UPnP/DLNA oddity ?

Wired or wireless connections?

If former, then might be worth checking up times on network interfaces to see if there have been unexpected disconnects. Could be a case of a damaged cable or a network switch failing. (dodgy caps in a smpsu can cause random lockup/reboots on some switches)

If wireless - something may have changed in the local environment to make throughput less reliable - neighbouring wlans etc or even a radio losing output power with age.

Spinning rust storage?

Could be an indication of excessive retries on a disk access. Checking smart stats would also be worthwhile.

Has the firmware self-updated on the TV?

minidlna seems to be unmaintained, at least as far as I can remember. But it's still the best solution around (I use it).

Following a bit of swap'n'see I think I may have isolated the ****ing network access point as the culprit. A sodding homeplug ....

You've not added anything to the netwrok recently have you?

I had a problem with Logitech Media Server and MiniDLNA. Almost everything on the network worked fine, but the Cambridge Audio NP30 on my hi-fi took many minutes to see one and sometimes half an hour to see the other - without MiniDLNA, everything happened immediately. LMS had to be the one to stay, as we have a Squeezebox Classic in the kitchen.

SteveW

Yes it all very much depends on recovery times. I notice even here that Amazon Echos connected by wireless can vanish for a few seconds for no good reason and if you listen carefully often there are minor glitches sometimes a complete power down of everything is fine for say a couple of weeks, but not always. I'd also suggest asking if you have any power the mains internet devices. I spoke to a person the other day with weird drop outs on their walk about phone. On listening to it it seemed to be a bit like the sort of ticking one used to get from idling cars with no suppression but the give away was weird bursts of almost signal loss a bit like when mobiles are struggling. It did turn out to be the poweline adaptors recently added somewhere in the vicinity radiating enough to disrupt signals from short waves to almost light! I do wonder how these devices are allowed to be used, mostly by BT and Sky. Chinese rubbish!

Bah humbug.

Brian

I had not read this when I posted but these pieces of crap should be gathered together and ceremonially incinerated. Brian

I hadn't isolated it at that point. But two separate devices playing up makes you look further upstream and the common denominator was the homeplug. I swapped it with one on another room, and the problem went with it :)

From experience, they're OK for a temporary lash up. But they *will* fail.