Zyxel Network-Attached Storage NAS - Twonky Media Server Configuration and Troubleshooting

This guide explains how to set up and configure the Twonky Media Server, a DLNA service for accessing media files on your NAS appliance. DLNA is compatible with many home multimedia products, including TVs, AV receivers, gaming consoles, and mobile phones. We will cover configuring common features, restricting access for specific devices, selecting shared folders, and checking the server's status for troubleshooting. At the end, we'll also explain how to restore Twonky Media Server to factory settings if it fails to show files, start, or be managed.

End-of-Life Product Notice: We regret to inform you that the product "Zyxel NAS Devices" has reached the end of its useful life. As a result, technical support for this device may be limited. Please be aware that any manipulation or use of a device that is already end-of-life is entirely at your own risk. You can find a list of obsolete devices, including their retirement and end-of-support dates, at the link below. This page also provides the latest updated version for your device: End of Life

Basic configuration 

• Twonky media server can be enabled or disabled from the NAS WebGUI in the control panel:

Service - Media Server - Enable Twonky Media Server

• On the Share Publish tab, you can choose which folders are to be published to the Media Server:

Please keep in mind that the media server's permission options are limited and anyone on the local network can see the full listing of media indexed. Unless the device's access is revoked (see below) - in that case the device cannot access the media server at all. Please set the permissions accordingly on this page.

Twonky Media Server WebGUI

Twonky Media Server WebGUI can be accessed from the NAS using the icon listed in the menu

Alternatively, you can append port 9001 to the address of your NAS server and access it directly, the address may look like this: http://NAS326:9001/

After landing on the media server page, you can stream your media directly to your web browser. You can use Windows Explorer to access the media server listing and your favorite media player to stream the content!

Media Server Configuration

To configure advanced settings on your media server, click the settings button on the top-right corner in the media server WebGUI. On the status screen, you can check the current database status, size of your media server library, database file size, and other useful information that may be helpful when resolving issues.

Another handy feature is the "Ignore directories" feature. Here you can set a comma-separated list of directories that will be ignored by the media server. This is useful for thumbnail data or various other metadata caches to be ignored from listing in the database.

The navigation section allows you to customize the structure of the media server menu on your media players. While the default value works well for most scenarios, you can modify the menu to your preferences.

The security menu allows you to change the access of specific devices to the service. You can set a default behavior here by modifying the "Enable sharing for media receivers automatically" - this is useful for privacy reasons if you for example share the network with someone else. You can also enable or revoke access here for any discovered devices. After opening the "more" menu here, you can specify the type of the media receiver and choose a specific navigation menu type for it.

In the system section, there are miscellaneous options available. You can specify the name of the media server within the network. This is useful to identify the device when there are multiple sources available within one network. You can also specify the language you wish to use, limit picture resolution if your media receiver has issues displaying large photos, or enable support for Sonos. You can specify rescan interval for your media server, although the default value "-1" which enables automatic rescans whenever new content is uploaded automatically works in most scenarios well. If you are troubleshooting some issues, you can enable logging for the media server and inspect it for further analysis later. Finally the media server allows you to restart, manually rescan or purge the database and rebuild it again, should it become corrupt for some reason.

Troubleshooting Twonky Media Server

To restore the Twonky Media Server functionality, you must delete the corrupted configuration file. You can do this via the SSH terminal. Once the Twonky service is restarted, it will launch again in the default configuration and security settings.

Procedure:

1. Download any SSH client, for example, PuTTY or TeraTerm. You can also use Windows built-in OpenSSH from the command prompt.
2. Activate SSH on the NAS (Control Panel > Network > Terminal > Tick Enable SSH Service)
3. Disable the Twonky Server on the NAS
4. Log in to the NAS via SSH client using the user root and your admin password.

5. Type in and confirm the following command:

   rm /i-data/********/.media/twonkymedia/twonkyserver.ini

   Note: replace asterisks with your volume serial number. You should be able to see the available volumes by pressing the Tab key after typing "rm /i-data/" in the terminal.

6. Restart the Twonky server and check if the content is displayed correctly.

Just a heads-up: Zyxel NAS devices have reached the end of their support period. We understand this might be inconvenient, so to help you out, please visit our forum or explore the NAS section in our knowledge base for all the details. You can also find a list of outdated devices and their support timelines at the link below.

• End of Life (EOL/EoL) / End of Support (EOS/EoS)
• Community Forum Personal Cloud Storage

Thanks so much for your understanding and patience!