New Release - Firmware Version 2.10.12-129 for My Book Live (3/14/12)

Fair play WDTony.  I ain’t shooting over the bow.  On a customer service and human phychology viewpoint, there is a mobile phone network I’m on called Giffgaff. What’s good with that company is that they’ve gone one step further then Western Digital when it comes to customer support.

They are very transparent when it comes to faults and service issues.  All that’s needed for me is to go to the blog on the web and the staff at this phone company actually explain the reasons for failures and what’s being gone to rectify the problems.

In all fairness on here there is not a lot of feedback coming out of WD’s stable and it’s left to the users of this W.D. community to try identify the problems of which it’s good that some of the discussions make it to the W.D. firmware development team, but the feedback is missing!  Like if there is some issue that’s been found, why does someone responsible for firmware builds NOT get directly in contact with the discoverer of the fault to find out exactly what they know.

For example, the issue of /etc/hosts getting corrupted. W.D. might now know why this is happening, I don’t know why it’s happening but someone on here may have an educated or idle idea that might just explain the reason.

For example, and Idle idea from me now.  Maybe there is some service operating on the MyBook Live that is leaking memory or maybe there is some sort of stack overflow happening, or a buffer overflow condition that’s interfering with some part of the operating system that’s causing the wrong data being written to the file or even worse the wrong data being to the file system resulting in cross-linked files!  In that case correcting one file of the cross-linked file instantly corrupts a file that was not corrupted.

It would also be good that IF there is a reason for missing out the NAS’s device name out of /etc/hosts then somewhere there is an explanation what the reason for this is.

People who are a lot more informed about why things are as they are will panic a lot less more. There are people putting their treasured memories on the MyBook Live and as good as SafePoint is, there will be people who have minimal knowledge.

W.D. also needs to listen to it’s customers a lot more.

For example, implement a selective backup!  Allow shares, folders and sub-folders to be excluded from a SafePoint back-up.  I know this can be done because I’ve done it so I have one 500Gb NAS that I can use to back-up a 1Tb NAS (the MyBook Live) which has more than 500Gb of data stored on it.

Get the thing to co-operate with on-line storage services like DropBox so user-selected shares and/or folders can synchronise with a DropBox storage area.  I know it was mentioned.  What would solve someone’s concerns of losing a small sub-set of files and folders if the drive suddenly fails due to old age,

The reason I wrote my comment about why /etc/hosts is not being updated and trying to find why is because no-one at W.D. is coming forward with an reason so it’s inevitable that people will begin to try find out why.

Maybe the reason someone decided not to update this file during the upgrade process is an attempt to prevent the hosts file getting corrupted and losing access to the WebUI?

I’ll give one suggestion right now that needs to be implemented into the MyBook Live.

Suggestion** :** When the MyBook Live starts up SSH access is enabled for 10 minutes as early on in the boot process as possible. If it is not accessed within 10 minutes it auto-disabled.  If it is accessed within 10 minutes then it is set to remain enabled.  It will be the owner’s choice to disable SSH from the Dashboard UI.

Why do this? In case the Dashboard UI fails and SSH had not been enabled. There will be a route to the back-end to that can be used to try fix the problems.

I’ve already once encountered the dead Dashboard UI after reboot. if SSH had been disabled then I would have been forced to RMA the NAS but I had remembered to enable SSH so recovery of my NAS ended up being a very sweet and simple procedure.

Yet another example, you’ll remember this, when Twonky kept failing all W.D. tech support could suggest was to do a full factory restore. I looked at it and the solution was to stop the Twonky service, erase two files and re-start Twonky.  A solution that just took less than 5 minutes to implement and no need to wipe anything.

Seriously, the community here needs transparency, active feedback and reassurance.

I have seen that people have noted that there are updated versions of certain services that are stated to fix problems. Like the Samba service has been updated several times and maybe even VSFTPD.  (I’m not including Twonky!  Twonky is Wonky!)

Updates of these free-to-distribute services need to be reviewed and if they are not suitable for the MyBook Live, what are the reasons?

I guess that’s what people are asking for on this here forum.  :smiley:

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Just an additional point of note…   On my NAS, even with the name of the device not in the hosts file and the Apache web server stating it can’t resolve the NAS’s name to the IP, how come the Dashboard UI on my NAS works quickly regardless of the state of the /etc/hosts file?

3 Likes

i agree with the sentiment here, you can’t roll out a firmware update that makes your system unusable, really, for the first 24 hours and expect people not to freak out, or call support, or come here asking questions. 

it would have been easy to put one line of text in the release notes that says “may experience slow Dashboard response for the first 24 hours”.  There.  Done!

As it is, I think I will skip this update because my UI, my whole MBl, is acting totally fine (except for dead LED).

A suggestion to the users that posted on the first page of this thread, please edit your post and link to all the replies that included solutions for the problems. That way, if someone Googles it and found their way here, they’d have no problem fixing it.

try clearing IE cache…I had same issue, however after clearing IE cache, it worked.

@WDTony :

As many people here, when I had a lot of issues witth a brand new MBL, the only usefull help I received was from Myron and other contributors of this forum.

