Oh jesus. Wish you had pointed me to that earlier. That explains it then. There’s a KB about this and they ADMIT the internal service crashed? So… when they detect the internal service crashed, they can’t reset it? Wwwoooowww. And I thought my programming was bad. Even I have a routine that hucks the current decompressor and creates a new one from scratch if the old one crashes. I praise WD for attempting to play lots of different types of files - it’s what distinguishes the WD box from other ones on the market. But I ding them big time on simply hanging instead of trying to reset stuff and play again. This bug IS fixable, but I seriously suspect it’s end-of-lifed or something.
there is no way I’m going to dive down and crack open the device and look for bugs. This is a consumer device. I’m posting on this forum to let WD know that their stuff is badly in need of some error handling and to see if other people see the same issues. I’d sooner buy a media server and install it in the corner of my living room than dive down and investigate WD’s bugs.
if your point is for WD to recognize the problem, then you’re going about it wrong
no, I didn’t search enough when I made the post, WD knows about the issue already, they just aren’t fixing it. All I really wanted to know if other people had seen this, and if there was a work-around. Apparently, there’s lots of stuff that can crash the WD service and they (WD) aren’t really paying attention or fixing it. Corrupt files, badly authored files, DNLA servers on the network sending out bad packets, UPnP packets being sent from QNAP servers, the list goes on and on. What’s pretty clear is that WD’s decoder service is FRAGILE and we all just have to put up with it.
My best bet now is to go home tonight and see if my QNAP box is doing some kind of uPnP port forwarding. I doubt it is, and I think my router is set with uPnP turned off. I’ve never really understood uPnP, and figured it’s a huge security risk to turn it on. But if my router has uPnp turned off, will other stuff on the network still try to send uPNP packets, and if they do, does the router strip them? I have no idea. Anyhow, it’s worth a try.
AngryAtWD wrote:
I write software for a living AND I interface with and use some of the world’s most licensed MP4 decoder engines. I do have a clue about what’s going on here.
Except of course from the obvious fact that decoding is done in hardware. You needed an upleasant know-it-all-in-your-face-guy to enlighten you about it.
AngryAtWD wrote:
Tony, you really come across as an unpleasant know-it-all in-your-face kinda guy.
Look who’s talking. Actually, Tony is one of the most helpful and friendly guys I’ve ever met on the forums. He’s even putting up with guys like you rather than telling you to shove it as pretty much everyone else would have done.
AngryAtWD wrote:
no, I didn’t search enough when I made the post
You don’t say! And guess what, it’s still an issue with your crappy files. If you don’t use crappy files, this bug can’t even turn up.
So what if it’s a hardware decoder instead of software. Still might use callbacks that happen on a different thread. Still can be reset. In fact, easier to reset if it’s hardware. This doesn’t prevent WD’s software from being crappy and doesn’t mean it’s NOT an easy fix. I can’t even imagine why WD shipped with a h/w decoder chip, considering all the flavors of codecs they wouldn’t be able to decode and CPU power is cheap and easy. Surprised.
I *hate* having to get online and post a question, knowing a bunch of self-proclaimed **bleep** will only partially answer my question and then act like it’s MY crappy files that keep WD from fully testing their decoder. I’m not allowed to write software that hangs. I have to put my software through a team of testers that bangs and bangs on it until it (a) works for everything we throw at it, or (b) says “I can’t play this”. WD is shipping a commercial product, not some beta-board-for-testers. I shouldn’t have to crack open the device and debug it OR have to reset it every time I want to play another file, just because the file flavor is slightly off from whatever format it claims to decode. Trolls.
the WD box locks up for many many variants of files, from a wide variety of sources. Plus, it now locks up on stuff it didn’t lock up on before.
TechFlaws, Tony - do me a favor and don’t reply to this post any longer. Let somebody useful reply, or somebody who has more insight or experience or something more useful to say than “nyah nyah it’s your crappy files”. Thanks
I’m sorry that you feel you have to resort to name-calling, but, did anyone try to tell you that there is no bug? No problem? No, so what on earth do you expect us to do? Fix the bug? We can’t. We are not the software developers.
We have offered you one of the few solutions we can – stop feeding your box flawed files and the bug won’t present itself. You’ve already vocally refused to do any other isolation or troubleshooting, which is of course your own choice.
Short of that, the only thing you can do proactively is open a tech support case with WD, and then come back and complain (if you so desire) that they aren’t fixing your issue. I don’t think anyone will argue with you on a point like that.
I already agreed with you that WD could do a better job with error handling. Yet you still resort to insulting me simply because I’ve offered you the ONLY suggestion I can offer.
…I can’t even imagine why WD shipped with a h/w decoder chip, considering all the flavors of codecs they wouldn’t be able to decode and CPU power is cheap and easy. Surprised.
Surprised that you’re surprised. *EVERY* set-top-box media player of this vintage and price range use hardware decode.
So what if it’s a hardware decoder instead of software.
So what if you keep using an argument from authority while at the same time knowing next to nothing about the device you keep whining about? Impressive.
AngryAtWD wrote:
4. TechFlaws, Tony - do me a favor and don’t reply to this post any longer. Let somebody useful reply, or somebody who has more insight or experience or something more useful to say than “nyah nyah it’s your crappy files”. Thanks
Captain Obvious - do us a favor and don’t expect anyone to treat you any better as long as you keep acting like a clueless jacka$$. Thanks.
KAD79 wrote:
if you still have issues playing the files from a USB drive even when completely disconnected from the network
then the problem is the files
We’ve already established that, no? The genius admitted that WD’s knowledgebase entry describes the bug he’s experiencing. Since the bug only manifests after a bad file has been played, the question is already aswered.
Of course he can keep shouting at windmills and whine on about how WD dares not to fix the WDTV’s crappy error handling ASAP as a master coder as himself would have certainly done. The smarter people however already moved on, making sure to play only properly encoded files.
