Post Your SmartWare Win Version 1.5.0.17 Experiences Here

Are you saying that the Smartware shows 30GB less of your internal drive, or Windows in My Computer?  Do they match?

Just got my brand new 'Western Digital MyBook Essential 3.0 2TB’ Model:WDBACW0020HBK-00

And followed the installation instructions to a tee.

After updating and installing ‘SmartWare Win Version 1.5.0.17’ noticed problems with the software right away. Tried various things including uninstalling ‘SmartWare Win Version 1.5.0.17’ but was not able to uninstall.

Did a search of the ‘Knowledge Base’ for the message:

"Installation unsucessful (Error Code:1603). Please try again or contact WD support for assistance. "

Well that returned loads of pages each with the word ‘error’ highlighted. Hhhhmmm!!

Tried ‘Advanced search’ instead, and just used the string ‘Error Code:1603’; surely this would get me something relevant?

Nada!

Same again loads of relevant pages returned with the word ‘error’ highlighted. (Scratching head!!)

OK! I’ll try just: ‘1603’   And then I got…

Absolutly nothing!

Sound familiar??

Whats the point of creating error messages that one cannot access information about?

I noticed my internal C:  drive HD space being eaten up too.

I am running Windows 7 64 bit. At the time my external WD drive was not plugged in (but WD Smartware still seems to thrash my PC).

It appears that WDFMEService is creating ever increasing etilqs_* files in “C:/Windows/temp” folder. Left unchecked they will grow in size and number until you are completely out of disk space.

Once WDFMEService is stopped they can be deleted.

Toretto, I cannot believe that you still do not understand the problem of killing space… the problem already repeated by many people yet.

btw…

wimlach, Thank you very much, I found that you are much helpful than WD Staff…

Ok, here are some further observations.

I have completely wiped my WD Passport, and have the latest firmware.I uninstalled WDSmartware and re-installed from scratch.I am running Windows 7 Home Premium on an MSI GS660R laptop (i5), with 6GB Ram, 552GB C: drive & 368GB D: drive.No other external drives are attached.

On initial start-up of WDSmartware (no backup option selected, everything default) the CPU usage spikes heavily for about 5 minutes. This appears to be during the ‘categorising your files’ activity. A bunch of etilqs_* files are created in the windows/temp/ folder (about 30mb worth initially, in 5 or 6 seperate files).

As expected, as soon as I start backup (category view, documents only, approx 6GB of data) the CPU spikes heavily at aound 60%. More etilqs_* files begin to appear, and the existing ones start to grow in size. After approx 15 mins the CPU usage settles down at around 25%.

Interestingly, the WD Passport drive seemed to sleep momentarily (I last accessed it about 30 mins previously), as an autoplay window popped up as if I had just plugged it in. This was during the back-up process.

Ok, the process finally stopped, with a ‘partial backup accomplished’ message. 10000 files backed up (an exact number), with 7599 not backed up.
442mb of etilqs_* files created.

As a note, in the worst case (this was a few days ago) I had over 300GB of etilqs_* files in my temp folder. This was what originally highlighted that something was up, as my HD space dwindled significantly.

This appeared to be due to my PC having been on for a few days without a reboot, and me downloading and installing several GB’s worth of data after purchasing games over the STEAM service. As STEAM updates your files slowly over the internet, it may have stressed the WDSmartware software as files where continually being added for a few days at a stretch.

Alternately perhaps a bug in the WDSoftware where it fails to periodically flush those temp files, relying on a reboot to get rid of them? Many users have their machines on 24/7, which would lead to problems.

Note that in the above case I didn’t even have my WD Passport attached. Perhaps that’s part of the issue - the backup software running in the background with no target backup device available.

I’m going to keep an eye on those temp files and CPU usage in general and see if I notice any other patterns.

I decided to try thr ‘Files & Folders’ method of backup rather than categories, and selected several folders on my drives for backup.

Using this method I noticed that only a single new etilqs_* file was created, and it always read as 0 kb.

However, there was an odd discrepancy between the backed up files size (91GB) and the amount that the software reported as ‘copied’ (150GB+). I eventually simply stopped the backup as it appeared to be endlessly copying, even though the folders I had selected were complete.

Even when the backup was stopped, the CPU usage was still hovering around 25%, with occasional spikes.

