Latest firmware for WD TV LIVE MEDIA PLAYER

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live & Live Plus
1

randomly changes files to folders
cant access latest firmware over the net
firmware version 1.06.43_V
PLease HELP thank you

2

That has been a known issue for YEARS. There’s no fix other than rolling back to an earlier version.

Instructions can be found in the forum.

3

thanks
which version ?

4

Looks like the blind trying to lead the blind here–but still probably better than the telephone support for these legacy WD products.

Knight97:
I don’t know how knowledgeable TonyPH is, he seems to answer quite a few questions here but “roll your firmware back” is text book kind of answer ANY of the Folks you could actually get on the Phone would tell you. I KNOW they haven’t a clue and WD basically won’t let you talk to their actual Techies.
FYI-you Probably won’t ever be able to apply that firmware version over the internet. It is possible to do it manually if you’ve downloaded the Files.
Go to: htps://supprt.wdc.com which is the main online support page.
Enter 5343 in the search knowledge base field and that will bring up very details instructions on how to apply that firmware manually–you just put it on a Pen Drive and the WD TV Media Player will do any heavy lifting from there.

Whether this is the appropriate firmware for your particular WD TV Live Plus Media Player, I cannot say.
1.06.43_V IS the latest firmware upgrade and it addresses a number of issues. From what I can glean from the support website there ate TWO versions of this Media Player. If you have the North American one which will have a model # that starts:WDBABX
my understanding is that Model will not properly install 1.06.43_V. It’s latest firmware version is 1.06.42_B

MY Own Question:*
That’s what I have. There are a number of issues addressed in 1.06.43_V. that aren’t addressed in 1.06.42_B. I’d like to know IF 43-V will install on my Media Player. Unfortunately I can’t just call WD tech support and get a direct informed answer. On a Good day the bots will guide me to online help pages that I’ve already read cover-to-cover.
*If anyone reading this actuallly knows from first hand experience that 1.06.43_V can be applied to ANY WD TV Live Media Player—please let me, Let us All know.

Thanks folks

1 Like
5

No. The Firmwares are not interchangeable.

They are different hardware generations with different SoC (System On Chip) and different features and almost certainly using different kernals.

WDTV Live HD Media Player (Gen 1, FW 1.06.43_V) SoC Sigma Designs SMP8655

WDTV Live Plus Media Player (Gen 2, FW 1.06.42_B) SoC Sigma Designs SMP8654 Macrovision enabled and the Linux system is also now encrypted.

6

Thank you Joel. As someone who’s been in Enterprise IT for 30 something years—that’s a concise answer with detail enough that I can appreciate.

Trouble is: Today is my first day on this forum. I’ve since my post above read a litany of issues with these firmware versions. The mantra at WD is to "Roll Back to an earlier “more stable” version. They’ve no intention of actually fixing any of the infirmities they created in firmware updates.

I just finished giving WD a glowing review on Amazon because, for the most part I prefer my WD TV Live Media Server over pretty much everything else I have
 Roku even the newest ones, still don’t handle the range of streaming even as well as my old WD does/ I very likely would be more circumspect in my praise had I to do it over again. They were, at one point, well poised to lead the Streaming Client-Server market—given their related products and doing a LOT of things right in the early days.

Paid $40 for it about 6 years ago on IBID. Certainly I’ve gotten my money’s worth. Also after the disastrous entry into the 1.5TB HDD market that Seagate made–that after building a reputation of having fast robust products–I again turned to Western Digital of my externals. I’ve abot 35TB’s mostly on WD, Has by no means been perfect. One 3TB drive going south feels lik a pretty big loss.

On the subject of firmware for the WD TV Live streamer it would seem that rather than attempt to force the latest firmware release folks are better served rolling back to the last known “Stable Baseline”
That WAS Tony’s advise–but he gave neither rhyme nor reason for it.

7

Thanks :pray:

8

PaulbNYC
November 7
Looks like the blind trying to lead the blind here–but still probably better than the telephone support for these legacy WD products.

Knight97:
I don’t know how knowledgeable TonyPH is, he seems to answer quite a few questions here but “roll your firmware back” is text book kind of answer ANY of the Folks you could actually get on the Phone would tell you. I KNOW they haven’t a clue and WD basically won’t let you talk to their actual Techies.
FYI-you Probably won’t ever be able to apply that firmware version over the internet. It is possible to do it manually if you’ve downloaded the Files.
Go to: htps://supprt.wdc.com which is the main online support page.
Enter 5343 in the search knowledge base field and that will bring up very details instructions on how to apply that firmware manually–you just put it on a Pen Drive and the WD TV Media Player will do any heavy lifting from there.

Whether this is the appropriate firmware for your particular WD TV Live Plus Media Player, I cannot say.
1.06.43_V IS the latest firmware upgrade and it addresses a number of issues. From what I can glean from the support website there ate TWO versions of this Media Player. If you have the North American one which will have a model # that starts:WDBABX
my understanding is that Model will not properly install 1.06.43_V. It’s latest firmware version is 1.06.42_B

MY Own Question:*
That’s what I have. There are a number of issues addressed in 1.06.43_V. that aren’t addressed in 1.06.42_B. I’d like to know IF 43-V will install on my Media Player. Unfortunately I can’t just call WD tech support and get a direct informed answer. On a Good day the bots will guide me to online help pages that I’ve already read cover-to-cover.
*If anyone reading this actuallly knows from first hand experience that 1.06.43_V can be applied to ANY WD TV Live Media Player—please let me, Let us All know.

