My book live never sleeps

Updated to F/W 02.03.01-024 from 02.02.02-020 late last night (Tues 25 Oct 2011 shortly after the release was posted) and it didn’t resolve the inability of my MBL 3TB to go into standby. With “standby” enabled and set to 10 minutes and just about all kinds of access disabled (Media, ftp, Remote Access, etc) the drive briefly goes into standby and quickly starts up again. The Blue standby light stays on for about 61 seconds. However by listening to the drive inside the enclosure I hear the hard drive spin-down and almost immediately spin-up again - so its actually only in standby for 1 or 2 seconds. The log reflects that duration that the Blue led is on.  I have not transferred any files to the MBL - so its not transcoding files (whatever that is).

The following was extracted from /var/log/user.log:

Oct 26 00:18:14 localhost apache2: 192.168.0.11 WebUI::session_id=d93e21b83c94185858db5bc3641a913c
Oct 26 00:29:00 localhost logger: Enter standby
Oct 26 00:30:01 localhost logger: exit standby after 61
Oct 26 00:38:28 localhost apache2: 192.168.0.11 WebUI::session_id=d93e21b83c94185858db5bc3641a913c
Oct 26 00:38:28 localhost apache2: 192.168.0.11 WebUI::session_id=d93e21b83c94185858db5bc3641a913c
Oct 26 00:38:40 localhost apache2: 192.168.0.11 WebUI::session_id=d93e21b83c94185858db5bc3641a913c
Oct 26 00:40:40 localhost apache2: 192.168.0.11 WebUI::session_id=d93e21b83c94185858db5bc3641a913c
Oct 26 00:40:40 localhost apache2: 192.168.0.11 WebUI::session_id=d93e21b83c94185858db5bc3641a913c
Oct 26 00:41:35 localhost apache2: 192.168.0.11 WebUI::session_id=d93e21b83c94185858db5bc3641a913c
Oct 26 00:41:35 localhost apache2: 192.168.0.11 WebUI::session_id=d93e21b83c94185858db5bc3641a913c
Oct 26 00:53:17 localhost logger: Enter standby
Oct 26 00:54:18 localhost logger: exit standby after 61
Oct 26 01:05:27 localhost logger: Enter standby
Oct 26 01:06:28 localhost logger: exit standby after 61

A possible clue as to the problem: Myself and a friend both bought 3TB MBLs on the same day. I got the last one from Future Shop (Kanata store in Ottawa, Ontario) and he got one from Best Buy (Kanata store). Mine came with F/W 02.01.06-26 and when I read that the F/W wouldn’t go into standby I immediately (within 45 minutes of first power-up) upgraded to F/W 02.02.02-020. After this F/W update the drive would not go into standby except as descibed above. My friends MBL was possibly an older model and contained F/W 01.xx.xx - something  prior to 01.05.07. So he had to update his F/W twice  - once to get to 01.05.07 and again to get to 02.02.02-020. Unlike my MBL, his drive reliably goes into standby and stays there. So I’m thinking that possibly the problem may be due to me having a newer version of MBL that he does. Possibly I have a different hardware rev or possibly the F/W in my hard drive itself is different than his. If this theory is correct perhaps WD may be able to track down the problem by looking into what changes have gone into the newer versions of MBL.

I consider this problem so severe that I will not be using my MBL until  a fix to the standby problem is available. For WD, email me if you want my S/N if you think it will assist in tracking down my H/W and F/W rev levels.

Regards to WD and Good Luck with your troubleshooting,  WilliamH

Hello William,

Mine was preinstalled with F/W 01.xx.xx, after upgrading to 02.02.02-020 I also have standby problems. Although not the entire time, sometimes it sleeps just fine. Other times (mostly during the night) it wakes up every 60 seconds after sleep. I have the feeling something is still running in the bg, when I ssh to the box I see the “ls” command active in top.

Also in /var/log the mediacrawler.log is updated frequently with error messages. Weird thing is that i disabled the mediacrawler…:

MyBookLive:/var/log# tail mediacrawler.log
exec: No such file or directory
exec: No such file or directory
exec: No such file or directory
exec: No such file or directory
exec: No such file or directory
exec: No such file or directory
exec: No such file or directory
exec: No such file or directory
exec: No such file or directory
exec: No such file or directory

Hoping WD finds the solution soon…

I purchased 3TB MBL yesterday, updated to the very latest firmware, disabled Twonky, iTunes, remote and FTP, backed 400GBs of audio and video data successfully overnight … but the drive never sleeps, just like many others have reported here. I’m considering taking this thing back because I need it to sleep, unless there’s something else that I missed that I should be doing.

Truly a puzzle.  My NAS . . .

Excerpt from `/var/log/user.log`

Nov 1 06:39:23 localhost logger: Enter standby
Nov 1 17:02:23 localhost logger: exit standby after 37380
Nov 1 17:23:10 localhost logger: Enter standby
Nov 1 17:24:11 localhost logger: exit standby after 61
Nov 1 17:35:21 localhost logger: Enter standby
Nov 1 17:44:49 localhost logger: exit standby after 568
Nov 1 17:55:53 localhost logger: Enter standby
Nov 1 18:25:43 localhost logger: exit standby after 1790
Nov 1 18:36:47 localhost logger: Enter standby
Nov 1 23:18:39 localhost logger: exit standby after 16912

 You sure you don’t have any other deviced on your network that’s interacting with your MyBook Live to cause it not to sleep?

A friend of mine had the same issue with a Verbatim Mediashare, which was fixed when he port forwarded his NAS in the router settings. I don’t know if it will help here though.

