What problems are you guys having?
I just bought my player a few days ago and updated FW and it runs fine for me? Networks share and content off a 2 tb passport ultra work perfect?
I do very high bitrate files and works great??
Its the inability to play some .mp4 files.
Read this post after I bought a new unit. Now with double the trouble. Followed your steps and voila… everything works. How is it this problem has been around so long and WD has not issued a fix? (Rhetorical). Thanks for the post. Very helpful.
Ola fellow travelers. Just a quick note to say “thanks” for this solution per post #2…I now hate this device a tad bit less.
BTW, my unit is still showing system version 2.01.86 and is asking to upgrade; I just turned off auto-firmware checks.
GA
LaVidaDulce wrote:
Read this post after I bought a new unit. Now with double the trouble. Followed your steps and voila… everything works. How is it this problem has been around so long and WD has not issued a fix? (Rhetorical). Thanks for the post. Very helpful.
Not only not issued a fix, but even been honest with their customer base about their intentions towards the product, and their customer base.
Ultimately it comes down to an ■■■■■ of a product manager who’s priorities are shifted away from this to an extent that they’re willing to chalk up any customer discontent as irrelevant, or a massively incompetent product manager, or possibly a team who’s totally isolated by WD’s corporate culture from hearing any actual customer feedback (or caring about it). Either way, whichever of those it is, it’s never going to get fixed, IMO, nor are we ever going to get any real answers (although I know the poor Tech support people try and they have none of my rage or upset over this, because IMO experience Tech support people are heroes of the industry and deal with enough disrespect that I personally don’t want to add to).
A fish rots from the head down.
Techflaws wrote:
A fish rots from the head down.
My feeling as well. I don’t think it’s an issue decided by some product manager. In my opinion, it’s a corporate decision based solely on revenue. I’m guessing they’re making all their money on disk drives and whatever else, so that’s where they concentrate their resources. Not enough revenue from this box, so they let it die.
I had the same experience with the Asus Oplay… they said nothing about it and just let it die.
Hi Folks;
I’ve been having lots of buggy issues with my wireless WDTV live since I bought it around last June. My previous wired version didn’t have a lot of issues. Thank you so much for posting here. Hopefully this thread is not dead.
I followed the steps on the first page, post 2 and successfully rolled back to the previous version. I also did a factory reset. My issues were not being able to get to YouTube anymore, moving slowly between screens, losing my content and if I was lucky enough to see content, it hangs up instead of playing. It seems it will play from a USB.
I’ve had intermittent issues but as of yesterday unplugging all electronic components for clean reboots do not work anymore. Even though I’ve followed the previous steps, I’m still having the same issue. Are there any other things to try? At this point I’m ready to purchase another unit. A year of hassle is too much (shame on me for not researching earlier but we shouldn’t have to research at all)! Thanks in advance!
Ok, here it is… I’ve had this box for a while now. Being that I generally think outside of the box, I chose this player because of its ability to play just about anything I run through it. It was working fine until I upgraded it to 2.02.32… I was having a major buffering issue with this unit and like everyone else complains about, it was getting much hotter with the new firmware installed. I have been researching this issue almost since I bought it back in early 2014. There was a newer version that didn’t support slingbox, so I bought the older model off the shelf. I have been considering taking a hammer to this thing for quite some time now but, just like a lot of other devices with issues, there has to be a solution… I looked at a post on this site which gave me an idea to try. I both downgraded the unit and toyed with a few tricks others have tried and I have found a stable solution for this box for those in need of the v2.02.32 firmware, due to features added. Just use the video menu, and DON’T use the find media feature!!! The problem with this unit is, it was never designed for the use of the updated firmware… The developers didn’t take into account of loading down the memory with data from massive archives on people’s networks. It’s exactly the same as if you were to load Window’s 8 onto a computer designed for XP or earlier. You can physically “DO IT”, but the computer will run so slow that it will be overloaded and crash continually, hence the pressing of buttons and having massive delays in button response. Now with that said, the update is “STABLE”, as long as you don’t overload the processor or the memory with too much information. All you have to do is do a “Factory Reset” either full or partial, if you already have your network passwords already setup. If for some reason the box begins to slow down again, just repeat this process. I have used this process about 2 weeks ago and it is still running fine. All other features have worked without a hiccup, along with my network movies I play from HDD running through a HUB and router. Please let me know if anyone who uses this method has any issues and I will figure out the problem and repost. Took me a while being that I didn’t have the time until recently to devote to this issue, but I solved it… MOSTLY… I also wanted to add, when I first got this box, I was able to play content from my media library by pointing the device at those specific folders, and would remember the folders content to form a single list under VIDEOS. This is “NOT” possible under v2.02.32 because it will overload the onboard flash memory and in turn do the same to the processor. So for anyone needing to play VIDEO_TS folders, you will automatically have the meta-data in most cases, depending on what you used to rip the disc, but you will, in most cases, have to select the VTS_01_1.vob to play the movie… Just wanted to throw that out there… In any case, the best solution is to downgrade to eliminate these issues.
