EX4100 becomes unresponsive, loses network

I am having the same issue now for several days, is any one from WD is responding here? I don’t really have time for this #$!@%$

I’m suffering this problem my self as well, checking the logs I always see the same lines:

    2019-06-05T15:00:26.003386+01:00 di=  6 Archive-2 RTC: System Time Is Updated By RTC.
2019-06-05T15:00:26.012332+01:00 di=  6 Archive-2 SYSTEM: Firmware Version :  2.31.183
2019-06-05T15:00:26.056765+01:00 di=  6 Archive-2 sntp[3721]: sntp 4.2.8@1.3265 Fri Jan  9 06:42:54 UTC 2015 (8)
2019-06-05T15:00:25.777131+01:00 di=  6 Archive-2 sntp[3721]: 2019-06-05 15:00:26.156974 (+0000) -0.379350 +/- 0.295100 time.windows.com 51.140.127.197 s2
2019-06-05T15:00:32.247362+01:00 di=  6 Archive-2 RTC: Set System Time.
2019-06-05T15:01:06.499606+01:00 di=  6 Archive-2 SYSTEM: System is rebooted or power up successfully. 

2019-06-12T08:01:03.660891+01:00 di=  5 Archive-2 root: Rotated atop, atop_size=8189214 atop_upload_size=109
2019-06-12T16:01:04.007916+01:00 di=  5 Archive-2 root: Rotated atop, atop_size=11454818 atop_upload_size=109
2019-06-14T11:15:40.003459+01:00 di=  6 Archive-2 RTC: System Time Is Updated By RTC.
2019-06-14T11:15:40.007965+01:00 di=  6 Archive-2 SYSTEM: Firmware Version :  2.31.183
2019-06-14T11:15:40.062114+01:00 di= 6 Archive-2 sntp[3720]: sntp 4.2.8@1.3265 Fri Jan  9 06:42:54 UTC 2015 (8)
2019-06-14T11:15:40.223857+01:00 di=  6 Archive-2 sntp[3720]: 2019-06-14 11:15:40.152339 (+0000) +0.065715 +/- 0.102739 time.windows.com 51.140.127.197 s2
2019-06-14T11:15:46.698212+01:00 di=  6 Archive-2 RTC: Set System Time.

So that made me think: Is a problem with the Firmware updated or the time set-up? Or is just something normal that happend every time the system is restarted?

By the way, how do you made the UNIT live again? the power button doesn’t work, the arrow key works and i try to press the reset button at the back and didn’t work.

So the only way to make the unit accesible again is unplugging the power cord. Is this the only way?

Do you got a way to replicate the problem? What i mean is can you make the issue happend?

Regards

@robot256,

Yeah that is the only way to make it live again. There are some kernel settings that you can tweak that will allow the NAS to detect it has kernel panicked and it will auto reboot.

That was about the best I could get to it being stable. If you scroll up in this thread you will see that I ultimately went with another vendor branded NAS. When I took the drives out of the EX4100 and put in some different drives, and reinitialised the unit, it has not had the issue since. Not sure if you can afford to do so, but you could look at backing up everything and reinitialise it from scratch. You could get lucky.

Cheers,

JediNite

Still happens for me. I’ve tried a bunch of things but what seems to resolve is modifying your Router settings, forcing a reboot, then modifying back to what the settings started as and forcing another reboot. Then after a couple of minutes the router properly establishes connections and Windows Explorer now sees the Shares and identifies The EX4100 as a NETWORK connection. Happens with Lynksys, and now ASUS, routers so it is not router specific.

Steps I used to resolve this problem.

