Kimday: Maybe a dumb question, but are you sure you downloaded the ROLLBACK firmware? Not just a copy of older firmware. It has a modification in the .VER file to trick the WD into thinking older firmware is actually newer.
Paste the contents of your ,VER file into your reply to this thread.
Good point Tony, i guess i kinda assumed Kimday followed Steps 1-11 on Page (1)
I guess should’ve asked (to double check) … now you did get the download link from page (1) of this thread ?
and on that page the Rollback Firmware download link
http://download.wdc.com/wdtv/wdtvlivegen3_rollback_2.01.86.zip
Just to *double check* … i downloaded from the link again … and had a look at the *ver file (all good)
VERSION=‘4.01.86’
LOCATION=‘wdtvlivegen3.bin’
PKG_LOCATION=‘wdtvlivegen3.pkg’
ROOTFS2=‘wdtvlivegen3.bi2’
Thank you both Tony and JoeySmyth.
Sorry for the long delay in repsonding I had a dental appointment. 
(All good on that front.)
I did follow the steps on Page 1 to a T and downloaded from the link given.
I have now gone to the local dollar store to purchase a 4 gb flashdrive because no other store carries instock anything less than 8 gbs!
I did all the steps again to a T and used Joey Smyth’s Rollback Firmware dowload link that was double checked.
This time the WD Live found the new firmware though no box came up and asked okay. I had to click on the firmward box and then it came up and said
current version 2.02.32
new version 4.01.86
update
do not update
what’s in this update?
I clicked update and let it do it’s thing.
After it updated and rebooted it again came up with new firmware. I clicked the box and this time it said:
current version 2.01.86
new version 4.01.86
update
do to update
what’s in this update?
I again clicked update and let it do it’s thing.
Again after reboot it came up with new firmware with the same information as above.
After trying to update two more times, I did a factory reset and did not connect to the wireless internet. Again the new firmware came up with the same information as above.
While I’m happy that I got the WD Live to read the firmware, I’m at a loss!
Tony . . . I’m so sorry but I do not understand what you wanted me to paste in the post to show you what I have. What I can tell you is that I followed everything from page 1 to a T and used Joey Smyth’s link this time to make sure I had it right. I am very new at this technology and posting so please be patient and be specific and I will try my best to answer your questions to help me.
Again. Thank you both so very much for trying to help me.
That’s what it’s supposed to do. It’s DOWNGRADING the firmware, so the “trick” is still going to make it think the firmware is NEWER.
Once you’ve done the downgrade, just eject the memory stick and reboot. You’re done.
Okay Tony please bear with me on this as I ask. So the firmware is to read 2.01.86 and not the 4.??.?? (whatever it is)?
If that is so, then it did not fix my problem as I still have movies that cannot be read.
Thanks much for your reponse.
Sounds like you Downgraded and then Upgraded … and are back to square one
Press Setup > About … what number does “Device Info” display ?
Hi again Joey Smyth. I don’t think that I upgraded again because I had my router turned completely off. I’ve had to turn it on again to get on the community chat. Even though I’ve turned it back on, I have not upgraded.
My device info says 2.01.86.
It has said that no matter how many times I have the USB in and try to upgrade.
As I mentioned in a previous post, it was at the 2.02.32 for the firmware and then (and now) at the 2.01.86.
Just to give an update. I have called WD and they had me pushed the reset button underneath the unit.
It took it all back to factory settings and the device info says 2.01.86
I believe that this is the firmware that I’m supposed to be at and it is still not reading some of my movies. So am I to gather that my problem is not the firmware?
I’ve been using my wdtv to play movies and tv shows from a Drobo that is hooked up to my PC. Everything is hardwired via ethernet. Recently upgraded the firmware to 2.02.32 and now it’s buggy about playing certain .avi and .mp4 files, telling me that those formats aren’t supported. This is happening on files that I have played numerous times before without problem. I followed the steps near the beginning of this thread to ‘update’ to the older version of firmware and am still having troubles with these .avi and .mp4 files. Any suggestions? Please let me know if I can provide any specific info to help troubleshoot. Thanks in advance!
When you have such a file, what happens if you disconnect power from the WDTV and during the entire boot process stay on that input on your TV? I’ve seen this happen with booting up TV while watching SAT TV on the device and then switching over to HDMI 2.
I’ve tried that. In the past, it seemed like unplugging the wdtv and booting it back up would fix the very infrequent ‘file format not supported’ error message. This time around, it has no effect on the avi/mp4 files that won’t play.
If it helps any, I’m having trouble with specific folders. Take two shows, Archer and the Mentalist. The first couple seasons of each are .avi while more recent episodes are mp4. While I have watched all of Archer multiple times in the past, it will not play any of the avi/mp4 files for that show. Move over to Mentalist and it plays any episode just fine, avi or mp4. All shows are organized in a root ‘tv shows’ folder, then organized by show name, then by season. M://tv shows/Archer/Season 2/ArcherS02E01.avi for example.
2.02.32 just was a bad idea. having downgraded to 2.0.1.86 which worked faultlessly by the way, there appeared to be more videos in a given directory as compared to before.
Think I will stay with 2.01.86 as the best for me as WD do not seem able to comeup with actual improvements.
Strangely the reason to downgrade it, was that all files appear to be made readonly and I cant delete any file locally or remotely, unless the drive is plugged into the pc. This sounds like a “chown” problem but nonethe less occured after moving the wdtvlive with usb drive to another room. One time by disconnecting the drive and plugging it from the back into the front allowed a delete. Until the next time it was poqwe cycled.
Pity there is no built in ssh to complish this sort of repair to be carried out. Ok it didnt cost a million dollars but from what they have sold its almost criminal that they can get away with the poor software these days, using the cost as an excuse.
oh well.
geordy wrote:
This time around, it has no effect on the avi/mp4 files that won’t play.
2.02.32 has issues with some MP4s that played back fine on 2.01.86. Maybe you’ve discovered something similar with AVI? You could paste the Mediainfo text output of some of the files that just won’t play.
Not sure if this is the correct place to write this but THANK YOU!!! I updated the firmware this evening as I kept loosing a hard drive from the connected devices. Far from resolving this issue, it completely destroyed my library. I sort by genre and they are all tagged correctly but now 380 of my movies were in the ‘unknown’ section, despite having a visible genre. I’ve been pulling my hair out for the past two hours and tried this as a last resort. it worked and I’m back to normal. I can’t express how grateful I am!
To thank people simply press the star under there Avatar to kudo them.
I’ve just rolled back my firmware to 2.01.86 (from 2.02.32) and couldn’t be happier. I’ve given kudos to Joey Smyth for his “how to” instructions, which are clear, concise and easy to follow, many thanks!
The roll back fixed two problems I experienced with the firmware update. The first issue was with videos stopping mid stream, usually after 10 to 20 minutes, or a few minutes with high quality vids. The second issue was trouble connecting to Content Source from Windows Shares. I can confirm it is definitely a firmware problem as I have two units and I only updated the firmware on one, the other unit worked fine on the old 2.01.86. Since I have rolled back the other unit both issues have disappreared. Thanks for the help, you’ve saved my sanity, cheers!
Kev62 wrote:
I’ve just rolled back my firmware to 2.01.86 (from 2.02.32) and couldn’t be happier. I’ve given kudos to Joey Smyth for his “how to” instructions, which are clear, concise and easy to follow, many thanks!
Thanks 
Thank goodness I found this thread while my WDTV Live was slowly downloading the new firmware.
I quickly turned the power off ignoring the “please do do turn off the power” (seriously, why not a cancel option if it hasn’t started flashing the firmware yet?) and booted back into 2.01.86.
I can’t believe its been so long since the last WDTV Live update and they come out with one so broken. I wonder if this is intentional to block playing back high quality Bluray rips? Then again isn’t that the whole **bleep** point of these devices?
Alex_Atkin_UK wrote:
I wonder if this is intentional to block playing back high quality Bluray rips?
Right, which is why those rips are still working just fine for me on 2.02.32. Makes total sense.
When trying do download the firmware of my WD TV Live Streaming to version 2.01.86, the box did freeze so I had to remove power plug.
So now when I plug power it appears a screen saying “Insert a usb drive with firmware to recover your wdtv”. So I did what asked but nothing happens. I copied the firmware to a formated USB FAT32 pen but nothing happens. I’d try with different PENs and different sizes but no way.
Can anyone please help on this?
Thanks.
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