Thanks folks

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Thanks a lot
I got it to work by using usb drive
Appreciate the contact mate
Much better than first answer

9

Just take heed now that you’ve installed that firmware version Knight. One of the main issues documented in these forum and for which I can vouch–as I’ve experience it myself. The last firmware version installed–the WD TV will tend to corrupt media files directly connected through the USB ports. We don’t know why it happens but a .jpg file, for example, wll get changed to a file folder with the same name and zero size. Whole movie collections can get corrupted. There are LINEX fixes, in terms of recovering the corrupted files, but the WD will just keep corrupting them over time. WD TV Live doesn’t do it with media it’s streaming from wi-fi or direct Ethernet.
For a lot of folks who do have content directly connected this can be a show stopper. The only real solution seems to be to roll-back an earlier firmware version as this was introduced in, I think, the last 2 latest firmware releases from WD.
Western Digital has known about this issue for years and hasn’t fixed it. I kind of assume that like a lot of “tech” companies they probably don’t have anyone who actually knows HOW to fix legacy products. OR maybe they’ve just decided that number of people still using these streamers are too few to be bothered with. Not exactly a “by the book” way of establishing and keeping a customer base.

10

Real world experience for my WDTV Live PLUS devices:

I have been a member of this forum since the Plus model was released and have continued with FW 1.05.04_B. All the later versions of FW were buggy and is why I settled on the version I use in both players today and they work perfectly. BTW, the V versions are for the non-plus players.

11

Hi 


Tell me please, which number of firmware updates is lastes

20.03.20, as you mentioned on upper post : 1.06.43_V or 20.02.32 
? ? ?

Regards

12

Which one do you own ? 
 they are different Models.

1.06.43_V is for the older Gen 1 Model which does not have Netflix support

WDTVLIVE

1.06.42_B is for the older Gen 2 Model which has Netflix support (device looks identical)

WDTVLIVE

2.02.32 is for the Gen 3 Model which has Netflix support

31rDUebdyNL.AC_SY350

13

Hi

I have the last one (black). Then, the firmware number I have (20.02. 32) is a final update on the current day
 Yes
? Am’I right
?

Regards

W 10 kwietnia 2022 00:28:50 JoeySmyth via WD Community wd@discoursemail.com napisaƂ:

14

There is no WD Official Firmware Release numbered 20.02.32 
 so, i don’t know where you got that from ?

The last Official Firmware Release for the WDTV Live Streaming was 2.02.32

The Official WD Firmware Page was removed years ago 
 so here’s a snapshot from The Way Back Machine

Ironically, the download link is still “alive” on WD’s Servers

http://download.wdc.com/wdtv/wdtvlivegen3_2.02.32.zip

15


yeah
you are right
! By mistake I wrote “20”
I have 2.03.20
Then, I will try to download this software what you send me to upgrade my WD TV LIVE MEDIA PLAYER

Regards

W 10 kwietnia 2022 07:54:44 JoeySmyth via WD Community wd@discoursemail.com napisaƂ:

16

Friendly advice 
 for future reference
 refer to your device as the WD TV LIVE STREAMING MEDIA PLAYER (aka. WDTV SMP), then people will know you’re referring to the late model (2011) , and not the old model (2009).

If you have any issues with 2.02.32 that many people did 
 the Rollback to 2.01.86 link still works as well :slight_smile:

Also, My Simple Step-by-Step Guide to Rollback also with a working link.

17

Thanks a lot

Have nice Sunday
 All the best from Poland :poland:
Waldemar

W 10 kwietnia 2022 08:40:32 JoeySmyth via WD Community wd@discoursemail.com napisaƂ:

18

Hi again


Do you have the link to version 2.30.20 
? If something went wrong with version 2.01.86, I would like to have a chance to revert to the current version.

Regards Waldemar

W 10 kwietnia 2022 08:53:27 Waldemar Wirski 5969158@gmail.com napisaƂ:

19

You need to be more careful and double check your firmware version numbers :confused:

2.30.20 does not exist

2.03.20 does.

http://download.wdc.com/wdtv/wdtvlivegen3_2.03.20.zip

This is not a “Rollback Firmware” link 
 but you can edit it to make it one

If you upgrade to 2.01.86 (or 2.02.32) 
 and then decide you want to rollback to 2.03.20

Download wdtvlivegen3_2.03.20.zip from the link above and extract it

Then, on your PC open the wdtvlivegen3.ver with Notepad and edit the version number to a higher number to force the WDTV to detect is as a new firmware to rollback.

From this 


VERSION=‘3.03.20’
LOCATION=‘wdtvlivegen3.bin’
PKG_LOCATION=‘wdtvlivegen3.pkg’
ROOTFS2=‘wdtvlivegen3.bi2’

To this 


VERSION=‘4.03.20’
LOCATION=‘wdtvlivegen3.bin’
PKG_LOCATION=‘wdtvlivegen3.pkg’
ROOTFS2=‘wdtvlivegen3.bi2’

close, and save.

Then proceed to install firmware in the normal way.

The WDTV will display “Found New Firmware 4.03.20” just click OK to proceed

When the firmware has finished installing and the WDTV Reboots 
 the Setup > About will display your firmware revision correctly as 2.03.20

20

Thanks a lot

Have nice day

Regards

W 11 kwietnia 2022 03:16:14 JoeySmyth via WD Community wd@discoursemail.com napisaƂ: