EUREKA! Found the solution to WD TV Live Streaming 3TB HDD problem and more!

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Streaming
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Right out of the box I had problems with my WD TV Live Streaming Media Player. It goT hung up on screens, wouldn’t play media files, but no problem (I thought) because there were updates available. Once I updated the firmware the device wouldn’t recognize my external 3TB Seagate hard drive! It was also very buggy - worked when it wanted to work. So I switched USB ports (from 1 to 2) and I even switched to a 500 GB passive external hard drive, and it didn’t play/recognise it either. I tried power on, powerd off, (hard and soft) reset to factory settings, and wiggled and changed wires to no end.

So I jumped online to search for a solution, and I found what you’ve likely found…  TONS of people having TONS of problems with this device! ALL KINDS OF PROBLEMS. But I noticed something. WE ARE ALL DESPERATELY SEARCHING for fixes for something we shouldn’t fix! Products are supposed to work when you purchase them. I’ve literally seen THOUSANDS of complaints about this product, which leads me to the OBVIOUS… it doesn’t work… period. It’s like the lottery. A few people will win (a very small percentage) but most will lose. And that’s exactly what weems to be happening here. Maybe some people are lucky enough to win with this product, but a LARGE number of us are losing… losing our money.

WE PAID OUR HARD-EARNED MONEY for a product advertised to do a certain thing. And for a larger number of people, it’s not doing it! So why are we wasting OUR time trying to fix something instead of WD? …time I should be spending enjoying viewing movies? This is ridiculous! AND WE’RE ALL STUPID!!! Western Digital is TAKING our money for something that doesn’t work! They know it, and you know it! Think about it: Would you buy a brand new car that wouldn’t start or drive? …only to spend hours under the hood trying to fix it yourself? Of course not!

So what’s the solution? It’s obvious. Return this piece of garbage and spend your money on something that works as advertised! I had nealry 20 family members over and thought this would be a great way to enjoy movie time together, but all I did was waste time and endure extreme FRUSTRATION!

I am returning this “product” today and I will NEVER purchase Western Digital products EVER again. Nor will I EVER recommend their products (except to the few people I don’t care for!) …YOU’VE BEEN WARNED!

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UPDATE: I fixed it! …AND IT WORKS PERFECTLY!!!

So I tried something (mainly because I couldn’t except failure) and it actually worked. Since I was quick to criticize, I thought I should update (and eat crow, for now!)

So here’s what I did:

I connected my 3TB HD to my laptop (running Windows 7) and deleted all “Seagate Backed Up Files” from the hard drive. I only left what was factory installed. Then I noticed the WD TV Live SMP had created a folder on the HD. Then - for no paricular reason - I moved 1 movie file to the root (top level) of the HD. I also placed 1 movie file in the folder the WD TV Live SMP created. All remaining movies (a total of 289 movies - mp4, avi, mkv, mpg) were in 1 folder, labeled “Movies”. Maybe it was stupid, but my thinking was, I wanted to give the SMP every possible avenue to recognize media files.

I connected the Seagate 3TB HD back to the SMP while it was unplugged. I then plug the SMP in and it powered on, and within 30 seconds or so it was on the home page. Then I accessed the hard drive through the “Files” tab on the dashboard., instead of going through the “Video” tab - which showed nothing at the time. The movies were immediately found through the “Files” tab! They had difficulty playing through the “Files” tab, so I wen t back to the “Video” tab and “Ta-Daa!” all of my movies were there! ALL 289 MOVIES! And they all played! (I checked about 20 various movies and file types. No glitches and no pauses! It worked seamlessly!

Even better, I selected the “View Preview” option instead of “gallery view” so it starts to play the movies in a small tile when the cursor highlights the name of the movie! 

Maybe none of these things did anything. Maybe I’m stupid (very likely!) but I didn’t realize you have to access your media through the files first, BEFORE the are loaded or recognized. I don’t know what tomorrow holds, but for now it works perfectly!

Will update if anything changes.

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A happy ending :smiley:

Welcome to the community and enjoy the streamer

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It’s good that it works, but you shouldn’t have to go to the files menu to make the videos work.  (At least I don’t think we should have to).