Weird fail for specific directory (Invalid bytes in character encoding)

[3guboff]

Hello @chachmu,
I have weird issue when trying open specific directory (I'm running minidlna on server, directory Films) in MPV menu:

[mpvDLNA] Starting subprocess: [python3, /home/sasha/.config/mpv/scripts/mpvDLNA/mpvDLNA.py, -b, http://192.168.0.2:8200/rootDesc.xml, 0, 5000]
[mpvDLNA] Starting subprocess: [python3, /home/sasha/.config/mpv/scripts/mpvDLNA/mpvDLNA.py, -b, http://192.168.0.2:8200/rootDesc.xml, 64, 5000]
[mpvDLNA] Starting subprocess: [python3, /home/sasha/.config/mpv/scripts/mpvDLNA/mpvDLNA.py, -b, http://192.168.0.2:8200/rootDesc.xml, 64$0, 5000]
[mpvDLNA] TypeError: cannot convert undefined to object
[mpvDLNA]       at /home/sasha/.config/mpv/scripts/mpvDLNA/main.js:1152
[mpvDLNA]       at /home/sasha/.config/mpv/scripts/mpvDLNA/main.js:1216
[mpvDLNA]       at /home/sasha/.config/mpv/scripts/mpvDLNA/main.js:1322
[mpvDLNA]       at /home/sasha/.config/mpv/scripts/mpvDLNA/modules.js/SelectionMenu.js:310
[mpvDLNA]       at /home/sasha/.config/mpv/scripts/mpvDLNA/modules.js/SelectionMenu.js:243
[mpvDLNA]       at key_cb (@/defaults.js:332)
[mpvDLNA]       at dispatch_key_binding (@/defaults.js:252)
[mpvDLNA]       at Function.prototype.apply (native)
[mpvDLNA]       at dispatch_message (@/defaults.js:122)
[mpvDLNA]       at dispatch_event (@/defaults.js:52)
[mpvDLNA]       at mp_event_loop (@/defaults.js:798)
[mpvDLNA]       at run_script (native)
[mpvDLNA] Could not load js script /home/sasha/.config/mpv/scripts/mpvDLNA/main.js

OS: Linux

I guess it's because this directory contain files (names or whatever) what can't be readed properly from MPV (plugin) side.
Any ideas?

python mpvDLNA.py -b http://192.168.0.2:8200/rootDesc.xml 64:

items:

containers:

Films
64$0

Kid
64$3

Music
64$5
...

python mpvDLNA.py -b http://192.168.0.2:8200/rootDesc.xml '64$0':

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/sasha/.local/share/mise/installs/python/3.14.4/lib/python3.14/site-packages/upnpclient/soap.py", line 122, in call
    xml = etree.fromstring(xml_str)
  File "src/lxml/etree.pyx", line 3433, in lxml.etree.fromstring
  File "src/lxml/parser.pxi", line 2079, in lxml.etree._parseMemoryDocument
  File "src/lxml/parser.pxi", line 1922, in lxml.etree._parseDoc
  File "src/lxml/parser.pxi", line 1947, in lxml.etree._parseDoc_bytes
  File "src/lxml/parser.pxi", line 1194, in lxml.etree._BaseParser._parseDoc
  File "src/lxml/parser.pxi", line 647, in lxml.etree._ParserContext._handleParseResultDoc
  File "src/lxml/parser.pxi", line 765, in lxml.etree._handleParseResult
  File "src/lxml/parser.pxi", line 689, in lxml.etree._raiseParseError
  File "<string>", line 3
lxml.etree.XMLSyntaxError: Invalid bytes in character encoding, line 3, column 1239

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/sasha/.config/mpv/scripts/mpvDLNA/mpvDLNA.py", line 130, in <module>
    browse(sys.argv[2], sys.argv[3], count)
    ~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/sasha/.config/mpv/scripts/mpvDLNA/mpvDLNA.py", line 57, in browse
    result = device.ContentDirectory.Browse(ObjectID=id, BrowseFlag="BrowseDirectChildren", Filter="*", StartingIndex=0, RequestedCount=count, SortCriteria="")
  File "/home/sasha/.local/share/mise/installs/python/3.14.4/lib/python3.14/site-packages/upnpclient/upnp.py", line 475, in __call__
    soap_response = soap_client.call(
        self.name,
    ...<2 lines>...
        http_headers or self.service.device.http_headers,
    )
  File "/home/sasha/.local/share/mise/installs/python/3.14.4/lib/python3.14/site-packages/upnpclient/soap.py", line 126, in call
    xml = etree.fromstring(self._remove_extraneous_xml_declarations(xml_str))
                           ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/sasha/.local/share/mise/installs/python/3.14.4/lib/python3.14/site-packages/upnpclient/soap.py", line 75, in _remove_extraneous_xml_declarations
    if xml_str.startswith("<?xml"):
       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^
TypeError: startswith first arg must be bytes or a tuple of bytes, not str

[chachmu]

I think you're right, it's probably the $ delimeter. When I originally wrote this I don't think I was aware of the fact that DLNA identifiers could include non-alphanumeric characters. I can try to fix it, hopefully won't be too hard.

[chachmu]

Ok it looks like according to your error log the issue is actually in the upnpclient library. I set up a miniDLNA server with delimited ids but weirdly I am not able to replicate the issue on windows or linux.

Do you know what version of upnpclient you have installed?

[3guboff]

Do you know what version of upnpclient you have installed?

> pip show upnpclient
Name: upnpclient
Version: 2.0.3
Summary: Python 3 library for accessing uPnP devices.
Home-page: https://github.com/flyte/upnpclient
Author: 
Author-email: Ellis Percival <flyte@failcode.co.uk>
License-Expression: MIT
Location: /home/sasha/.local/share/mise/installs/python/3.14.4/lib/python3.14/site-packages
Requires: ifaddr, lxml, python-dateutil, requests
Required-by:

[chachmu]

Having looked into the source code for upnpclient I think it does have a bug in how it handles malformed xml, but it should only be an issue if it is receiving invalid xml to begin with. It seems like miniDLNA doesn't do a very good job of handling certain unusual characters in media filenames or metadata so it may be that miniDLNA is sending invalid xml.

You might try testing if VLC or some other DLNA browser is able to access the folder. If those also don't work, you will probably need to either remove the problem characters or try a more robust DLNA server that can handle them.

[3guboff]

Ok, I did quick test by finding file what is breaking upnpclient and it's file what was contain brackets: cats[1080p].mkv (can't parse) -> cats_1080p.mkv (works). Btw () - works fine. I guess someone need to create issue in upnpclient ...

[chachmu]

Weird, I was able to set up a test with a filename containing brackets and it seems to be working fine on the same python and upnpclient versions you have. Is your miniDLNA server up to date?

python3 mpvDLNA.py -b http://10.0.0.152:8200/rootDesc.xml '64$3$1'
items:

test[1080p]
64$3$1$0
http://10.0.0.152:8200/MediaItems/55.mp4

containers:

[3guboff]

package in my system:

➜  ~ paru -Qi minidlna
Name            : minidlna
Version         : 1.3.3-6
Description     : A DLNA/UPnP-AV Media server (aka ReadyDLNA)
Architecture    : x86_64
URL             : https://sourceforge.net/projects/minidlna/
Licenses        : GPL
Groups          : None
Provides        : None
Depends On      : libexif  libjpeg-turbo  libid3tag  flac  libvorbis  ffmpeg  sqlite
Optional Deps   : None
Required By     : None
Optional For    : None
Conflicts With  : None
Replaces        : None
Installed Size  : 332.70 KiB
Packager        : Lukas Fleischer <lfleischer@archlinux.org>
Build Date      : Wed 24 Sep 2025 07:42:06 PM UTC
Install Date    : Tue 18 Nov 2025 09:45:01 PM UTC
Install Reason  : Explicitly installed
Install Script  : No
Validated By    : Signature

Hm, do you think issue with minidlna? Mb you know other good light server?

[chachmu]

My best guess right now is that the issue was somewhere in the filename or metadata of the file and miniDLNA just didn't handle it well. It's hard to say for sure since I still haven't been able to reproduce the issue, even on the same miniDLNA version.

I think if you just want a lightweight dlna server miniDLNA is probably the best option. Something like Plex, Emby, or Jellyfin can also be nice for a full media server solution but they do a lot more than just DLNA so it might be a lot heavier than what you are looking for.

Out of curiosity, how did you rename the file? Did you do it manually or with some tool that might have also edited the metadata of the file?

[3guboff]

Ok, I will try to dig more in miniDLNA.
how did you rename the file: mv old_name new_name and sudo systemctl restart minidlna.service