.

Does anyone have any suggestions to fix this problem, other than reverting to my old version of Windows 10? Is this a known issue with 20H2? Will the same problem occur if I install Windows 10 v2004. There are hints on the Web of something called SMB protocol changing in 20H2 that is causing problems with NAS connections. Could this be the problem, and if so, how can I fix it?

Thanks.

Answer 1

I finally have everything working... I think. After applying every recommendation that I could find on the Web (deleting Windows Media File folders, allowing everyone to share everything, etc.) I suddenly discovered that no matter what I did, I could not turn on streaming either from Windows Media Player or under Network and Sharing. Clicking the button simply grayed out the button for a moment and then came back to "Turn on Media Streaming."

I downloaded and installed Tversity, and to my amazement, it works and can stream to all of my devices. This tells me that the problem lies with Windows Media Player and not with Windows 10 itself.

The NAS is now working because of the SMB settings that I changed, I suspect. But I can't be sure. Matlab is also running. It seems that, in addition to every major update of Windows increasing my horizontal and vertical icon spacing by a factor of 30 each time, it also deletes my desktop icon for Matlab for reasons unfathomable.

One last tidbit. One of the suggestions for fixing the streaming problem was to turn on Windows Search Indexing in Control Panel, Programs and Features, Turn Windows Features On and Off. There is no listing or option for Windows Search Indexing there in my Windows 10 installation.

Everyone, thank you for your help. Although none of your suggestions helped, and I had to abandon Windows Media Player, perhaps my experience will help someone else in the future.

Answer 2

Hello @Ellis Freedman ,

A change in Windows 10 v20H2 did not introduce a bug into the SMB implementation but does reveal weaknesses in the SMB implementation of some older devices (I wrote about my findings here: https://gary-nebbett.blogspot.com/2021/06/mapped-network-drive-reconnection.html) - the link does include a workaround which normally alleviates the problem.

The DLNA problem is probably something different. Do the DLNA server(s) show up under the "Network" item in Windows File Explorer? I think that all of the DLNA servers should appear here even if the system that you are using is itself a DLNA server.

Gary

Answer 3

Hello Ellis,

Sorry about the problem with the "-ets" argument; a hyphen/minus character (Unicode value 0x2D) has probably morphed into a similar but different character - perhaps Unicode "hyphen" (value 0x2010), "non-breaking hyphen" (value 0x2011), "figure dash" (value 0x2012), "en dash" (value 0x2013) or "em dash" (value 0x2014). One option would be to try re-pasting the command and then deleting and retyping the "dash" character before hitting return.

Do the DLNA servers appear under the "Network" element on your laptop? There are some "big guns" (powerful analysis techniques) that we could try to bottom out the problem, but let's start with small steps first.

Unfortunately, a brief description of the hardware is of little use to me when trying to understand this problem. There is no particular reason to believe that BIOS/UEFI settings could/do have any impact on the observed behaviour.

Gary

Answer 4

Hello Ellis,

Regarding the NAS drive and the test that I mentioned, the key characteristic is a preponderance of lines starting with "SMB send[0]: [NEGOTIAT]" (the end of the line is not important, in this context); an occasional "SMB send[0]: [NEGOTIAT]" is just normal behaviour.

Can you send an image of the Network item in Windows File Explorer from your laptop? This is what my network looks like:

Do you see you desktop in the "Computer" section?

Gary

Answer 5

Hi ,

I've also discovered that my NAS drive is now disconnected and cannot be reached, although it is listed in the File Explorer list. Attempting to open it File Explorer causes Explorer to hang.

Did you mean that mapping NAS drive will causing Explorer to hang?

If you unmapped the drive, will the explorer hang again? Please feel free to let me know if I have any misunderstanding.

If explorer only hangs when you mapping NAS drive. Then please refer to the following steps:

Set ProviderFlags as 1 (In your case, if you have mapped the NAS to Z, then DriveLetter is Z).

Path : HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Network\<DriveLetter>  
Name : ProviderFlags  
 Type : REG_DWORD  
 Value : 1  

Then restart windows 10 machine and check if the issue still occurs.

Best Regards,
Candy

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