Easy method to downgrade to previous version of the firmware

I cant believe no one else is mentioning this, anyone have a workaround?/

People have mention it in the past (do a forum search) but as has explained in those threads as well as this one and your previous one, downgrading the firmware potentally breaks the various official WD supported methods of remote access. That is one of the trade offs one makes when downgrading the My Cloud firmware.

Also explained in various other threads there are various ways to roll your own remote access. These range from enabling FTP via the My Cloud Dashboard (and activating router port forwarding of port 21 to the my Cloud) to setting up a VPN server on one’s local network to bypass the need for using the MyCloud.com web portal.

Ah! FTP! great idea thank you

Many thanks for this. After downgrading firmware everything works so much better. The downgrade was pretty painful though. In the end what got it working was a 40 second reset during power-on. I read about this in another forum post. In other words, pull power, push reset and insert power and hold reset for 40 seconds. This got the dashboard working again (initially it didn’t work after the firmware downgrade).

The older firmware works so much better!

Hi, I can not downgrade from version 2.xx to 4.xx because
when editing the version file and change it to 03.04.01-219,
when restarting it is changed back to ersion 2.xx and wanting
update firmware download error, help please.

You cannot downgrade the firmware on a second gen (v2.x) My Cloud to the first gen (v3.x/v4.x) My Cloud. Different hardware and file structure between the two versions.

Nor can one “upgrade” the firmware on first gen v4.x My cloud to the second gen v2.x My Cloud firmware.

I followed instructions in the first post and was successful in restoring my MyCloud. Note that I used putty not WinSCP (which would not connect to the MyCloud for me).

There is definitely a problem with the version 4 firmware that WD should fix (are you guys listening?). My MyCloud worked fine for several years and then lost its connection to my LAN. I downgraded the firmware from version 4 to version 3 and my MyCloud now works great again.

My approach was as follows:

Download the following firmware version and unzip the .deb file (File sq-030401-230-20140415.deb.zip) http://download.wdc.com/nas/sq-030401-230-20140415.deb.zip1.6k

I used putty (not WinSCP) to logon to the MyCloud linux console (username: root, password: welc0me).
Then the following linux commands:

cd \etc
ls
nano version

In the “version” file, edit the version name to 03.04.01-219 and save the file (This version is older that the 03.04.01-230 that I downloaded and intended to apply. This fools the MyCloud into thinking that is has firmware version 03.04.01-219 and it will therefore let you upgrade to version 03.04.01-230 using the MyCloud console).

exit (to logout)

Reboot the MyCloud.

Next, logon to the MyCloud console, and select Settings | Firmware | select from file. Note that auto update is disabled by default. Do not try to turn it on/off, or the firmware update function will not work (you only get one chance to change the firmware after each reboot). Also, if the MyCloud complains that there is not enough space, wait for the MyCloud to finish its startup scan which can take about 10 minutes. Once the MyCloud shows space available on the homepage, the Firmware update will work.

Enjoy your newly repaired MyCloud. smile:

Downgrade can be done but the problem persists. In addition, share folders are disappeared in web UI. Intermittent connection issue still appears in my case unlike yours.

So, I restored back to latest firmware which is WDMyCloud v04.05.00-320 : Core F/W.

  1. Restart WDMyCloud
  2. Let it stable for 10-12 hours. I leave it for a day. (Content scanning is taking place when your reboot it - I guess)
  3. Enable SSH through UI
  4. Warning: I use WDMYCloud only for storage. I use SSH/FTP for file transfer as it can resume transfer as PC resumes from sleep.

Login to SSH and reboot again after running the following commands:

killall -9 winbindd

killall -9 rcpbind

/etc/init.d/netatalk stop

update-rc.d netatalk disable

/etc/init.d/restsdk-serverd stop

update-rc.d restsdk-serverd disable

/etc/init.d/samba stop

update-rc.d samba disable

/etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server stop

/etc/init.d/nfs-common stop

update-rc.d nfs-kernel-server disable

update-rc.d nfs-common disable

/etc/init.d/upnp_nas stop

update-rc.d upnp_nas disable

/etc/init.d/mDNSResponder stop

update-rc.dmDNSResponder disable

/etc/init.d/wdphotodbmergerd stop

/etc/init.d/wdmcserverd stop

/etc/init.d/mdadm stop

update-rc.d mdadm disable

/etc/init.d/rpcbind stop

update-rc.d rpcbind disable

update-rc.d ssh enable

update-rc.d vsftpd enable

update-rc.d apache2 enable

1 Like

Can u please show me where this etc folder on the right pane.

These instructions for MyCloud 1st generation (Gen 1, FW v04.xx)
You have MyCloud Home - it is completely different device based on Android.
So, there is no “Easy” method for downgrade. Only upload full disk image vith previous firmware.
Maybe its possible to throw device into “recovery boot”, but idk how…

Thx for the tip SIR. I was keep trying to downgrade and after success writing the WD was showing still the version edited by me and was running still the 4.xx version i had. Then used two steps method you suggested and is finally and actually downgraded. It seems some of us have the running version too high and we need to downgrade to the firs 4.xx relese prior to go to 3.xx firmware in order to work. Thx again.

Not sure if it is topic related, but… here it is: WD_my_cloud.img.gz - Google Drive I have created a image of the WD MyCloud 2 TB with dd from Linux. The thing is that using a live Linux version, you might need to resize the last partition to the size you have left on your hard disk that you’re restoring it. I have created the last partition of only 5 GB and it can be resized using Gparted.
The image needs to be restored using dd after being decompressed. I think this is an image I have restored it on a 160 GB HDD so good luck.