Freezed when playing Netflix

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Hub Discussions
1

So far I’ve loved the WD TV Live Hub, but, I’ve noticed that when I play Netflix videos, the player will freeze the video and the audio will continue for a little bit…then I have to disconnect the power cord and re-connect it.

This is running the latest firmware. 

2

Next time this happens, can you try pressing the Home button and waiting about 30 seconds? Let me know what happens. 

We haven’t seen any Netflix freezing issues in our testing. How often does this happen?

3

I’ve only recently purchased the hub and this was the first Netflix video I tried to play.  I’ll certainly try as you’ve described.

4

I haven’t had any freezes during playback. Sometimes when I try to back out of a video the unit freezes. Got a black screen today, and had to pull the plug. If it happens again I’ll try holding down the Home button for 30 seconds and see what results.

5

Don’t HOLD the button for 30seconds…  Just press it normally and then WAIT 30 seconds.  ;)

6

Oh. Well, in that case, nothing happened.

7

Not thread jacking…just another new WD Live Media Owner with the latest firmware also with the same Netflix freezing issue.  The only thing that works is pulling the plug.  Surely someone at WD has gotten wind of this as I am finding out that I’m not the only one experiencing this.  Please advise if there is a solution.

8

Well, so far I haven’t had any more lockups.   I’ll admit that I’ve seen similar behaviour in earlier versions of the Netflix client on my Samsung BluRay player…  it could have been some blip on the network.

9

3 times in one night i had to reboot my wdtvlive plus unit after netflix froze. Picture freezes, audio runs on for about 30 seconds then nothing. I need to power down and power up again.  Is this a netflix issue or a wdtv issue? Either way its a useless service with this constantly happening.

10

Same thing happend to me tonight… about five times in a row. New Live Hub running latest firmware. 

Gigabit connection to hub. 

Is this a bandwidth issue? Unlikely, since other Netflix-capable devices (PC, Tivo) in the house work fine.

Thanks.

11

My WD TV Live is freezing when using netflix after the new firmware update. I have unplug the machine.

12

I am also having issues with Netflix freezing… I am also forced to unplug ther hub in order to restore function…

Whiskey

Tango

Foxtrot

?

13

OK, so I couldn’t take this **bleep** anymore and called WD.  Spoke to their rep who acknowledged it had latest firmware and indicated  that the units that freeze usually have an issue that requires them to be sent back for replacement  if they are still under the mfg. warranty. We did a couple of resets and apparently the unit got stuck in PAL mode.   So long story short, I had an advanced RMA done where I paid them upfront for a unit to be sent to me and I would return the defective one as soon as I dump all my stuff on to the new one -  Same **bleep** problem.  The replacement unit  ( which is a refurb by the way  -  they take your new unit and give you a refurbed one! ) still locks up randomly.  Very frustrated right now!   Please keep this thread going and hopefully someone from WD will chime in and offer a better solution than replacing  bad hardware bad hardware! 

    Let’s look at the software WD!

14

I have two units that froze, however both units worked fine after UNPLUGGING them temporarily (not just turning off). They both froze again and unplugging again solved the problem.

I think sometimes a firmware update and/or not waiting for the files to be indexed after starting may cause freezing but I’m not sure.

15

For me…the video freezing while Netflix streaming happened rarely before the latest firmware update (v2.05.08) , but when it did I noticed that hitting the Home button and waiting a little (30 to 60 secs) would eventually return me to the home menu.

But now, with firmware v2.05.08, it freezes the system completely.  Thereby, only option was to unplug.

I’m presuming it frozed due to a hiccup in the datastream, since it froze on the same exact frame of the same series episode 3 times in a row.  First two times it totally froze, third the picture froze but the sound continued for a minute or two before freezing. 

Fourth time, I FF’d a little to just before the bad frame and it continued playing the rest of the episode normally.  Must be a series of bad frames that caused it, not just one.  A bad datastream is more than likely a ripping problem with Netflix, not WD.  But even so, the hub should be able to recover.  Looks like the Netflix went through a major overhaul with v2.05.08 and probably bugged the error recovery.

I can provide the Netflix Series/Episode/Time if WD needs it for research.

16

I had to type this twice now as I didn’t realize this forum is not IE 9 compatible. It posts blank posts.

Okay, let me try to get this again.  I have 2 WD hub units, one connected 802.11n and another connected via LAN (cat  6).  The unit that is LAN connected is impossible to watch netflix (Canada).  Sometimes you can make it 10 min, others closer to an hour. Sometimes you get all the way through.  If the unit freezes, you actually have to unplug the unit… to make matters even worse, I have a 10 TB drobo…and when you plug the unit back in, it recomplies your entire media library…and with that much content, takes a good 10 min.  Extremely dissapointed.  The other unti has only frozen a few times and I can get through a program 90% of the time and it connects over the same network, but is on 802.11n.

If I were to guess what is the root cause based on everything I have seen, I would say Netflix Canada (and from other posts on this forum, netflix US servers as well), are sending network packets which the WD unit is not prepared for and literally goes into some form of infinite loop or something along those lines.  What I can’t figure out is why the 2 units freeze up at different frequencies…but every other function works perfect on the unit… so I don’t think this is a hardware defect… every symptom points towards a softare defect… will need a firmware update to fix this one.

17

Hi

For the last two weeks my Hub has been freezing on NetFlix.

I disconnect the power for a about five minutes and then it works, until the next time it freezes.

18

Just experienced my first nextflix freeze. Had to unplug power. Resumed same episode and happened again. Not cool.

19

Froze while watching Netflix. This is extremely annoying to pull the plug everytime the player freezes.

20

Froze on the exact same frame after reboot. Is this a netflix problem or WD problem? Seems like Netflix but then this has never happened on my LG blu-ray player, Vizio TV or Wii elsewhere throughout the house.