Even after opening an incident ticket and waiting for 10 long days, the only answer from WD was just unusefull and completely out of my problem.

So, instead of shooting on people who really help other people here and who are not paid for this, you should better listen to them, go back to work and improve your customer service level.

With all the troubles we have on each new firmare, how is it possible to be confident in WD team ?

Don’t forget, we are all customers.

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Oh - I am not shooting Myron… Myron has been very instrumental to other users and to me in spotting potential issues. These have been communicated directly to the development teams. However; many of the times issues thought to be problems are not.

ThierryB wrote:

@WDTony :

 

 

So, instead of shooting on people who really help other people here and who are not paid for this, you should better listen to them, go back to work and improve your customer service level.

 

With all the troubles we have on each new firmare, how is it possible to be confident in WD team ?

Don’t forget, we are all customers.

 

You guys want transparency, and you want us to respond, but I can see why it’s difficult for anyone to want to respond with posts like this.  Thierry, you’re not helping Myron’s point here. 

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To demonstrate fairness…  Also maybe some MyBook Live owners have mains power issues and many power-cuts?  Maybe some MyBook Live owners are a bit lazy and simply turn off the NAS without commanding it to shut-down? Maybe some people dive in to the back-end using SSH Telnet and made signigicant changes and here I feel sorry for the Firmware development team as a script what would work on their equipment may trash a MyBook Live what has it’s internals significantly changed?  Yes, I’ve made changed to the internals of my own NAS, but I’ve been very careful and kept a detailed change-log.  I’ve actually changed very little.

  • Corrected a bug with Safepoint back-up where the dry-run ignores the exclude.txt file.
  • netatalk service stopped because I don’t need it.
  • Added extra exceptions to the exclude.txt file.
  • Configured the VSFTP service to be more secure and a lot more frustrating to anyone trying to perform a dictionary attack. If an incorrect password is given then VSFTPD waits for longer then 60 seconds before responding. Promiscuous mode has been correctly configured and only two concurrent connections allowed from any one IP address.

There seems to be a problem performing the firmware upgrade through the Dashboard UI and possibly problems using the automatic update so manually copy the upgrade file to the NAS’s Public directory and invoke the script to pick this up and initiate the upgrade.  Just cuts out the Dashboard UI from the equation and this seems to work.

Overall I purchased the MyBook Live to operate as network storage and it actually does this job very well. Curious why people find it slow.  For my own video and auto-editing work the MyBook Live is the disk that contains the projects and had the work-space and temporary folders.  It’s quite quick and apart from it’s quirks I have to admit it is proving to be quite reliable.

Personally I am giving W.D. a chance to correct the faults. At the same time I also recognise that some of the faults should not be there.  Like a device reset button where the option to factory reset the NAS’s operating system is not provided.  The all important SSH back-door to correct faults is disabled by default requiring an RMA if things go really wrong.  There is not even a route in to W.D’s own technical support staff.

There should be a very simple TFTP server on the NAS that could be used as a route to send a firmware file to the NAS to replace a corrupted partition.  Actually, keeping that idea for reference but scrapping it because the SSH facility allows the SFTP protocol so files can be uploaded and downloaded from ANYWHERE on the NAS’s disc.  Perfect.

That SSH route into the NAS needs to be there.

If SSH is to be disabled by default then at least have it enabled for 10 minutes (more-or-less) after boot-up until it’s accessed with a valid login. To which it then remains enabled (as if it was enabled from the Dashboard UI).  If on boot-up of the MyBook Live SSH already enabled then it remains enabled.

With this in place W.D. could write FixIt programs that could be downloaded onto a user’s computer, that then logs in to the MyBook Live and makes corrections. Programs like these technologically challenged people will be able to use and make life A LOT more easier for the first level technical support. WDTony and Bill_S will be also be able to lower their daily consuption of Prozac and stop smoking the weed each night.  :laughing:

I try to be fair with my comments, I try be helpful (proof exists within this on-line community) but I also promise to be constructive critical critic if it’s necessary.

After all that, I quite like the MyBook Live.  Plugged it in, it’s got it’s cool corner in the house and I generally forget it’s there.  It just works, does what I want it to do and consumes very little power.  At the moment the advantages of the MyBook Live outweigh the problems which I do believe WILL get fixed.

At that point of time in the future the MyBook Live will be quite an awesome gadget.  :robothappy:

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@Bill S : 

If you take time to read all my other posts, you’ll see they are all constructive and after my issues were solved (thank’s to other customers here), I tried to do my best to help other people.

As I said before and I’m not the only one, I was realy disapointed about WD customer support. I’m sure you’ll find my questions and answers from your team and then you’ll see that where completely out of the subject. You can also find the way I have corrected all the issues.

Just a funny point : I had 2 answers from WD for the message you quoted : one from you and the other one from WDTony, but I never had any WD answer here when I was in troubles with my MBL.

