Folder Sync problems

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Hub Discussions
1

I have a problem with the folder sync feature of the live hub.

The way i have it setup is to have itunes download video podcasts into my podcasts directory ‘D:\iTunes Media\Podcasts’

and i setup the live hub to sync to that folder.

When i first setup the sync everything synced great. all the video files i had in that folder copied over to the WDTV. The problem comes with the new video files i download through itunes, they will not sync with the WDTV (its like the hub doesnt see them at all).

i tried all the tips ive seen here like power cable off for 15 secs etc…

what finally solved it was that i took one of the videos i had downloaded from itunes (that the hub wasnt seeing) and copy/pasted it to another folder , then i copy/pasted it back into the podcasts folder (the sync target) and only then did the WDTV live hub saw it.

Its as if somehow the hub does not recognize files that are downloaded off the net directly.

I got the idea to test it that way from another post in here that said that the live hub would not recognize downloads straight into it  (like setting up your itunes to download straight to the hub’s hard drive) and that he had to download to his pc instead and then manually copying the files over to the hub.

This is a pain honestly, i hope WD fixes this , since it seems like an oversight on their part. its like they focused too much on making the UI prettier instead of testing its functionality.

2

I think there’s a misunderstanding of what SYNC does.

Sync does NOT KEEP IT in sync.   If you’ve added additional content, you need to do the SYNC AGAIN.

The reason it’s called SYNC is that it should not attempt to RECOPY things that are already there (whereas a COPY will do that; it will erase the original and replace it anew.)

3

No offense but, I think the one misunderstanding what SYNC does is you

from the WDTV Live Hub manual .pdf

Sync Content From A Network Shared Folder
Allows you to setup a sync process to a shared folder on your network. Any new
content added to the new folder automatically syncs to the media center’s internal
drive.

Which is what I cant get it to do. It wont sync (copy to the hub) any new files that i download directly into the sync target folder.

The only way i got it to actually sync was to Manually copy files into the sync target folder and only THEN does the WDTV Live Hub sees them and syncs.

4

“It wont sync (copy to the hub) any new files that i download directly into the sync target folder.”

Your terms are confusing.   The SYNC TARGET is where the hub copies TO, not FROM.  So, yeah, if you’re downloading directly to the SYNC TARGET, there’s nothing to sync, since in effect, you’re doing it manually.

5

perhaps sync target wasnt the proper term.  but its still pretty simple im not sure why you dont understand what im trying to express here-. i thought i explained it perfectly clear in my original post but just in case ill go into further detail.

I have on my Win7 PC a folder where itunes stores all its downloaded content.

D:\itunes media\podcasts

inside that folder i have several video podcasts folders.  i have several  that i subscribe to and download off the net using itunes. I will use a fictional SHOW X as an example of what is happening to me.

example. Show X.  I had episodes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 already on my D:\itunes media\podcasts   when i bought the WDTV Live Hub.  I setup it up to sync to D:\itunes media\podcasts  and it copied everything inside that folder into the internal hard drive of the live hub. (including episodes 1,2,3,4,5 of Show X).

The next day episode 6 was released, was downloaded and stored into D:\itunes media\podcasts  using itunes , the following day episode 7 was released and also was stored in the same folder.

WDTV does not see these two new episodes (6 , 7) and does not sync (copy) them over to its internal hd. days passed and i eventually also downloaded episodes 8 and 9 and still nothing copied over to WDTV. Still i only had the original 5 episodes that copied over when i first did the sync.

And then, for testing purposes i did a copy paste of episode 7. i pasted it onto a new folder in my PC D:\test folder\ . then i erased it from its original folder and then i copy pasted it back into D:\itunes media\podcasts\ .

After doing this the WDTV Live Hub immediately started copying it.  and now shows inside its internal hd episodes 1,2,3,4,5 AND 7.

My D:\itunes media\podcasts\ folder on my pc has all 9 episodes on it and the WDTV folder only has 1,2,3,4,5,7

as you can see the live hub does SYNC like it says should but somehow does not recognize files that are downloaded into the folder that its supposed to sync FROM.  and it ONLY grabs the stuff that was a). originally in the sync folder when you setup the sync on day 1 or b). stuff that you copy INTO that folder.  but not stuff downloaded into it.

i really dont know how to make it any more clear.

1 Like
6

Well, that did a pretty good job!    I’m not trying to be difficult, I just want to be clear.

I have no idea how often the Hub “Watches” the source folder for new content.   I wonder if it’s possible that it saw the file while it was still downloading from iTunes, tried to copy it, but failed because it was still being written, and never tried again.

Do you turn the hub COMPLETELY off, leave it on, or just in “Standby?”  

If either of the last two, you might try shutting it down (3s on the power button will shut it off completely) and see if it starts syncing them when it comes back up.

edit:  never mind; your original point of powering it down via cable would have accomplished that.

Hmmm.   Lemme think on that.

7

I have the same problem with network shares.  Any new movies that are added or removed aren’t updated in the WD browser.  It certainly doesn’t ‘Sync’ as often as it should, if at all.

8

bump.

it’d be nice to hear something from WD about this.

is it a known bug that will eventually be fixed via firmware upgrade or do they not acknowledge this as a problem?.

its a good product but this ‘bug’ is a deal breaker for me. my 30 day warranty is almost done and need to know if i should stick with it or take it back to the store.

9

I have the same problem. I setup the sync folder and it copied all the file just fine. But when I moved some new files to the sync folder it has not copied them over yet. How often does the WD TV look for changes in the sync folder?

10

I just synched from a NAS for the first time last night.   I then made some changes on the NAS which should have been replicated on the hub.     Did not synch.  Then I went into setup and noticed that synch was off.  So I restarted and then it synched.  After that it reported to be off again.        At least from this quick observation it seems that synch is a one time operation which must be manually initiated, unless it is on a cron job that kicks off every so often.  Anyone know?

1 Like
11

I have the same problem with one twist. The folder I set up to sync has a hierarchy of sub folders but only one folder was synchronized initially and I cannot get the rest of the folders to sync. Has anyone else seen the same thing on their initial sync?