"last content source....error" driving me, the wife and kids nuts!

Hi I’m hoping someone can help here…I have a WDTV Live set up (with latest firmware) on a wireless connection to my Synology NAS. I can set up the Media Library that can “see” the movie folders on the NAS which I can see in the Video tab on the WDTV (the movies play with no problem). I then turn the WD TV off, in to standby, and every time I turn it back on I go to the Video tab and get the message “the last content source has been removed. please select a new content source”. If I then go in to setup>system>media library>media library manger for network share and re-scan the video folder it will come up with the message “compiling media library” and I can then see the media folder in the video tab. So it works in the end but having to go through the hassle of re-scanning the media library every time we turn it on is really rather annoying. Can anyone please offer any advice? Thx

You can turn off the media library to stop the compilation

Hi Wizer

I am trying to avoid having to turn the media library off as me, and the family, like the film details that get picked up with the media library on.  I just can’t understand why I have to get the WDTV to manually scan the media library every time I turn it on; surely that can’t be the norm.

Any other tips/advice would be much appreciated :slight_smile:

Same here. I am not 100%-sure, but I think this problem exists since the most recent firmware-update.

I think it works like this:

  1. your NAS goes in suspend-mode after a while (when not used) and at a certain moment your smp “notices” that the NAS is not available anymore (“content-source removed”). 

  2. Being in “content-source removed”-state the smp will not try to make connect to your NAS anymore, whether it has become available again or not. Because of that the only thing you can do is to revive the connection to your NAS manually (like you do in the Settings-menu). WD should address this issue with a firmware-update.

For now, probably you will not have this problem if your NAS is always “up” i.e. does not go into sleeping mode … 

Thanks, this does tie in with what I am seeing; I do have my NAS set to go into hibernation.

I agree that it didn’t happen before the recent upgrade; it would certainly be good to get a fix in the next firmware update as I think it might end up being thrown out of the window by someone in the family.

I set both my nas and wd to static ip’s to get around this and it seems to be working so far.

I’m having the same issue here, I have only had the unit for a week and updated the firmware as soon as I set it up, so can’t comment on other firmwares.

I have an issue logged :  http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Streaming-Issue/Networking-Issues-Invalid-Username-or-Password/idi-p/481484

I have my server (Win 7 x64 PC) shut down at 02:00, then switch on at 10:00, so it could be this, BUT I hae set the scanning to monthly, so it shouldnt be.

I have a sneaking suspicion it is actually to do with the IP Lease time - the WD TV is assigned an IP address by the router, but it needs to renew this lease periodically (usually every 24 hours). Powering off the WD TV (as opposed to putting it in standby) will cause it to renew the lease when next powered up. The same can be achieved by resettting the network connection or workgroup name. This is not really a good solution as I particularly like the quick boot up from standby. Incidentally IP Lease renewal is required whether the device is on a static or dynamic address.

I am going to be doing some tests to confirm this:

Factory reset the WD TV & set up the library, then put in standby.

Power on 23 hours later & confirm library is present, put back in standby.

Power on 2 hours later & see if library source has been lost.

Full Power off, wait 5 mins & power on, then see if library is restored.

I’ll update this post with the results.

Thanks Salawinder; great that you’ve raised the case.

I had already set my NAS and WDTV with static IP’s so would agree that that is not the issue.

An Update from my thread in the support area for your information:

I think I am calling conclusive proof here…

I did a factory rese of the WD TV at 13:30 on Sunday, connected to my network share & added three folders to the Media Library. All other settings were left as default. I then put the device into standby.

At 12:30 on Monday I powered on the WD TV, and after a short pause the shares were still in the media library. I believe the pause was because the media scanning was enabled in standby, and my server shuts down between 02:00 & 10:00. I then put the device back into standby.

At 14:30 on Monday I switched on the WD TV, and the media library reported it was empty - this is after waiting at the home screen for a good five minutes to allow the connection to re-establish. I then powered the box off (held the power buttion for 5 seconds).

At 15:30 I powered the box back on, and after the full boot-up procedure and a 10-15 secnd wait at the home screen, the media library contained the three shared folders.

I think this confirms my theory that the issue is related to the IP Lease Time, in that after 23 hours in standby the library was populated, after 25 hours the library was empty, but after a full reboot (and therefore reallocation of IP address) the librarty was re-populated.

IP Address Lease Time is one of the fundamental principles of TCP/IP Networking, and the fact that the WD TV does not correctly implement TCP/IP would mean advertising the device as a ‘Media Streamer’ is false advertising.

I posted my original issue on Wednesday 3rd, now 4 working days later there has yet to be any comment from WD regarding the issue. I hope now that I have done further diagnosis for them they will provide some feedback before I return the device to the shop.

 I think I am calling conclusive proof here…

Err, no.