For this update, I’m not enought confident at the moment to install it (and not a NAS or SSH specialist, but should I have to be one to use your product ?), as my drive works well for the moment (I cross fingers ! ;-)). I don’t want to take the risk to be in troubles again. This drive is not  hobby for me, just a usefull product for my job, so I don’t have a lot of time to correct bugs.

Nevertheless, I thank you for this very usefull forum and I hope you will take much care about this usefull community.

In my case, all the issues where real software problems. :wink:

how long should the update take via SSH? Been waiting a while…

Good to know - definitely something that I’ll be looking into.

I’m not after significant hack/mods, but I am interested in limiting unnecessary components and increasing safety.

Myron wrote:

  I’ve actually changed very little.

 

  • Corrected a bug with Safepoint back-up where the dru-run ignores the exclude.txt file.
  • netatalk service stopped because I don’t need it.
  • Added extra exceptions to the exclude.txt file.
  • Configured the VSFTP service to be more secure and a lot more frustrating to anyone trying to perform a dictionary attack. If an incorrect password is given then VSFTPD waits for longer then 60 seconds before responding. Promiscuous mode has been correctly configured and only two concurrent connections allowed from any one IP address.

I’m not wanting to cause any trouble, but I will post the results of some very simple experimentation I’ve done.

I undid the “/ext/hosts” fix and then again had trouble getting back to the UI.  I redid the fix and could get back to the UI, but could never get it to show a good connection to the Internet (from the Settings/Network menu.)

Rebooted my router and then tried to shut down the MBL using Quick View.  Eventually the MBL disappeared from Quick View, but the LED on the device never stopped being green.

Did a power cycle of the MBL and it seemed to boot normally.  Quick View did not add the MBL to the menu as I expected.  I updated Smartware and then rebooted my PC.

Everything went back to the initial problem state.  That being the file serving seemed fine, but access to the Dashboard was taking several minutes to succeed, if it did succeed.  Access to the Settings menu took 3.5 minutes.  Access to the Network menu took 1.5 minutes.  But eventually it did say “Good” for the Internet connection item on that menu.  And it did respond that my firmware was up to date when I did a “Check for Updates” from the Updates menu.

the HumpMan

For sure not more than 15 minutes.

weetabix wrote:

how long should the update take via SSH? Been waiting a while…

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45 minutes on the phone with warrantee holding for the next available service rep for an RMA. Then at 6:59 pm on the dot they hung up with no warning. I imagine they closed, but couldn’t be bothered to let me know.

WD, this is getting silly. No $150 device is worth this hassle. Come on.

I bought  my book  live  a week  ago  when i instaled  it i  updeted   to  this  firmware  but  is  very  slow   i reach 11 mb  max   its  very  slow   i was  hoping  for  more  like  40 mb  what  is  the  problem  someone  help  me  i  am  dying  here

thegooddoctor wrote:

if you need v124, here is the link (perform a manual update)

http://download.wdc.com/nas/apnc-021009-124-20111113.deb 


 

martiansoldier wrote:

Received my warranty replacement 3TB today. Came with 02.02.02-020 FW, which of course worse than 02.10.09–124 but it works. I did get the update notification, but I have decided to wait it out for a bit.


 

Thank you. I just noticed that you had posted a link for me to update to 021009-124, which is what I did manually a few hours after I setup the replacement drive and copied some files over. Update went smooth, moved all my files back the the recertified replacement and noticed that the drive wouldn’t sleep at all. LED kept blinking green all day long yesterday. After I returned from work yesterday, I tried to check the power saver settings but I realized that I had completely lost access to the UI for good. Now, WD has opened a 2nd RMA ticket for me to return the “recertified” replacement and send me another “recertified” replacement, which I hope will last longer than 24 hours.

gretone wrote:

I bought  my book  live  a week  ago  when i instaled  it i  updeted   to  this  firmware  but  is  very  slow   i reach 11 mb  max   its  very  slow   i was  hoping  for  more  like  40 mb  what  is  the  problem  someone  help  me  i  am  dying  here

You are on 100mbps LAN. To go higher you need Gigabit LAN (1000mbps). Get yourself a Gigabit switch and you are done.

… and make sure the computer has a Gigabit LAN port!

Do you use a Apple branded equipment?

martiansoldier wrote:


thegooddoctor wrote:

if you need v124, here is the link (perform a manual update)

http://download.wdc.com/nas/apnc-021009-124-20111113.deb 


 

martiansoldier wrote:

Received my warranty replacement 3TB today. Came with 02.02.02-020 FW, which of course worse than 02.10.09–124 but it works. I did get the update notification, but I have decided to wait it out for a bit.


 


Thank you. I just noticed that you had posted a link for me to update to 021009-124, which is what I did manually a few hours after I setup the replacement drive and copied some files over. Update went smooth, moved all my files back the the recertified replacement and noticed that the drive wouldn’t sleep at all. LED kept blinking green all day long yesterday. After I returned from work yesterday, I tried to check the power saver settings but I realized that I had completely lost access to the UI for good. Now, WD has opened a 2nd RMA ticket for me to return the “recertified” replacement and send me another “recertified” replacement, which I hope will last longer than 24 hours.