Volumio 2: Samba share syncing problems

I upgraded my R-Pi model B to Volumio 2 last week. So far, hats of to the developers, I really like the new version.

One feature that I use intensively however and that was not in Volumio 2 by default, is network access via Samba share to the connected external hdd.
Before I would have music on my laptop (Win10) and use SyncToy to sync new files to my R-Pi hdd.

So I manually added the external hdd to the Samba share (see below). I included “writeable = yes” and did “chmod -r 777” on the entire usb hdd. The share works, I can navigate to it on my laptop. But for some reason I cannot sync folders with SyncToy. It cannot copy, rename, overwrite or delete files. It seems like a permission issue, but it’s weird considering the permissions I set.
This worked flawlessly before with the previous Volumio versions, so maybe I did something wrong with the mount, or something changed in the new code that prevents this? Does anyone have an idea about this?

Setup: R-Pi model B, cabled LAN connection, Samsung 640 Gb hdd, Schiit Modi DAC. Laptop with Win10 64-bit, SyncToy 2.1 x64.

File /etc/samba/smb.conf:

[USB Music] comment = USB stored music library path = /mnt/USB read-only = no writeable = yes public = yes follow symlinks = yes wide links = yes

You probably can’t because user volumio does not own them… But it will be dangerous to do so…

'Hmm, probably something like that. I can copy new files to the hdd via SyncToy, just no renames or deletes though.

But what do you mean, it will be dangerous to do so? Is there a way to sync my music to the Pi’s hdd?

So, what could be solution to this? Any ideas, anyone?
I’d really like to be able to sync my hdd’s over the network again.

Directly connecting via my laptop is no option unfortunately. The Pi’s hdd is formatted in Ext4 for better performance, so it doesn’t work under Win10. I could access it with an Ubuntu liveboot, but then I don’t have my syncing software. Plus, this would be too much of a hassle to do regularly.

We’ll implement this feature in a month or so…

In that case I’ll wait for it. Thanks!

That would be very helpful. I just stumbled over this problem at my first volumio installation. By the way - thank you for your great work! The installation went flawlessly with RasPi 3 (onboard wifi) and HifiBerry DAC+

my goal was to be able to mount them my USB drive in windows
all windows was seeing was the internal storage

OP your guide is severely lacking for the linux beginner

here:

  1. gain root access
    in a ssh terminal enter
su

enter the default password

volumio

you now have root access
there are other ways as well but this is one of the easiest ways

  1. open smb.conf for editing
    in the root terminal enter nano /etc/samba/smb.conf
    nano is a terminal text editer, its a lot easier then other options (like “vi”)
    there are also other methods to open the file but this is the easiest

  2. add the new server to smb.conf
    the code you need for the samba server

[name]
        comment = Volumio Music Folder
        path = path/to/share
        read only = no
        guest ok = yes

[name] change this to something that defines your new share (it NEEDS the [square brackets] around it)
comment = its basically a description of the share
path = its the path to your share
read only = no gives write access (allows you to upload new songs)
guest ok = yes - this allows you to access the share without a username or password.
note: the OP says the share is “mnt/USB” thats good if you have multiple shares and want them to appear as 1 drive. personally i mount each drive as 1 share
heres my addition to smb.conf

[USB Music]
        comment = Volumio USB Music Folder
        path = /media/10B1-0C34
        read only = no
        guest ok = yes

now we need to close nano
press ctrl +x
type “y” to save
dont change the name simply press enter
you should now be back at the prompt

  1. restart samba
    if you closed the terminal reopen it and gain su rights again (enter su and type the password of “volumio”
    once your root again enter the following command to restart samba
/etc/init.d/samba restart

press enter
if any of them say fail check your smb.conf file you probably did something wrong

here’s my complete smb.conf file

[global]
netbios name = Volumio
server string = Volumio Audiophile Music Player
workgroup = WORKGROUP
security = user
map to guest = Bad User
encrypt passwords = yes
wins support = yes
local master = no
preferred master = no
os level = 30

[Internal Storage]
        comment = Volumio Internal Music Folder
        path = /data/INTERNAL
        read only = no
        guest ok = yes

[USB Music]
        comment = Volumio USB Music Folder
        path = /media/10B1-0C34
        read only = no
        guest ok = yes

notes about linux

  1. all terminal commands and filenames are cAsE sEnSiTiVe (/data/INTERNAL does not equal /data/internal or /DATA/INTERNAL)
  2. if you don’t have a ssh client i don’t recommend putty
    personally i personally recommend bitvise SSH Client its free for personal use and has a built in SFTP client (its great for finding paths with a GUI)
  3. SFTP does not stand for Secure FTP. it stands for SSH FTP client

some bitvise tips

  1. selecting any text in the ssh window will copy it
    try it: simply highlight any lines (text or no text it dosent matter and it will say “Selection copied to clipboard” in the bottom right.)
  2. right clicking in any terminal window will paste anything on the clipboard
    try it in nano with the addition to smb.conf: make your server in notepad and copy it. now use the down arrow key to position the blinking box on the final empty line and right click)
  3. ever download a text file and its all one big text block with no line breaks. they have them but there not the ones that work in windows. avoid that on your server by doing the following: in the SFTP tab change the download mode and upload mode to from Default" to “auto Lf” this will automatically convert any text file line breaks to/from the windows standard. (it will revert to binary for binary files like: music, jpegs, videos, etc. )

That’s why this is in Help, not in the Guides. The code I used and posted did not work to properly sync due to other problems as michelangelo explained.

@michelangelo
Any statusupdate on this? I updated to the newest Volumio (2.041, released Dec. 12th). The update did mention share/sync as fix, however the sync still does not work. Again, read/write errors.

Up, is there still a bug? I’m interested by this post.

I’m not on Samba yet but I’d like to move music files from my computer to the usb drive. I came here looking for a solution (was thinking about ftp in the first place).