New Firmware & DLNA Patch - Initial thoughts

WD Legacy Products My Book Live
1

So My Book Live 3TB is now running;

MyBookLive 02.41.05-034

Media Server Version: 2.3.0.12093 (WD Media Server DLNA).

Straight off the bat, I have several connecting devices in our home - PS3 / Xbox 360 / Laptops / Smartphones / Tablets / Computers and WD TV Live.

Now, with Twonky I would have connectivity issues - Especially when streaming to the WD TV Live box or my Windows 8 Machine - It would stream for a short while, disconnect and you’d have to reconnect, find your movie and resume. With this firmware update and the added DLNA Patch, this error seems to have been solved, good news!

Bad news is… Now that one annoying thing has gone, another has arrived - A messy folder structure. Whether this be because of the fact we’ve had to patch from Twonky to DLNA and DLNA is retaining some of Twonky’s original folder structures as well as introducing some of its own… And then throwing in the fact is scans your MBL for the file type of the folder you just clicked on, and presents you with that data too in it’s own folders!! Lost me? Example;

Twonky - 

Connect - Shared Videos / Shared Pictures / Shared Music - Click Folder  - Select listing option (By Folder, By Date etc) - Job done… Enjoy your Library

WD DLNA Media Server

Connect - Music / Photo / Video / storage (who’s this new recruit?!) - Click Folder - Select listing option (In this case, I use By Folder as my preferred option) - Click Public - Click Shared Videos - Wa’hey… Enjoy your Library!

‘storage’ folder, seems to be what the WD DLNA server has retained from the Twonky side of things… You click storage, Public and you’re face with what you originally had with Twonky.

So it’s all a bit messed up, there needs to be options to remove directories from the scan list and a cleaner folder structuring system, much like what Twonky used.

As far as stability goes - I’m very happy so far with the fact my WD TV Live is yet to disconnect and, as minor as it seems - The removal of the ‘View My Files’ on the dashboard. Now it’s been updated with a media server that officially supports Windows 8, I can click in and out of my mapped drives with ease and without connection issues, making the View My Files option redundant.

Patching seems to cause a few problems, for reasons unknown - For me, it was a simple update and patch and then had to click ‘Rebuild’ and ‘Rescan’ on what is now the DLNA options under Media settings on the dashboard for the version to update and to reflect how many files I have on the drive.

Here’s to hoping for a swift sollution to be released for some of the problems that are mentioned above! I’ll be sure to update any further findings.

Trid3nt

2

Are you clicking on Media Server when using the WDTV Content Source, because i had this similar issue.

I then realised to click on Network Shares > Windows Shares > Log in to my NAS (once only) and then the folder structure is proper.

1 Like
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Worked a treat - Thanks alot! :slight_smile:

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I Updated and did the WD DLNA patch. Before the new DLNA WD TV, Samsung DLNA Player and Sony Players all worked great. After update it took a very long time for any files to appear, messy storage showed directories twice and the songs playing would stop and started next song repeatedly, crash and hang. Switching back to Twonky!!! 

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I tried the “new” DLNA server with the My Book Live 2TB and had to revert back to the Twonky immediately. I own all Sony devices in my home and the Twonky sees and plays all my files without a hitch. The new server patch that I installed only saw a few of the same files in some random kind of way. I did a rescan and rebuild, same story. As soon as I went back to Twonky, everything was seen by all my devices again. All of my videos are mpg2, or left in the .vob container. It would seem strange that only a few files would show up with the “new” server, but all show up with Twonky when they are all the same format and have been encoded the same way. The only plus I saw is that thumbnails are now live instead of just plain. The folder structure was also just terrible as well. If this is the “way of the future” for WD My Book Live drives I won’t be able to use them anymore if they don’t work for me. There is no option to use network drives on these devices so I can’t try that either. I guess once this drive fails, it’s on to something else unless WD figures it out, which I do have faith in them doing so.

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@pajjo:

But you shouldn’t have to use that option. When I owned WDTV boxes it worked great too, but those of us who don’t can’t use that option.

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Hi

For me it was also a peace of cake: update and patch, but now…

No data in tje database. The WD Media Player does not find anything? I rebuilt the database en clicked on “scanning”, but nothing happens. 

Who can give me tips to solve this problem?

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exact same issue here - nothing shows up at the slave devices (ie, samsung tv, yamaha receiver, xbox, etc) after installing the wd server.  twonky had a network interface accessible via the ethernet address to enable various settings.  does the wd server have/need anything like this?  when i click either rescan or rebuild in the mbl dashboard it returns quickly but doesn’t seem to do anything - still reports no media found.  switching back to twonky soon if this doesn’t get resolved.

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*** UPDATE SOLVED **** by turning off media sharing for each individual share and then turn them on again!

________________________________________________________________________________

Firmware update went well and I activated the WD Media Server as I have 2 Samsung TVs and would like to be able to use those to play MKVs on my WBL. The ones I tried play fine with thumbnails in the list I was impressed.

BUT no matter what I do I cannot get the WD Server to serve mp3 files. I created a new share and added mp3 files to it, nothing. Rebooted, rescan, rebuild, turned off the server, turned it on again, no music files are recognised. So unfortunately that means I will have to go back toTwonky again.

Barry

1 Like
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Hi

Just like JoeCool I had the problem that the content of the existing standard public-shares where invisible after rebuilding and rescanning the database.

I’ve trided to solve the problem. The test did work!

Make a new public share, rescan en and whoopwhoop the photo is visible!

Hopefully it also will work with video’s and music.

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i gave up.  no way am i going thru the hassle of copying everything to a new directory.  twonky works.  i’m starting to wonder … does wd ever actually test any of this stuff?!