Powering off the WD TV (as opposed to putting it in standby) will cause it to renew the lease when next powered up.

Incorrect.  It will request a new lease.  It will not attempt to renew the existing lease.

And yes, “New” versus “Renew” are two distinctly different concepts.

Leaving it in Standby, it WILL renew the DHCP lease at the correct time (which is halfway before the expiration) even while it is in standby.

Incidentally IP Lease renewal is required whether the device is on a static or dynamic address.

Incorrect.  There’s no such thing as a “Lease” when you’re using a static IP.

 IP Address Lease Time is one of the fundamental principles of TCP/IP Networking

Incorrect.  IP address lease time is not relevent whatsoever to TCP/IP networking.  DHCP is a wholly separate mechanism than TCP/IP.   In fact, TCP/IP doesn’t use DHCP, and DHCP doesn’t use TCP/IP.   DHCP uses UDP/IP.

BTW.  I have four WDTVs on my home network, using multiple NAS boxes.   All of my NAS boxes go to idle after a period of time, but they’re still on the network and connections are maintained – and thus I’ve never had the symptom or issue being described here.

If your NASs actually go completely off the air, that’s a whole different matter.  

Incorrect.  It will request a new lease.  It will not attempt to renew the existing lease.

Agreed, my wording was incorrect, I meant renew the IP Address, which in turn would establish a new lease.

Leaving it in Standby, it WILL renew the DHCP lease at the correct time (which is halfway before the expiration) even while it is in standby.

I’d like to know how you know this, I’m not saying you’re wrong, but my issues (and those of others) seem to be pointing this way, so if you have proof that the WDTV renews the lease I’d appreciate ruling it out of the issue. If you have any other suggestion as to why it loses the connection to the shares after 24 hours I’d like to hear that too.

Incorrect.  There’s no such thing as a “Lease” when you’re using a static IP.

I have to disagree on this, my Windows machines show an expiry date on the lease, and all are on static IP’s, my network printer runs on a linux base and also has a lease expiry date listed on a static address.

Incorrect.  IP address lease time is not relevent whatsoever to TCP/IP networking…

Okay, perhaps not TCP/IP networking, but networking, so if this does turn out to be the issue it will be a major flaw in the system.

My Windows 7 macine with my network shares does switch off, but I cannot see why that would be the issue.

I understand that when the WD TV is in standby it scans the network shares (although I did have this set to monthly previously, so it should not be causing this issue), so if the shares are not there it would not be able to scan them, but when the shares return they would be scannable.

Incidentally in the test I performed the shares were visible at the 23 hour point, which was after the machine with the shares had been off for the night. Between the 23 & 25 hour tests the shares were available throughout.

Also, I believe that most households would shut down the PC’s that have their media on overnight, so if this is the cause of the problem it is again a major design flaw.

I appreciate you have a working system with no issues, and felt my post had innacuracies, but myself and several others are having a number of issues with what should be a basic part of the functionaliy of the product. I am yet to get any feedback whatsoever from WD staff on the issue, and am losing patience. If you have anything to add which would  help us out I would be very happy to hear it.

 I’d like to know how you know this, I’m not saying you’re wrong, but my issues

(and those of others) seem to be pointing this way, so if you have proof that the

WDTV renews the lease I’d appreciate ruling it out of the issue.

Simple.  I can see it in my DHCP server’s logs.

I first set the lease time pretty low (1 hour) and then rebooted the WDTV so it’d pick up the new lease expiration time.

I then immediately put the WDTV into Standby.

Here’s what the logs show:

Oct 9 00:39:23	dhcpd: DHCPDISCOVER from 00:90:a9:c0:02:7b via br0
Oct 9 00:39:23	dhcpd: DHCPOFFER on 192.168.1.101 to 00:90:a9:c0:02:7b (WDTVLive3) via br0
Oct 9 00:39:23	dhcpd: DHCPDISCOVER from 00:90:a9:c0:02:7b (WDTVLive3) via br0
Oct 9 00:39:23	dhcpd: DHCPOFFER on 192.168.1.101 to 00:90:a9:c0:02:7b (WDTVLive3) via br0
Oct 9 00:39:23	dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.1.101 (192.168.1.1) from 00:90:a9:c0:02:7b (WDTVLive3) via br0
Oct 9 00:39:23	dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.1.101 to 00:90:a9:c0:02:7b (WDTVLive3) via br0
Oct 9 01:09:23	dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.1.101 from 00:90:a9:c0:02:7b (WDTVLive3) via br0
Oct 9 01:09:23	dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.1.101 to 00:90:a9:c0:02:7b (WDTVLive3) via br0

The lease was first granted at 00:39:23, for a duration of one hour, so one should expect a lease renewal request at half of that, or at 1:09:23.  

And indeed, the WDTV renews its lease at exactly the right time.

