For some reason the option to Get content Info is no longer working for films, only TV shows.
Is anyone else having this problem?
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Hi @SinclairC5 ,
Have you opened a Support Case? If not opened, for more information, please contact the WD Technical Support team for the best assistance and troubleshooting:
Hi Sinclair, myself and others that are still using the unit is having the same issue in the last couple of weeks. Have you raised a support ticket as yet?
Thanks for the replies. I haven’t raised a tick yet but I will do.
I wouldn’t waste your time since support for all wdtv products has ended.
The “Get Content Info” for movies scrapes the TMDB Database for info and images.
If the TMDB updates it’s API (software/program changes) then this can cause the WDTV’s Get Content Info function to cease working.
In the past, WDTV would release firmware updates to fix broken online info scrappers.
But, firmware update support ended in 2015/2016 for all WDTV products.
The only possible solution is to use 3rd Party Software ie. Thumbgen/WDTVHubGen (which most likely won’t work either being so old and not updated anymore) or Manually Add the Movie Info.
Edit: As a last resort you could try posting the problem on the TMDB Forums and see if there is anything they can do.
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or Manually Add the Movie Info.
Is there a guide to doing this?
I’d like to continue to use the WD Media Player, at least as long as the scraper for the TVDB works (obviously, not being able to scrape movie info is a pain, but TV episodes would be a deal breaker).
A post has been made on the TMDB forum - it seems like TMDB hasn’t changed it’s API during the time when “Get Content Info” stopped working in late February 2024: https://www.themoviedb.org/talk/65d1cf93f9475b0163da55dd
I figured out how to manually add this if anyone’s interested.
If you’ve already got some content info for another movie just copy that to your Mac/PC. Then edit the file, putting in the relevant details for the movie you want content for.
If you want to add a thumbnail just find a picture online, download it and enter the file name into the content info file.
So, it looks like Western Digital deleted its account with TMDB, therefore deactivating the device’s API key.
Pretty disappointing move, since it reduces the functionality of a “legacy product” that people paid WD money for.
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Dear WD support team,
We are a huge community of users all over the world, having bought the WD TV Media Player.
A very important number of users are still using this great product, which was very well designed (robust, user-friendly, and … sustainable, I hope).
This community of customers would really appreciate that you consider taking the necessary actions to address this issue.
I have no doubt that, like me, a huge part of WD TV Media Player customers are also current and potential future customers of many other WD products and services.
Solving the problem “Get Content Info”, would certainly contribute to maintain and increase your reputation of a great company, leader in its domain.
Many thanks in advance.
On behalf of all WD TV Media Player users, and WD products lovers.
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I understand that the WD TV devices are EOL and no support is offered and that is fair. What I do not believe is fair is that WD intentionally sabotage the functionality of the devices by deleting the account. Could this potentially leave WD vulnerable to a class action lawsuit? They didn’t just not address something that was broken but intentionally broke something rendering part of their product useless. I would think that WD should be thinking long and hard about what they have done and ask TMDB to restore their account to easily solve this problem for thousands of WD customers.
I agree.
Surely it wouldn’t be hard for them to just maintain the account. I can’t imagine it costs anything and it would give paying customers a lot more faith in WD going forward.
As it is, I’m now a lot less likely to purchase from them again due to this decision.
I think I may have figured out a solution but need a little help. In theory its as easy as getting an api key from TMDB which they will supply. Then changing the key in the tmdb.xml file and adding it as a new source. The problem I am having is getting a copy of the tmdb.xml file that is on our WD TVs right now. Back in Sept 2013, TMDB switched from API 2.1 to 3 but for some reason I’m only finding versions of the tmdb.xml files that are referencing 2.1 and I’m not familiar enough with xml to be able to upgrade all the code in the file. I’ve downloaded the latest firmware file and extracted the tmdb.xml file from the bin file but it is using the old API 2.1 so I can’t get that to work. Someone on the TMDB website had figured out the problem was the API key was deleted by WD but in the coding they posted it was referencing the API 3 code so I know the file exists, I just can’t find it to modify it. Does anyone have a copy of the tmdb.xml file that references the API 3 coding because if so, then it is easy to get the TMDB metadata working again.
Thanks for the reply.
That’s a great suggestion. I’ll give it a go at some point and let you know how I get on.
Does this help:
I don’t think so. We need to get the file used by WD TV. I’ve taken a bit of a break but now that summer is over I’m going to get on it again. It’s just a matter of finding someone who has hacked into the hardware as they will have access to the file needed and then its an easy modification to make and upload.
This is becoming too much of a pain as WD are scumbags. I have an Amazon Firestick that I have loaded NOVA Video Player on to. It automatically scrapes the meta data from TMDB but the ability to scroll through your media is significantly faster. I have thousands on files on my 24TB server and it can literally take me several minutes to get to a movie sometimes because the WD scrolls so slow. Firesticks are pretty cheap so with the faster processing speed, working metadata scraper and ability to play 4K I think this is probably the way to go now rather than banging our heads against a wall with WD unwilling to cooperate and with the WD aging technology. Hope that is a helpful suggestion to anyone still looking for a solution.
I also face this problem. But the link you provide help me a lot.
