I have been trying to set up my Pi so that I can read music from a network USB HDD. I cannot find any documentation on this subject apart from stuff on NAS. My drive does not appear to be a NAS drive in the system. I think that it is seen as a mediasrouter/server on the network but it doesn’t have its own IP address or at least one that I can find. I can access it from my SONOS Move and also from my windows PC but I cannot get the Pi to mount this drive. I am not a programmer so have to rely on PiCoreplayer GUI to set it up and there doesn’t seem to be a way to do it. I would like to use one storage place for music and I also want to use the SONOS to access it independently. The Router is a HUAWEI HG 659. Below is a rough schematic of my network layout Not exactly as I have it but roughtly correct. So I would like to disconnect USB1 and only store music on USB2 and access it from the RPi and the SONOS. HUAWEI say they do not support this type of system so are not much help on the forum nor on the PiCoreplayer Forum.
Any thoughts or similar experiences? Do you think that the Moode system would allow me to do this? What Size SD card do I need to flash the Moode player?
If you’re looking to set up a media server why not take a look at Kodi on LibreElec? I know that there are quite a few tutorials and plenty of documentation to set that up on your Raspberry Pi and to interface correctly with USB HDD.
Also, usually, when I find that I’m having issues with devices across a network, it’s usually easiest to break the problem down into separate independent tests and then verify that each of the various components and applications works correctly. So have you been able to correctly mount the USB HDD to the Pi and interface with it so far locally? Can you also try pinging the Pi across your network to ensure that the IP address that you believe it’s located at is accurate and that the device is visible?
Thanks for the Welcome Bryce.
To begin with let me say that the objective of my project was to set up a digital music player and streamer that has analogue output to my Amplifier. I have been able to get the Pi to mount a USB drive locally. So USB 1 in my schematic is a 64GB USB drive. I have also managed to load PiCorePlayer and the LMS and Material skin so I can access the system headlessly via the IP address. The output at the moment is still the built in headphone output on the RPi 4. (Just waiting on your stock of the DAC pro hat to come in!)
The problem is to be able to access USB 2 which is plugged into the Huawei router. It seems not to be a NAS or if it is its IP address is hidden. All other connections including the RPi are visible in windows and through Windows Explorer.
I want to be able to access the USB2 from my SONOS system and the RPi. There is Plugin to allow the RPi to control the SONOS but I loose some functionality of the SONOS if I do that.
Unfortunately I am very new to RPi , Networking and Linux so I am reliant on the supplied GUI to be able to manage the system. I don’t know anything about Kodi or LibreElec. I will see what I can find out.
Hi Bryce
I did have a bit of a look at Kodi. My concern is that its output seems to be HDMI based. I want to feed the analogue output via RCA to my analogue stereo. I am sure that if I spent my time on this approach I may get it to work. Part of the issue is that some applications only recognise certain file formats like MP3. I am playing with FLAC music files.
On a more promising note I was playing with the MOode player to replace PiCorePlayer yesterday and the GUI seems to have more options to network. Still haven’t got it doing what I want but have made a promising start. Will keep you posted.
From memory, I believe KODI has an option to switch between audio outputs on the Pi, but they only come into effect on a reboot. Another option would just be modifying the config file on the Pi to only output through the 3.5mm plug.