  1. Reboot NAS (I have seen this resolve with just a NAS reboot, but not always)
  2. Open Router settings
  • I forgot which option I changed on the old Lynksys, but on the new ASUS GT-AX11000 I actually go to the NAS connection info panel
  1. Turn OFF ‘MAC and IP address Binding’
  2. Force Router reboot
  3. Open Router settings again
  4. Change the same option back to ON
  5. Force Router reboot
  6. Wait for the connection to be re-established
  7. Double click the shortcut for the Shares folder

*NOTE: At this point it will either fail again trying to open the folder indicating no valid source connection or it will identify and open the Shares folder immediately like it should. If it fails again, go back to step #2 and perform the operations again, it will eventually reconnect.

It does not appear to be a Router issue but I do suspect some type of caching issue related to the NAS and I would not expect defining static IP to resolve it based on what I need to do to fix the problem.

WD needs to figure this out as it seems to be occurring more often regardless of Router or activity. It is completely random in my occurrences with no indication of why it happens.

When it comes time to upgrade, I’ll probably NOT be getting back into Any WD devices for my NAS. It is a nice device for the most part and a good starting point to get into this type of networking, but there are more capable systems available that appear to perform better.

I came across this post whilst investigating very similar issues on my EX4100. I seem to have got to the bottom of the issues now, so wanted to share in case it helps anyone else. I bought one of these units as “unused” via eBay in approx May 2019. The unit was listed as having been bought and never used, and it certainly appeared new. It came with a single power supply. I purchased disks, and set it all up. All appeared good, but it very quickly started displaying the same issues as listed by the OP here, the only way to reset it was to unplug the power and reconnect. The unit is configured with a static IP (so not DHCP issues), and I also hooked up two ethernet cables and configured for load balancing and resilience, but that didn’t help the underlying issue. I’d noted that the unit regularly notified about missing power on the second power input, and I started to wonder if some form of “glitch” in power was to blame. I had a look at the PSU supplied with the unit, there’s no WD branding on it, so I have no idea if it’s a “genuine” WD supplied unit or not. Anyway, several weeks ago, I had a rummage through my boxes(!) of computer spares and found a couple of old Fujitsu laptop supplies that had the same connector as the EX4100, and the right output (19V centre pin positive), so my unit is now hooked up with dual PSU’s and has been 100% reliable ever since! My conclusion is an issue with the original PSU, which I can’t prove, but nonetheless my problem appears to have been fixed. It’s a fact that the unit has never run for so long without any loss of connectivity. Hope this helps others…

I have been dealing with this issue for some time now. For the last month I have had to pull the power every 7 days like clockwork. I poked around in cron and found about 30+ start/stop entries for clamav. I believe clamav (anti-virus essentials) may have caused the freezing in my case. It takes around 40%+ for one scan and the scans take place every Saturday which is when I have to pull the power. Here is a link in relation to high cpu High CPU on EX4 seems to be caused by ClamAV
I have a power schedule on my box so every time it boots another clamav start/stop entry is added. I have disabled the anti-virus schedule and will check in 7 days to see if the problem has gone away.

Update: 7 days on and my ex4100 appears to be operating normally. Time will tell if this has resolved the issue but so far so good.

It’s been great for the longest time now, but recently has been dropping connection and falling asleep. Setting ‘Stand-By’ mode is OFF.
Power button is unresponsive.
Have to pull the power cord to turn it off.
Once plugged back in it re-initializes and runs properly within 20 minutes.

In my case the hanging was related to the power supply.

We have 4 customers using Ex4100. For two of them the unit hangs maybe once a year, the other two have never had problems.

Last week we moved the server rack to another room for one of them and the NAS started hanging every day. That happened 3 days in a row.

The only thing that was changed was the UPS. They had two identical APC Smart UPS 1000 units and we had plugged WD to the other one. I changed the AC adapter back to the other UPS and the problem has not occurred since. That was 12 days ago.

UPDATE: The improvement was relatively short lived and the unreliability is back, same as ever…

The issue has become a daily occurrence now. Just part of the routine I guess. Have to pull the plug and let it reset to allow me to have access through the dashboard or PLEX.

Latest firmware and all sleepmode/processes are off.