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A) is there a web interface to configure WD DLNA media server i.e. specify directory where my media files are (used to keep them in non default share), any other configs etc like twonky had on port:9000 => None as per forum.

B) is there any place where I can rename the media server so that easy to detect name is visible on media server clients => it takes the MBL hostname I have provided , not a bad default. mere wishlist, have far bigger probs

C) My media files were not detected similar to other folks in the thread, turned off media serving on all shares. rebooted the mybook live NAS. turned media serving ON, rebooted again. - all files are detected but creates an additional directory called store (that relists all of the media in custom shares). if you browse by folder, everything is fine but if you list all, we will see duplicates all over. I excluded default Public folder by marking it as “non media serving” share. BTW, MKV files are detected and play properly

ASK:

  • if there was a config path we could provide to mediaserver (includes custom directory, excludes Public/) it would be neater… saw this being tracked in another thread, NO OPTION yet http://community.wdc.com/t5/My-Book-Live/How-to-tweak-the-new-WD-DLNA-server-on-certain-folder-only/td-p/545954

  • another issue I faced (with twonky 5.x as well) is that inability to specify paths by media type e.g. under pictures where I want to see family pictures only, it will detect all the movie art that is stored with my videos. if somebody knows a trick how to supress certain files from showing under pictures etc

D) my transmission pkg installed via featurepack seems to have conked off - some SSL libs seems to have been overwritten, will try re-installing and see if that works out.

ASK: is there an alternate *Free* media server that was easy and *proven* to install on MBL, and handles MKV files. have seen serviio posts but if somebody has recent confirmation, I will go for that!

re: Stability and Speeds - I use wireless 300N router between WD MyBookLive and WDTV Live. Did not have any issues with twonky 5.x either, nor with WD Media Server. only issue was inability to play MKV files when streaming (even though WDTV live is perfectly capable of playing them!)

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A) is there a web interface to configure WD DLNA media server i.e. specify directory where my media files are (used to keep them in non default share), any other configs etc like twonky had on port:9000

After searching tirelessly… I don’t think there is a web interface for the WD DLNA server, not yet anyway.

B) is there any place where I can rename the media server so that easy to detect name is visible on media server clients

Not that i’m aware of, although this may be possible through SSH access - I’m not too clued up on that side of the configurations.

C) My media files were not detected similar to other folks in the thread, turned off media serving on all shares. rebooted the mybook live NAS. turned media serving ON, rebooted again. - will update is this work out

You have tried rescanning / rebuilding? There are several suggestions on this thread and others regarding this issue, it mostly revolves around the shares.   Try turning the shares off, rescan / rebuild, then turn the shares back on and rescan / rebuild.

D) my transmission pkg installed via featurepack seems to have conked off

I can’t help out on this one.

I hope this helps out a little… All I can say, is that after some tweaking and resetting, my 3tb MBL is now in working order.

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my mbl had no problems w/the update and continues to work well, however, the wd dlna server seems to me to be dead on arrival.  i’m dissapointed in the lack of anyone from wd weighinng in here.  it seems like they don’t test this stuff very thoroughly.

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I find the WD DLNA Server much more stable than Twonky, OK it has some teething problems, but I’ve no more disconnections on my slave devices while streaming movies & music.

I think another update needs to be released to tidy up the WD DLNA server, add some additional features and configurations to customise the server.

I agree though, there seems to be a distinct lack of WD Customer Service support speaking out on the issue.

I’m much happier with the WD DLNA Server, just needs some tender love and care and watch it bloom into Twonky’s successor.

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twonky is certainly nothing to write home about and, while i haven’t had streaming issues, it does periodically just “forget” that it’s supposed to be sharing, and i have to go into the twonky ui and add the “public” directory back in.  annoying, but at least it actually works.  i’ll be thrilled when the wd server is usable, unfortunately, for me a least, it doesn’t yet.

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About two days after updateing the MBL the WD MediaServer is able to serv all the content.
But the Performance is unbelievalbe slow. It makes no fun. The only way to use the MediaServer is to navigate by folder.
The navigation by folder Works fine and fast.

Is there anybody out there having the same problem ?

(I am sorry for my bad english,but I am not used in writing in english)

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This could be down to your network speeds… Bare in mind, if you’re running on wireless, the speed will drastically decrease, unless you’re on a decent wireless N 300Mbps or dual-band router.

Folder navigation is one thing, but streaming over a slow network, it will effect performance. I’ve updated my network so that all slaves and routers are all 300Mbps - There’s no issues with streaming, even when there is traffic from others on the network - Who are also streaming, downloading and gaming etc … There’s no issues.

I’m not suggesting it’s all down to your network, but it could possibly be a big contribution to your problem. 

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Thanks for your answer. The Performance of my network is good (AVM Fritz!Box 7390)
My Samsung TV and Yamaha Receiver are connected by cable my iPad by WLAN.

The interesting thing is, that the performance of the WD Photo app and the folder navigation for videos is faster than with twonkey.

All the other media clients like IOS 8-Player, the player of the Samsung 46ES5700 and Yamaha RX-V 651 are unbelievable slow.

The connection between media client and server break down after 15 min. by Video playback. It seems to be necessary to Update Twonkey 7

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Hi There

Is there any possibility to alter the configuration of these folders as per Trid3nt’s quoted posting below?

 

Twonky - 

Connect - Shared Videos / Shared Pictures / Shared Music - Click Folder  - Select listing option (By Folder, By Date etc) - Job done… Enjoy your Library

 

WD DLNA Media Server

Connect - Music / Photo / Video / storage (who’s this new recruit?!) - Click Folder - Select listing option (In this case, I use By Folder as my preferred option) - Click Public - Click Shared Videos - Wa’hey… Enjoy your Library!

 

 

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Ryan