My fix for network dropping during idle period

My WDTV Live loses it’s network connection if the unit sits idle for a period of time.  Many people have expressed their frustration over this firmware problem in version 2.01.86.

My simple solution is to leave the unit sitting on a DVD menu.  So far the connection has not dropped.  Hopefully, just a temporary work around until WD fixes the problem in their firmware.

I noticed when checking network traffic today that my Samba server is sending Netbios keep-alive messages to my two SMPs every couple of minutes.  Wonder if this is related to problems people like you are having, which I am not.  When I get a chance, I will disable this on the Samba server and see what happens.  Try googling “nbss keep-alive” (without the quotes) and you can find some interesting hits, such as Windows versions and an NAS not properly adhering the the Netbio spec.  I looked at the Netbios RFC specs, though, and the behavior I am seeing also does not look quite right.  Curious enough about this to plan on looking into it further when get time.

I’m not a Network engineer.  But I’m using a Windows 7 PC as my server.  Connected to Windows’ homegroup.  This problem does not happen with ny Zinwell media player.  So what is Zinwell doing right that WD isn’t?

You aren’t connected to any homegroup at all… Nothing but Windows 7/8 supports home groups… WD only supports WORKGROUPS.

Arnie,  Turn off Homegroups; it is not needed by the WDTV, nor is it needed to make a home sharing network.  “Homegroups” is another Wnidows oddity no one but Microsoft uses.  Everyone with a WDTV should have Homegroup turned off in Windows’ settings.  As Tony says, make sure the entire network is in a workgroup called WORKGROUP – this includes PCs and WDTV.  Most gadgets have this set as a default, but check anyway.

As mentioned in another thread I’m running my Win 7 on default settings, i.e. homegroup is turned on and I still can access my PC from my WDTV.

mike27oct wrote:

… As Tony says, make sure the entire network is in a workgroup called WORKGROUP – this includes PCs and WDTV.  Most gadgets have this set as a default, but check anyway.

Not to be contradictory but you can name your workgroup whatever you like (I use HomeNet).  The key is making sure all network devices use the same name.

i also have this issue but windows is not involved.

I have a NAS directly plugged into my WDTV Hub.

Hub connected router via ethernet

SMP connected to router via wifi. mymedia is connected tot he hub and NAS only.

in order to make my experience with the SMP as painless as possible I walk in the room and pull the power cord and plug back in and let it rescan files. but i have to wait for it to scan 6TB of drives. This makes the experience painless 90% of the time

If i do not do this and just turn the SMP on, i navigate to what i want and click on it, only to receive and error, content doesnt exist.

then i have to get up and go pull the power cord anyways. this happens 90% of the time if i dont pull off the start.

The other 10% in both circumstances even the power cord pull doesnt solve the issue. i sometime have to go in and delete mymedia shares and add them back.

This losing connection but keeping caches garbage is a bane of existance.

I have ordered Vmedia for July and it will replace my Bell Fibe and my WDTVs and I will be done with the terrible network issues of SMP and the non-existant support for the hub [even though they are the exact same device except for the built in HDD]