Going to dump this device next year and get something a little more ideal for my use case and capacity as I am at the limit with that as well.

I’ve since moved to the PR4100 which doesn’t have the same issue. Following the recent update to OS5 I pulled out my EX4100 and ran the upgrade to OS5 on there. It’s now been running for a few weeks with no hiccups at all. I’m optimistic that OS5 has finally fixed this pain in the butt issue on the EX4100.

Recent firmware upgrade to 2.40.157 on EX4100 seems to have resolved the issue. Has been a couple weeks and no daily forced reboots. Appears to be consistent and always accessible.

I never had this issue BEFORE I upgraded to OS 5.
Now my EX4100 is hanging every few hours and only comes back after a power loss.

First CPU and RAM go up to 100% and over 300 processes are started. Then after a while, the unit is just dead except for LEDs. No connection to anything, no buttons working.
I tried hard reset (40s).
I changed the cables, the power supply and the router.
None of which worked.

Anything I can do now?

I was having the exact same problem with my client’s EX4100. After I tried to change several configurations without success, I disabled “Cloud Service” and, since then, the appliance has been working smoothly. It’s been a full week since I have changed this config. I hope this workaround solves the problem 'til WD decides to make it right, eventually.

Hey danilo,
thank you for your feedback.

Either your client’s EX4100 was still indexing

… or the problem will reoccur sooner or later.

I had disabled everything - cloud access, apps, backups, shares, … even NTP - and it STILL lost connection.

Oh, man… Don’t say that… :slight_smile:
I’ll keep you up to date with further developments to my case… But I’m sweating already :sweat_smile:
One more information about my case: I didn’t upgrade it to OS5 yet. Honestly, I don’t plan to anytime soon…

No! For me, this began when I upgraded the firmware and I have been very unhappy with the whole thing since that upgrade — and you can’t go back!!

First of all, the new firmware doesn’t use Twonky — well, Twonky is out of business anyway, but the replacement is Plex and it seriously ■■■■■!

Then the unit becomes unresponsive and won’t do doodly-squat!

I can look at connected devices by login to my router. The router “sees” the EX4100 and knows its IP. The IP displayed in the “window” of the EX4100 matches what the router says it is, but if I try to open the web interface at that address, my browser times out.

Pint that IP and get no reply.

Have an EX2-ULTRA on the same net and it works fine.

I am going to try powering down. Generally like WD, but maybe I shoulda bought the more highly rated Synology DS920.

I bought the thing so I could store files and not have to hassle with drives, etc. The time I have spent trying to get this POS working could have been used to shuffle drives into a forty dollar remote drive whatchamacallit.

I’m PO’d at WD.

Solution:
My solution may be unique.
Symptoms: WD MyCloud EX4100 NAS would not respond to connecting by the web interface, or by mapping a drive in Windows File Explore. (Windows 10). The NAS WOULD respond to pings. When mapping a drive in Windows File Explorer, authentication was successful and the root folder would display but I could not navigate beyond the root folder. Using Linux (Ubuntu) or a Google Pixel 6, there were no problems whatsoever accessing and navigating the NAS.
My motherboard has two Ethernet jacks, after hours of troubleshooting, I moved the network cable to the other Ethernet jack, problem solved. In other words, the problems WAS NOT the NAS, the problem was my computer.

Has anyone had any luck with this? I’ve verified the connectivity issues is present on my EX4100 when attempting to reach the NAS from multiple PC’s, have also turned off cloud services, tested various network setting changes and have had no luck thusfar. I get maybe 30-60 seconds of connectivity before it drops and it just cycles over and over. Web connection, samba and ssh all experience the drop. This thing is a paperwork at this point, unfortunately holding a ton of data hostage.

Updating in my neverending fight to end dead-threads with silent resolution. I was already on v5.21.104 however I downloaded the firmware to my PC and timed it right to re-upload and “update” firmware on the unit over again. That fixed the stability issues and now I’m no longer losing access to the unit.