My MBL is sleeping now like a charm … must have been the pics like discussed earlier in the thread. But I still have iTunes, remote access and Twonky disabled. I’m going to try enabling them one at a time and see what happens.

from my experience if there’s Remote Access enabled, MBL doesn’t sleep. It could be caused by 300 GB of photos on it. Have no clue how long  it takes to process it. It would be worthy to give it a try to enable Remote Access if there’s no data/very few of data.

suley,

See my posting of 26 Oct 2011. My MBL 3 TB is running the latest F/W (02.03.01-024 of 25 Oct 2011) and it will not reliably go into sleep mode (standby).  I have never added ANY files to it. Media, ftp and remote access are all disabled and the browser is not accessing the DashBoard. With standby set for 10 minutes the drive will still not sleep for longer than 61 seconds at 10 minute intervals. The 61 seconds is the period that the Blue LED is on. The actual drive spindown period  (as determined by listening to the drive) is much shorter - on the order of 1 or 2 seconds. The drive was received with F/W 02.01.06-026 installed and it did not sleep as received. It did not sleep after update to F/W 02.02.02-020 that supposedly fixed the standby problem. It still does not sleep with the latest F/W (02.03.01-024) but I was not expecting that this would fix the problem as that F/W release was advertised as a security fix. I have not had any reply from WD staff as to whether they are still actively looking into this problem. I hope that they are still working on this problem as I consider the drive unusable while this problem still exists.

what happens if you disconnect it from the router?

cman548,

There is no difference if I disconnect the MBL from the router (an SMCD3GN). The drive still refuses to go into sleep/standby mode except as previously reported (for 61 seconds (1-2 seconds actual) every 10 minutes). I assume that this implies that whatever is preventing it from sleep/standby is strictly an internal process.

WilliamH,

what operating system are you running on?

I found out that if I don’t eject shares in Lion, it doesn’t go to sleep.

suley,

I’m running WinXP SP3. However I don’t think that makes any difference as the MBL 3TB will not sleep/standby  even if it is the only device connected to the router - all with no remote access, media or ftp enabled. In fact the MBL won’t go to sleep/standby even if it is not connected to the router. i.e. when it’s not connected to anything.

Hello,

I 'm french, sorry for my english.

I’ve got the same problem like William with my book live 1To. I’ve got the last firmware 02.03.01 - 024 and there is no stand-by:

S/N : WDBACG0010HCH-EESN
[
Deleted]

regards

Hi,

My MBL only goes sleep when I turn off the Twonky media server, I have enable all other function, including SSH and FTP, remote access. Also my MBL drive is mapped on my Windows 7 PC and it goes to sleep even if I’m using the PC, but the main reason i bought the NAS was because the DLNA streaming capabilities, so this is not working for me.

Only the original firmware 1.5.? worked ok, but the remote access was slow and buggy, then they changed to WD2GO, the remote acces worked much better but they screw something and the MBL does not goes to sleep.

A Couple of months ago, I receive a WD survey about my satisfaction and possible recommendation of the MBL drive, I rank t it high, but now i’m disapointed of this device so i’m not recommend it anymore.

Please fix this sleep issue soon.

Hello,

I had the same problem after firmware upgrade from 1.x to the current 2.x firmware.

My problem could be solved, by deconnect the MBL from the router. Connect it directly

to the PC (no cross-over cable needed) and reconnect back to router.

Steps I did:

  1. Shutdown MBL

  2. Disconnect MBL from router

  3. Connect MBL to PC (with common patch cable) 

  4. Start MBL

  5. Test new direct connection to MBL

  6. Shutdown MBL

  7. Disconnect MBL from PC

  8. Connect MBL to router

  9. Start MBL

  10. enjoy :slight_smile:

I get this instruction form the WD support.

But I don’t understand why the MBL is now working correctly?!

Regards,

Daniel

Neither do I.  The instructions make no sense to me and I’m a time served network administrator so there is not much I don’t know about networks.

I got the following from their support:

“if you want to determine the reason why the drive is not going to sleep mode firstly go to the dashboard > settings > system > energy saver, after going to energy saver you should be able to see the option to enable it and set the time, set the time to the minimum and then unplug the unit router from the other devices so the only thing you have connected to the device is the router itself, and i’m pretty sure that by doing this you will get the blue light. If so just make sure you stop everything that’s accessing the drive (inluding the backups) so you can get the blue light all the time.”

Makes no sense

Hello LDaniele,

thank you LDaniele for these instructions! now mybook live works correctly (stand-by is ok) !

instructions:

  1. Shutdown MBL

  2. Disconnect MBL from router

  3. Connect MBL to PC (with common patch cable) 

  4. Start MBL

  5. Test new direct connection to MBL

  6. Shutdown MBL

  7. Disconnect MBL from PC

  8. Connect MBL to router

  9. Start MBL

  10. enjoy

thank you

best regards

Just got the following update from WD:

In this particular case what i would recommend is to wait for a firmware update, since you state none of the devices on the network are accessing the unit it should be going to sleep.

Now even if you don’t get the blue light the internal drive that’s on the enclosure will slow down to 5400 RPMs when idle to prevent overheating and to save power, so in other words the device will not be harmed if that happens, however that’s not normal and the drive should be going to sleep mode.

I have two 3TB drives. One goes to sleep and the other one never does. I loaded up the new update on both drives last night and was expecting to see two blue lights this morning. One solid blue and one solid green -STILL.

Both drives are on the same home network, and both are configured with the settings exactly the same, except the drive that never sleeps is set to back up my laptop. The laptop was offline all last night.

Any ideas as to how to get the green light hard drive to enter sleep state without changing the setting for no backup for the laptop?