Having just completed a hike of the Superior Hiking Trail, my wife and I are already thinking of what to hike next summer. We sort of bounce back and forth between domestic and international. Our last international was Greenland in 2024, so we are due to go abroad. We are looking for recommendations. Most likely, we would be doing something relatively short like 2-3 weeks. What are your favorites?

I’m running into a massive roadblock trying to stream WMA audio files from my Synology NAS to a Denon HEOS speaker using MinimServer as my UPnP/DLNA media server.

While my MP3 albums show up and play perfectly fine via the HEOS app, the WMA album remains completely invisible. I know what the core issues are, but I've hit a wall trying to fix them and could really use some expert eyes on this.

The Problem Breakdown

1. MinimServer Limitations: Seemingly, out of the box, MinimServer doesn’t natively index or stream WMA. It requires the MinimStreamer add-on and an external FFmpeg binary to transcode wma:wav on the fly.
2. Web Interface Lockup: The MinimServer web configuration panel completely refuses to save any transcoding properties. When I type settings into stream.transcode or stream.converter and click "Save", the text just stays red with an asterisk. The backend validation script seems to be locking up or failing silently without updating the server.

What I’ve Attempted So Far:

• Licensing: Activated a full Free 30-Day Trial License to unlock MinimStreamer (since the free Starter Edition blocks it).
• Packages: Successfully installed and enabled the MinimStreamer extension. I also installed FFmpeg 7 via the SynoCommunity Package Center.
• The DSM 7 Permission Trap (FFmpeg Binary): Because Synology DSM 7 blocks packages from reading files in outside application directories, I manually created an opt / bin folder structure inside the root MinimServer shared folder. I downloaded a pre-compiled Linux static binary of FFmpeg from John Van Sickle's repo and placed it directly.
• Permissions: Configured full Read & Execute permissions via Synology File Station onto the opt folder, bin folder, and the ffmpeg file.
• Bypassing the broken Web GUI: Since the web interface refuses to save, I tried two alternative backdoors to force the settings:
  1. I manually stopped the package, downloaded minmserver.config injected the strings stream.transcode=wma:wav and strea.converter=ffmpeg , and re-uploaded it.
  2. I used Synology's Task Scheduler to run a root command utilizing MinimServer’s internal command utility to inject the properties directly into the runtime environment database.
• Codec Check: Attempted changing the rule to wma/lossless:wav via script execution just in case the files were originally ripped in a lossless container format.

Current Status:

• The server is online, healthy, and running under a valid Trial License, targeting the exact music index path.
• Network discovery is completely clean. Synology Firewall ports are open. The Denon HEOS app instantly discovers the server and plays MP3s perfectly.
• The WMA Block Persists: Despite scanning the library multiple times, the WMA album remains completely hidden. It seems MinimServer is still rejecting the files during its indexing phase, likely because the underlying transcode engine/validation loop is still failing.

My Questions:

1. Has anyone successfully gotten stream.transcod settings to save on the DSM 7 web GUI for MinimServer, or is this a known bug with a specific workaround?
2. If the Web GUI is throwing a silent error (red text with asterisk), does MinimServer reject the entire configuration line if it can't validate the FFmpeg path?
3. Is my manual pathing correct for MinimServer to auto-detect FFmpeg on DSM 7, or do I need to explicitly define the path string somewhere else since the GUI won't let me type it into stream.converter?

Any help, insights, or alternative backdoor config edits would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.

1. MinimServer
2. Lyrion Music Server
3. Asset UPnP
4. Twonky Server
5. Plex Media Server
6. Synology Media Server
7. Emby
8. Jellyfin
9. Universal Media Server
10. Serviio
11. Roon
12. BubbleUPnP Server
13. Gerbera
14. ReadyMedia
15. Other?

1. MinimServer
2. Lyrion Music Server
3. Asset UPnP
4. Twonky Server
5. Plex Media Server
6. Synology Media Server
7. Emby
8. Jellyfin
9. Universal Media Server
10. Serviio
11. Roon
12. BubbleUPnP Server
13. Gerbera
14. ReadyMedia
15. Other?

I have a small home HEOS setup (2 Amps and 1 Link) pulling music from a Synology DS223 NAS with about 10,000 artists and 100,000+ tracks. Everything worked perfectly until I switched ISPs from Comcast to fiber optic, which changed my home network.

Since the network change, HEOS only shows roughly 1,000 artists instead of the full library. Audio Station on the NAS displays all 10,000+ artists correctly, so the files and metadata are fine.

What I've tried:

• Factory reset all three HEOS devices multiple times
• Re-added network shares using every path variation (IP-based, hostname-based)
• Changed Synology Media Server display format settings
• Toggled NTLMv1 authentication on/off
• Run full re-indexes repeatedly
• Verified file permissions and folder structures

Observations:

• Example: The Beatles only appear with one song (a Pat Benatar cover where they're listed as a contributing artist), but none of their own albums show up
• Artists seem randomly incomplete - no obvious pattern by letter, date added, or genre
• HEOS does see the NAS and connects successfully - it's just not indexing the complete library

My questions:

1. Is there a known library size limit for HEOS indexing over SMB/network shares? That seems weird since this isn't that big of a library and it worked with Comcast.
2. Would switching to Plex Media Server actually help, or does HEOS have similar limitations when accessing via DLNA?
3. Is Roon a better solution obverall + HEOS integration?

I've spent days on this and I'm at a loss. The hardware sounds great - I just can't access most of my music anymore.

Any insights would be hugely appreciated.