I can confirm from doing a network capture on the nightly build from the Ubuntu VLC repository (3.0.0-git Vetinari
buildd@lgw01-23.buildd Aug 14 2016 08:02:33) that VLC is not sending a M-SEARCH SSDP discover message. The only thing I can see it sending is a IGMPv2 Membership Report Group to various different multicast addresses, however it only seems to be doing this when I click on the "Network streams (SAP)" local network location from the interface, this should I believe be sent for UPnP as well since (I think) it's the only way a client will join the multicast group which is required for UPnP, none the less after joining the multicast group by clicking the mentioned (SAP) location, the application is still not sending a discover message to any multicast groups. I'm not familiar enough with the VLC code to take a look but this is definitely what is causing the issue.
I tested the same scenario on my Android 6 device using the latest version that's available in the play store and it worked fine, so not sure what the issue could be on the PC. Below is a UDP stream of the M-SEARCH that the Android sent over my network.
Code: Select all
M-SEARCH * HTTP/1.1
HOST: 239.255.255.250:1900
MAN: "ssdp:discover"
MX: 5
ST: urn:schemas-upnp-org:device:MediaServer:1