I believe this problem started with the last firmware update. At least that’s when I noticed the severe performance degradation. I am not using this as a media server (only as a network drive) and have media streaming turned off for all shares in the GUI. However, it is constantly displaying “building thumbnail images” but never actually finishes this process. It errors out and starts all over again constantly. I would like to turn this process off completely as I have no need for any thumbnails. I have a couple of hundred thousand jpeg images stored at any given time and they are constantly being added and deleted by an automated robocopy process. I have gigabit ethernet connection and bandwidth is not an issue. This worked fine for several months and suddenly the WDmycloud 4 TB device is almost unusable due to this. It is nowhere near full with about 2.8 TB of space available. Does anyone know how to tell the device to never build any thumbnails? Thanks.
Actually this has been an ongoing problem since the WD Live series but thankfully there is a fix…
You will need to SSH into the device and issue either of the following.
Temporary stop until the next bootup do:
/etc/init.d/wdmcserverd stop
/etc/init.d/wdphotodbmergerd stop
permanent stop until the cows comes home
update-rc.d wdphotodbmergerd disable
update-rc.d wdmcserverd disable
Enjoy your quiet and powerful NAS 
P.S. you might also want to check into deleting the hidden .wdmc directories created by those two services.
Hidden .wdmc directories created by mcserver and photodbmerger and the deletion of them
Thanks Ralphael for the helpful and very quick response! That did the trick. I also used the instructions in the link to delete the hidden .wdmc folders which contained thousands of tiny files.
poor… i don’t know./…SSH
Great it even upgraded to 3.04.01-230 (4/21/2014) without any issues.
Thanks a lot for the valuable information.
After the update I repeated the process but it seems to scan for media files (at least for now) even if the DLNA is closed and the deactivated commands have been given.
I’ve also noticed that some are reporting normal sleep after the update. Is that true?
To be honest I’m currently deactivating the MyCloud since Smart Data are not looking good with all those wake ups.
Do you have any tips on that?
I wonder if you could’ve stopped this by simply connecting to the drive on port 9000, to access the DLNA server configuration pages. Just as a suggested possibility for any future readers.
As I noted in a different thread, downgrading the firmware didn’t work for me. But my WDMC was rendered *somewhat* useable by killing the wdmcserver daemon. WDMC is still the slowest device on my LAN (by far!); but at least copying files to/from the drive is now a feasible proposition. (Before killing wdmcserverd, file transfer speeds lagged way behind the average lawn’s growth rate.)
There’s lots of discussion about it, but it is still not clear to me what this process is really supposed to do. (Perhaps its primary function is simply to increase wear-and-tear on the hard drive, so WD can sell more of them!) However, it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with DLNA or Twonky – killing it doesn’t seem to have affected the DLNA server in any way. It cannot be killed from Twonky’s interface (accessed on port 9000).
There are requests to allow users to control this process from the Dashboard, but so far WD hasn’t implemented anything like that. So ssh is the only way.
This device is just a nightmare. How is it possible WD could make a product that just goes off to la-la land when you simply put data on it? I have been working for DAYS to get this MyCloud 3TB up and running with a 4TB MyBook added on as backup.
This method of turning these services off doesn’t seem to stick, even with the second disable option. Here’s what’s going on.
First, I stuck this thing on the network and bounced a bunch of files to it, and I mean a lot of files, only to discover that it goes off and does the things everyone is complaning about. Unresponsive UI, drive churning as if it’s making butter, file transfer speeds that make floppy drives look speedy in comparison.
Come back the next day, and all seems well. I investigate this thumbnail and indexing nonsense, and find myself here.
i decide that sending files over the network is slow, so I get the bright idea of sticking everything I want to transfer onto the 4TB drive first, and then plugging it into the MyCloud. hey, WD says this is a great idea, and even YouTube videos show this as working really great.
I get into the drive with SSH (after confirming with the WD people that doing this doesn’t actually void my warranty, only actually breaking the drive with a command does), and run those commands. The drive reports sucess at stopping wmdcserver, but errors with photodb (don’t remember what the error was, now).