Referring to Google, I have been reading up on a few things and it seems that they are dropping their support for certain boxes and may possibly be why you are experiencing issues with Google not playing, although, I have not tried it yet myself as of current.
THE BOTTOM LINE PROBLEM FOR THIS UNIT IS THIS:
* Less than adequate processor
* Not enough onboard memory
* NO PRODUCT SUPPORT
* Not enough R&D or field testing… (There are more than enough companies willing to test and review cool new products in the prototype phase, BEFORE release)
Good luck guys
P.S. I had a lot of respect for WD until I bought this product and they offered “NO SUPPORT”!!! I am very disappointed with their lack of concern for their customer’s issues with their product line.
One of the problems the 2.02.32 FW has is a memory leak.
A part of the code allocates memory and does not release it, so everytime that part runs it allocates more memory until none is available. The unit gets slower because it has less memory over time.
When no more memory is available, it shows a warning that memory is low and asks for reboot or just crashes or reboots.
You don’t need to factory reset, just setup->system->device_restart or turn the power supply off/on if it’s crashed, it will reboot will all memory availlable. I do this before I use it or when it’s slower.
Another bug is that some mp4 files that played well in the the previous FW, now aren’t recognized.
There are more bugs.
PS: I also disable the media library, because I don’t use it and it takes time processing media files in background, but this is optional.
Tech-Guy777 wrote:
Being that I generally think outside of the box
Really? Does that include downgrading to the latest stable firmware?
lol :smileyvery-happy:
JoeySmyth wrote:
1. small flashdrive (2,4,8 GB) formatted FAT32… completely empty
2. download rollback firmware: http://download.wdc.com/wdtv/wdtvlivegen3_rollback_2.01.86.zip
3. extract all 4 files onto the root of the flashdrive ie. No Folders
etc…
Joey, thank you, thank you, thank you!! :smiley:
Finally, a solution (so far so good) to the probs with my HDTV Live for months. If I was connected to my network (wired and/or wirelessly), even if I wasn’t running content over the connection…just from my USB drive on the HDTV, I was getting more and more frequent lock-ups/freezes, and only solution was to unplug the power supply and reboot. Sometimes I’d get a couple of hours of use, sometimes only a few minutes, before it would lock-up again and I’d have to restart.
Discovered that if I removed all network connections it worked fine just from the local hdd, but no use of services like Netflix, no browsing, and transferring files became a physical process of disconnecting drive, moving to computer, copying files over, and back to device. And then a couple of reboots to get it working again.
I tried rolling back firmware several times before and it just didn’t work. Your great directions made all the difference. I didn’t know my flashdrive was FAT formatted, not FAT32, until I read your Step 1 instructions. Bingo!!
I was blaming the issue on a new cable modem/router that I upgraded about the same time the issue began, and the firmware roll-back was just a last-ditch hail-mary. Wow! Back to normal, and once again, big thank you. (from Newfoundland, Canada).
Put the 4 files on a 32gb drive that had movies on it. Put the drive in, took the WD out of standby and the firmware upgrade worked great. Thanks.
A real shame that WD abandoned this unit leaving us with such a broken piece of software.
Hi,
I have the same issue as many WD TV Live owners running FW 2.0.32…
Did the rollback and will test the next week, should solve the problem.
Thx.
I want to say a BIG thank you to JoeySmyth.
(Found this topic searching on google)
My WD TV kept freezing and the problem seems to be solved thanks to your post #2!
Shame the manufacturer hasn’t managed to find the time to do something about it after such a long time.
Thank you so much! This solved my share folder issue.
Hello I am form Holland.
I did try a downgrade but after waiting more than 1 hour en only seeing the blue WD WDTVLIVE logo i took out the USB stick.
Is the WD still alive now and what did i do wrong?
UPDATE: When i took out the USB and did a reset teh WD asked for firmware. Put the USB back in and the WD did the reinstall from 2.01.86.
For now the WD is working!!! Thanks…
Hello every body. I did the rollback and it work. Now I am running V2.01.86 but there is still a lot of mp4 file that can’t be read.
Is there at lease one of the many versions of the firmware released by WD that can read all MP4?
Thank you
Rick
post a mediainfo output log of one of your “non-working” mp4’s
here’s how guide: http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-TV-Media-Player/WD-tv-MOV-file-not-work/m-p/849646#M2232