Ultimately, this is unacceptable for a ‘background’ backup solution, so I have completely removed the software from my system and will be using an alternative. Perhaps I will give it a go again with a future release, but as it stands although the current build does backup my files, it also cripples my system permanently.  

I too experience unacceptable high CPU use when “wdfme.exe” is doing its “thing” where you can ask yourself what the **bleep** it is doing all the time anyway since even while I did install SmartWare I don’t use it yet for any backup to My WD MyBookLive.It looks like some heavy optimizations are in order since it almost looks now like the "wdfme.exe"is doing all the categorization over and over again instead of keeping tack of file/dir CHANGES only. I have had this expereince with all versions of this software. While I’m very disappointed in this software I do appreciate the existence of the forum and somebody like Toretto who is trying to help.

I did read something about an imminent 1.5.1 release…is that release supposed to finally solve this issue? We dont care if the whole process of using “SmartWare” takes a bit longer…we just don’t want it to take over the whole pc all the time with its lenghty 100%CPU spikes.

hello

just want to share what my experience with latest update …

My system :

Windows7 64bit ultimate, i7 950 3.06Ghz,  6GB RAM, Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 rev2.0 bios FC

Main HDD Caviar Black 750GB … Ext 2TB Mybook Studio

  1. about bios issue, i can’t really sure it caused by WDSmartWare alone or it conflicting with other software

it seems after installing 1.5.0.17, there somekind of bug that corrupting BIOS DMI pool data

and i got slow booting process … i reflash my bios and it fix the issue so far

  1. it seems like other user telling, SmartWare eating free space, it happen on me too… 

after using diskcleanup (i am using CCleaner) and Defragmenting HDD turn my free space again

also high usage of drive when booting up (WDFME.exe)… in my case, its not high cpu usage but drive working so hard, i think indexing thinggie, it calm down after a minute or so

update: (i forgot to mention this)

  1. weird issue, that after sometimes computer idling, the hdd activity led keep lighting (on), its just lighting not blinking

been uninstalling smartware about 2days since thurday this week, so far it fix the issue

hope next update fix things up

i didn’t really SmartWare, because i am using other backup software, the only reason i am using SmartWare is for Label thinggie, because without SmartWare the label wont work

So if i can request, can you make small proggram just to make Label work along with SES Driver?

thank you 

wimlach wrote:

As a note, in the worst case (this was a few days ago) I had over 300GB of etilqs_* files in my temp folder. This was what originally highlighted that something was up, as my HD space dwindled significantly.

 

This appeared to be due to my PC having been on for a few days without a reboot, and me downloading and installing several GB’s worth of data after purchasing games over the STEAM service. As STEAM updates your files slowly over the internet, it may have stressed the WDSmartware software as files where continually being added for a few days at a stretch.

 

Alternately perhaps a bug in the WDSoftware where it fails to periodically flush those temp files, relying on a reboot to get rid of them? Many users have their machines on 24/7, which would lead to problems.

 

Note that in the above case I didn’t even have my WD Passport attached. Perhaps that’s part of the issue - the backup software running in the background with no target backup device available.

 

I’m going to keep an eye on those temp files and CPU usage in general and see if I notice any other patterns.

Those files are created as temp databases using sql-lite.  We use SQL-lite in our software, so I am looking into the space used by these files on various systems, however, other applications that use SQL-lite will create these files as well so it is likely you are seeing these files created from various applications.

daniellau wrote:

Toretto, I cannot believe that you still do not understand the problem of killing space… the problem already repeated by many people yet.

 

btw…

 

wimlach, Thank you very much, I found that you are much helpful than WD Staff…

Your post saying that there are 30GB missing is not very helpful on helping you pinpoint the problem.  I was trying to establish where you were seeing the increase of files, whether it was in our UI (possible calculation error) or in a different directory.  WD does not provide direct support in our community forum.

I just stumbled across this thread, and wanted to add my comments. My apologies for not reading the previous 7 pages in this thread, but its painfully slow for me to try to do that, with WDSmartWare running.

I am also using the “version 17”, and its a complete CPU hog. The “Categorizing files” never ever stops, even though I’ve selected “folders/files” to be saved. Selecting those folders/files is also very painful, because each selection I make, takes at lesat 15 seconds to register, because WDSmartWare is hogging the whole computer. I’e even let the computer run idle for 36 hours, thinking maybe the “first time” was the only time it needed to do a complete scan.