Left all night, I would see it doing that every 30 minutes.

 I have to disagree on this, my Windows machines show an expiry date on the lease, and all are on static IP’s

Sorry, that’s just flat wrong…  

I would also bet your PC also lists “DHCP Enabled” as “Yes.”

Either way, if there’s an expiration date on a lease, it’s NOT a static IP.   

Now, if you’re instead referring to a “Reserved IP,” where you statically define the address and MAC of devices in your router (presumably, your DHCP server), that’s not at all the same thing.   That’s still a dynamic lease – your PC has no idea that it’s going to get the same address over and over again.

But if you’re defining the IP address ON the PC, that is NOT a lease.

Given your assumption, there’d have to be a DHCP server responsible for EVERY IPv4 device in the universe, and that’s certainly NOT the case.

DHCP is neither central to nor a dependency of networking.   It’s actually a fairly modern innovation considering the IPv4 protocol (The Internet Protocol) has been around for over 30 years, and DHCP was introduced about 12 years later.   

The internet ran fine (and still does) without any notion of DHCP leases…

I think the problem you’re experiencing is far more fundamental, and yeah, is probably a bug or, at the very least, a limitation – If you’re using Media Library, the WDTV *depends* on the availability of the media library database files, which are stored on the same server that hosts the media files themselves.

If you, in effect, cut the WDTV’s lifeline off by disconnecting its access to those database files, the media library function will be disabled.

All I’m saying is that it has nothing to do with IP addressing.

Thanks for the feedback, you obviously know a lot more about this than I do.

As I said, it is concerning that the WDTV still sees the media library at the 23 hour point (after the shares PC has been shut down for 8 hours), but loses it at the 25 hour point, and the shares PC had been on between the 23 & 25 hour points. I know that the IP address lease time is 24 hours, and could not think of anything else that fitted the symptoms.

I do indeed have defined IP addresses on my router rather than fixing the IP address on the equipment, so I have a central point of control. I understand that this is not strictly ‘static’ as you have explained, but it ensures that all my equipment has the addresses I assign them. As the addresses are therefore dynamic (but assigned) the Lease Time is still used, and could therefore be the culprit in some way.

I cannot change the lease time duration on my router, so cannot ‘prove’ this by setting it to less & re-testing, but I and others are still having issues which seem to be happening when the WDTV has been in standby for over 24 hours.

I would have thought that the share being unavailable for a period of time was the norm - not many people I know have a NAS, but several have expresssed an interest in the WDTV. To date I have to say I would not reccomend it, and if the requirement is that the shared media be available 24 hours a day I think it is a major flaw.

I am still waiting for any feedback from WD about the issue, so am even more concerned about the lack of support.

Really good to get some discussion on this topic - just wish I could contribute more but am not that computer/network literate. My status is the same as salawinder…I have reserved IP addresses on my router for both the NAS and WDTV and I believe my NAS is still connected to the network, even when in hibernation, as I can see the NAS’s IP address showing as “on-line” on an App on my iPhone so dont believe I am fully tethering the connection with the WDTV. Still very annoying and it would be good to get a response from WD support.

When this happens, go into the Media Library Manager and look at the status of the Shares.

I’m guessing you will see them all marked with an “X” and if you select one of them and do ENTER with the remote, the status will be marked as “Internal Error.”

Confirm?

At first i thought it was related to the ip and tried static but it apears the update they did for the last nas issue caused this.

I expect the next firmware is going to have a fix for it since they likely have a good idea of where to look to fix it.

I’m having similar issues (minus a NAS) with just windows shares.  The only way I’ve figured out how to fix is to clear saved passwords and re-setup the share.

We have 3 devices (all named differently) and  this “clear passwords” fix has been done on 2 of the 3 WD TVs.  I have checked security logs on the PC to determine if there are any authentication problems, but nothing showed up until after the share was re-setup.

Reading through the forums, I see that a few others have reported similar issues but didn’t respond to possible fixes.  So I’m not sure if this issues is the same or not. 

Thought I’d post up and share my experience.

Sure can’t hurt to try and who knows may fix the issue.

Tony,

I was messing with the setup yesterday (again), so did a factory reset, connected to my shares & added them to the Media Library. 25 hours later, they are gone.

I went to Settings > System > Media Library Manager, the shares are listed there, there is no X next to them, there is the X to delete the share when you highlight the entry, along with the refresh symbol, but I don’t believe that is what you mean??

As this is not what you expected, does it shed any light on the cause? I have still not heard anything form WD themselves.

images attached for clarity:

1.jpg

2.jpg

…right; it’s not THAT X.

The little icon on the far left of each entry (looks like a PC?)  changes subtly depending on what’s happening – rescaning, disconnected, etc.

That’s where the little X will show up.

But either way, if you highlight the entry itself and press OK, it’ll bring up a status screen with some details.