Attaching USB drive causes EX4 to become unresponsive

Hello, I have tried to setup a usb to nas backup a few times and keep having the same problem. Upon attaching the 4TB usb drive (usb 3.0) to the back of the EX4 the NAS becomes unresponsive. I can no longer access it from the dashboard or the my cloud app on a mobile device. The app says it is offline. The ex4 is on but no drives are spinning. The usb drive is spinning however.

Once, I was able to see the EX4 and the attached USB drive in my file explorer. It showed the USB drive as a share. It said something like “Share 2_1.” However the internal folders were not visible. Then the EX4 froze and went unresponsive - which caused me to try and manually shut it down. It did not power down and after making sure no data was being transferred I had to pull the power (as recommended on this forum).

Once I was able to get as far as setup up a USB to NAS backup on the dashboard. I set up the source and destination folders, etc. upon saving the job the EX4 is inaccessible, while the USB drive spins.

What’s going on? Is it taking a long time to index the attached drive? Is it not compatible with the USB drive (seagate 4tb external NTFS USB 3.0)?

Any insight or advice would be great. Thanks!

3 Likes

I have a similar problem when plugging in various NTFS drives. I’m afraid I haven’t found a solution.

1 Like

By default the EX4 will scan the attached USB share for media.  This process takes all the CPU of the EX4 for long periods of time, and can also lead tot he creation of numerous metadata directories in your attached drive.  You should turn this off.

In addition, if you use the USB drive for backups, the DEFAULT option for the EX4 is to commence backups when the drive is connected.  This setting can be turned off in the GUI setup for the backup jobs.

In addiiton, in my experience, NTFS drives take more overhead than EXT formatted drives.

1 Like

To be clear in the above, twonky will BY DEFAULT scan the attached USB drive for ALL MEDIA TYPES.  To fix this default behaviour, go to the twonky GUI into Setup and deselect the drive and save.  The effect should be immediate.

1 Like

Thanks skiwi.  That makes perfect sense as to why the box gets lagged down once a large external drive is connected.  Here’s my follow up n00b question…

How do I turn this auto scan off?  I can’t seem to find a setting in the dashboard.

Thanks for your help.

  • Opus

OpusKV626 wrote:

Thanks skiwi.  That makes perfect sense as to why the box gets lagged down once a large external drive is connected.  Here’s my follow up n00b question…

 

How do I turn this auto scan off?  I can’t seem to find a setting in the dashboard.

 

Thanks for your help.

 

  • Opus

Access the dashboard → Settings – Media  (to turn of itune and Media server)

1 Like

No, you need to access the twonky server to turn this scan off.

  1. Access the twonky GUI (http://NAS-Address:9000)
  2. Go to the Sharing screen.
  3. In that you will see a list of your shares wtih the type of scanning allowed.  By default any USB drive connected will be added to this list and selected for scanning.  When you drive is added, access this screen and deselect the option
  4. Select “Save Changes” and you are good to go.
2 Likes

Thanks skiwi,

That’s very helpful information about twonky.  I had no idea… I’m learning as I go. 

That answer seems to address the issue.  Thanks again.

-opus

If media streaming is off, then there should be no need to disable scanning of USB drives attached to the NAS via the twonky interface.

Is there another thing I can try to resolve this issue?  I have not been able to use the USB functionality on this NAS from day one, and it’s been almost 2 years now with no resolution as far as I can tell.  Whenever I attach any USB device to the NAS, the front panel lights start blinking and there is nothing more I can do except unplug the NAS.  **bleep**!!!

You need to turn “Media Serving” off on the share for the USB drive.

Connect the drive, then wait for it to be recognised in Shares.  Select it and I expect that you will find that it has “Media Serving” turned on (as is “Public” IIRC).  This is the default behaviour.  This is what drives TWONKY to scan the drive, and WDMCserver to creaste thumbnails. Turn it off, and the USB should be find.  

You might also delete the .wdmc folders that have been created on the drive.

What’s the “twonky GUI”? When I try to open that address (replacing “NAS-Address” with the IP address for my EX4, I get a “This webpage is not available” message.

Is it an app that I have to install, or is it part of the factory configuration?

If your EX4 IP address is 192.168.1.134 (see it on your LCD display) then just type 

http://192.168.1.134:9000/

on your browser and that will do it.

:wink:

1 Like

Hi,

same issue here: EX4 freezes when I connect USB NTFS WD MyPassport Ultra drive. EX4 was working fine before Firmware update. After the last update 2.10.302 this issue started. Cannot attach USB drives. NX4 freezes, GUI becomes irresponsive. Pressing Power down button it stays forever trying to shut down unit. Only way to restart EX4 is to remove power supply and restart it without USB connected. Then it works all just fine. If I connect a USB drive again then it freezes again.

Deleted all backup jobs

and turned off all Media service

1 Like

Hi, we have passed this along to support.

On my system, it is the Twonky server which is pegging the CPU when a USB drive is added regardless of how the option “Media Scanning” is selected, or the settings on the “sharing” tab of the Twonky GUI.

On my unit plugging a USB drive in causes hours of disk thrashing as twonky grabs all the CPU.  unplugging the device will not work, you need to re-boot.

This is a bug, pure and simple.

we have the same problem, when conect a external hard drive, the nas freeze!!!

I had this same problem with full lockups and “Power supply 1 failed” shown after cycling power on the NAS.

I was able to fix it by using a different external USB drive. The 2nd USB drive did NOT get its power from the NAS (it has its own wall-wart power supply). I’m not sure if that was the cause or not but the 2nd drive works fine after repeated removals / plugins. I suspected it may be the cause since it seemed like the lockup occurred a few minutes after plugging in the first drive (which may be when the drive goes to sleep?). Perhaps “Power supply 1 failed” means the powered device on USB port 1?

On another note, the recommendation to disable the twonky scanning did nothing in my case. If fact you can’t even access http://192.168.XXX.XXX:9000 if “Media Streaming” in “Media” settings is turned off (probably because twonky isn’t running when streaming is disabled). I even tried turning Media Streaming on, accessing twonky (via http to port 9000), turning scanning off for all shares and trying again => same lockup.

FYI: This happened today 04/06/2016. My Cloud EX4. Firmware 2.11.140

i made the upgrade to the new Firmware 2.11.140, but still have the same problem…
“Media Streaming” in “Media” settings is turned off

Hi Guys

Just got a PR4100 today - The minute I plug in a Seagate 4TB USB 3.0 drive the NAS freezes, stops replying to pings and needs to be manually rebooted, Media Streaming = OFF

Did anyone make any progress with this?

Thanks Scott

Hi guys

Contacted support and got told this:

ISSUE:
Connecting a UAS (USB Attached SCSI) device to a My Cloud PR2100 or PR4100 causes the unit to become inaccessible.

CAUSE:
UAS devices are currently not supported on a My Cloud PR2100 and PR4100.
USB Attached SCSI (UAS or UASP) is a protocol that uses SCSI commands over USB.

SOLUTION:
Detach the UAS device from the My Cloud.

Press the power button on the My Cloud to power off the unit.
Remove the UAS external drive.
Press the power button to power on the unit.

Do not attach a UAS device to the My Cloud PR2100 or PR4100.

https://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?ID=15167

This is my issue :frowning: … wasted 4TB USB drive now