Yes, I’ve already uninstalled, and re-installed the software, per WD tech support.

In Folders/files mode, why does the software even have to categorize files?

I can’t quite tell if the calculated space is correct or not, but I honestly don’t believe the numbers I’m seeing, and they appear to change a lot.

I know the drive itself is fast, because I can copy 1Gb of data to it very fast. I’ve had to resort to writing a small batch file, to copy entire folders to the drive that I want to back up. If Windows can talk to this drve that fast, WDSmartWare should be able to, also.

WD, don’t get me wrong… adding the “folders/files” method of backing up was a very welcomed enhancement, but honestly, there is something wrong.

just suggestion 

isn’t it better to have option for on-demand scanning not just back-up when idle

so people that having cpu resource issue can use on-demand instead

even though it will take more time to complete backup and probably defeat software reason being simple automatic backup 

but i think its more reasonable/acceptable for anyone, that smartware using more cpu when it running as user using it 

rather than hogging cpu at the time when user dont want to

Update on my situation…

Finally, the “backup” completed. At least that’s what WDSmartWare says in the Backup tab of the software… but the Home tab continues to report “Categorizing files”, and continues to consume my CPU. One time I looked, and the little disk usage graphic in the home page, looked like it had categorized most files on the computer (pretty colors, and everything). Later, when I looked, it appears as if its starting over. And the software is not continually banging away at the hard drive either, but it does access it frequently. Honestly, it looks like this thing is “categorizing files” forever. My computer has been idle for 8 hours alreadyt, and the WD software continues to do whatever its doing. Heck, I can perform a full system search, or a full Norton scan of my entire disk drive in a lot less time. Even Norton doesn’t hog the CPU when its looking at all files on my system, so I have a hard time believing that this backup software can’t be designed to “play nice” on our computers.

I’ve been emailing customer support, and describing everything in great detail. Although customer support has been responsive, but they havne’t offered a solution, or even given a hint that a problem exists, or that new software may be coming. So far, their suggestions have been to uninstall, and re-install the software, and to accept the fact that “your computer is just slow”. Baloney.

How do you fix “etilqs_xxxxxxxxxxx” files from firefox?  I am getting multiple gig plus files stored in my  c:\windows\temp directory

downloaded update but was given version 1.5.0.18.

installation fails with error code 1622

looks like the new version (.17) has not resolved old issues with smartware being a resource hog, too bad. 

i was really looking forward to being able to specify files/folders to backup rather than the current ‘type’ of file spec.

so now i wonder if i should even care to resolve this install issue.

win 7x64 sp1

mybook 3.0, 2T

p.s.  on my system wdfme has become a non issue, i guess it was windows updates somewhere along the line that made my smartware v1.4.5.2 performance acceptable.

I used CCcleaner to delete windows/temp files and it deleted the unused etilqs_xxxxxxxxxxx" files in that location.

I should have posted this sooner rather than as a reply.  I fixed (LOL) my problem by rebooting and trying to install again.  Apparently there maybe have been leftover stuff in the op sys because I had smartware open just before I tried the install.

And now I can also say that the software performs OK and I am happy with it.  No problems with resource hogging nor with spurious etilqs_xxxxxxxxxxx files.  As I write this I have 33 etilqs files but I use ccleaner also on a regular basis.  In any case those files do not affect smartware performance or capability.

I have not spent time with the new files/folder type of backup, but I do not like what I see so far, judgment remains to be seen when I have more time to explore.  The biggest question I have at this time is if I can mix backup types.  I.e., do file/folder backup on one drive while still doing category backup on another drive.  Because of partitioning I have 9 drives.

And I will say this, the software is still extremely awkward regarding drive switching, having to go back to the Home tab to switch drives and the graphics not displaying overall backup like the last version, just individual drives (which is good) .

Same for me. WD Software is putting etilsq_* files in my C:\Temp folder. Until I kill the WDFMR process, these files build up lots of GB (I stopped the process at 10 GB). Stop the process and delete those temp files.

I have a call registered with WD support on this…

We have just released an update for WD SmartWare for Windows.  This thread is now closed.