I plug in the 4TB drive. Big mistake. This thing goes into the worst “I don’t see you, I don’t know who you are, stop bothering me, I’m busy” mode I have ever experienced. NO control possible at all from the dashboard. (Dashboard? What dashboard? Can’t connect, connection reset, can’t find server…)
I come back the next day. Still can’t connect to the drive. But all is quiet, it’s just sitting there, not doing anything. I try a 4-second reset. Nothing. No response. I try it again. Nope. I don’t know how to make it reboot via SSH, so I unplug it.
It boots, gets ready and runs. I can now see it with the dashboard. Awesome! I go into shares, see the 4TB, and it shows as public with media sharing enabled. Everything seems fine, until I go to change those options. Then we’re back to no response. A look with SSH and… it… echos… one…character…at… a… time. Can no longer connect to it with the dashboard.
Wait a bit, go look at it, listen to it, it’s idle. No activity. Reboot, and wait. All is well, yet again. I can connect to it and see it with the dashboard. Go to SSH and run the commands yet again, because I think they’re not sticking. Here’s the SSH session:
WesternDigital:~# update-rc.d wdphotodbmergerd disable
update-rc.d: warning: start runlevel arguments (none) do not match wdphotodbmergerd Default-Start values (2 3 4 5)
update-rc.d: warning: stop runlevel arguments (none) do not match wdphotodbmergerd Default-Stop values (0 1 6)
Disabling system startup links for /etc/init.d/wdphotodbmergerd …
Removing any system startup links for /etc/init.d/wdphotodbmergerd …
/etc/rc0.d/K86wdphotodbmergerd
/etc/rc2.d/K14wdphotodbmergerd
/etc/rc3.d/K86wdphotodbmergerd
/etc/rc4.d/K86wdphotodbmergerd
/etc/rc6.d/K86wdphotodbmergerd
Adding system startup for /etc/init.d/wdphotodbmergerd …
/etc/rc0.d/K86wdphotodbmergerd → …/init.d/wdphotodbmergerd
/etc/rc6.d/K86wdphotodbmergerd → …/init.d/wdphotodbmergerd
/etc/rc2.d/K14wdphotodbmergerd → …/init.d/wdphotodbmergerd
/etc/rc3.d/K86wdphotodbmergerd → …/init.d/wdphotodbmergerd
/etc/rc4.d/K86wdphotodbmergerd → …/init.d/wdphotodbmergerd
WesternDigital:~# update-rc.d wdmcserverd disable
update-rc.d: warning: start runlevel arguments (none) do not match wdmcserverd Default-Start values (2 3 4 5)
update-rc.d: warning: stop runlevel arguments (none) do not match wdmcserverd Default-Stop values (0 1 6)
Disabling system startup links for /etc/init.d/wdmcserverd …
Removing any system startup links for /etc/init.d/wdmcserverd …
/etc/rc0.d/K85wdmcserverd
/etc/rc2.d/K15wdmcserverd
/etc/rc3.d/K85wdmcserverd
/etc/rc4.d/K85wdmcserverd
/etc/rc6.d/K85wdmcserverd
Adding system startup for /etc/init.d/wdmcserverd …
/etc/rc0.d/K85wdmcserverd → …/init.d/wdmcserverd
/etc/rc6.d/K85wdmcserverd → …/init.d/wdmcserverd
/etc/rc2.d/K15wdmcserverd → …/init.d/wdmcserverd
/etc/rc3.d/K85wdmcserverd → …/init.d/wdmcserverd
/etc/rc4.d/K85wdmcserverd → …/init.d/wdmcserverd
WesternDigital:~# /etc/init.d/wdmcdserverd stop
-bash: /etc/init.d/wdmcdserverd: No such file or directory
WesternDigital:~# /etc/init.d/wdphotodbmergerd stop
[ok] Stopping wdphotodbmerger: wdphotodbmerger.
WesternDigital:~#
Wait a second. Didn’t we ALREADY disable photodb? And now, we’re back to an unreachable drive.
I’m just at wit’s end with this thing. All I want is a simple NAS with backup and basic Twonky functionality.
FW is the latest version (.607, I think) Suggestions? I really want this to work.
