Latest firmware kills Dlink DNS-323 NAS samba connection

Hello All;

I updated the firmware for my WDTV Live media player to v1.03.49_V yesterday and today I can no longer connect to any samba share on my dlink NAS. I have tried switching from wireless to cable with the same results, unable to make a connection. I can turn on the NAS’s uPnP service and I can make a connection but not when trying to connect to a samba share. I have tried adding new users and changing passwords with no luck.

I have used the uPnP service briefly, just long enough to realize it cannot serve up an ISO file for the WDTVLive to play. The WDTVLive sees the file but when you try to play it, it says there is no media present in the folder. The uPnP server is also unable to play any kind of playlist for my music.

Any ideas?

Should I try to put the previous firmware back in my device?

Thanks for any help in advance.

P.S.

I can still connect to a samba share on the NAS from my popcorn hour, win xp, a linux box and an eComStation v2.0 box just not the WDTVLive.

Try clearing the login info from the Live.

Did that, no luck. Tried restoring factory defaults, hard reset and left unplugged for a half hour,  still no luck.

The WDTVLive sees the dlink but will not connect by samba share, uPnP works but is kinda useless for the files I have.

Thanks anyway for the help.

Do your SAMBA Logs on the NAS have any useful info?

Oftentimes, the failure to show files is the result of a minor permissions issue, which should be reflected in logs.

Hi Tony;

There does not appear to be a samba log, only system and ftp. The system log only tells me when I make changes through the web interface.

There is no samba connection info there.

It looks like I am going to have to put the v1.02.21 firmware back into my WDTVLive, can someone point me to a good tutorial on how to do this? Where can I find the v 1.02.21 firmware?

Thanks for the help, but my WDTVLive is all but a paperweight now.

Hi,

I just wanted to chime in.

I’m having the exact same problem.

If no solution comes around, I’ll probably have to downgrade to the previous firmware too.

I can’t think of what kind of update they may have done to break Samba…

I’ve got root access to my DNS-323, so I’ll poke around and post back here if I find anything.

It could be that the WD is now running a current version of SAMBA, version 3.5.1,not the old 3.0.28 as before. Poking around in the Ubuntu forums, I read that samba no longer uses the old LANMAN style Authentication method, and the DNS 323 requires that. It appears that wd upgraded to fix the huge win7 issue, which may hAve resulted in breaking old NAS platforms that use really old SAMBA versions. Check with DLINK to see if they have a fix.

Well… I’ve sort of managed to restore connectivity between the 2. Unfortunately, I’m not sure why it started working.

Logging does not work on the DNS-323’s Samba. I tried outputting to /var/log/ and I tried outputting to my HDs in /mnt/ but it wouldn’t write to the log file.

So we have no solid info to run on.

Here’s what I tried:

  1. Power cycle both devices completely (unplug WDTV for true power cycle)

  2. Clear network share login info from WDTV

  3. Enabled uPNP on the DNS-323.

  4. Remove custom buffer-related parameters in smb.conf on the DNS-323 (SO_RCVBUF=65536 SO_SNDBUF=65536, max xmit = 65535)

  5. Remove password encryption in smb.conf (encrypt passwords = no)

After each Samba modification on the DNS-323 I ran ‘smb restart’ to re-read the config file.

After removing the custom buffer configs in Samba on the DNS-323, it seemed to start working.

Just to be sure, I put them back the way they were and power-cycled the WDTV again (unplug/replug).

It still worked with the default Samba configuration.

I suspected the uPNP feature, so I disabled it and power-cycled the WDTV, but it still worked for a few minutes.

It stopped working, and then I re-enabled uPNP and it now appears to be working again.

This is completely strange…

This guy suggests that there is an issue with the DNS-323 always wanting to be the master browser, and he’s disabled it in Samba:

http://forum.dsmg600.info/viewtopic.php?id=5717

I didn’t try that yet.

That’s pretty interesting Tony, thanks for the tip!

I’ll keep an eye on this.

Hi Tony;

I had already updated to the latest firmware for my dlink NAS on the sixth of this month. I have had this NAS for 2 years and this is only the 3rd update that I have seen for it.

It would be nice if they could code in so the user can tell it which log in method to use on the WDTVLive.

I don’t think that I mentioned that MP4 h264 encoded HD files have no audio with the new firmware. What ever they did to fix poor mp4 video support has broken the audio support as well.

Thank you for all of your input, but I am going back to v1.02.21 of the firmware.

Hi Tony;

I had already updated to the latest firmware for my dlink NAS on the sixth of this month. I have had this NAS for 2 years and this is only the 3rd update that I have seen for it.

It would be nice if they could code in so the user can tell it which log in method to use on the WDTVLive.

I don’t think that I mentioned that MP4 h264 encoded HD files have no audio with the new firmware. What ever they did to fix poor mp4 video support has broken the audio support as well.

Thank you for all of your input, but I am going back to v1.02.21 of the firmware.

Hi kmcewen,

If you only have a single user account for your NAS and authenication is not important to you (i.e. you’d rather not have to use a username and password) and you have access to edit the smb.conf file on your Dlink, try this.  (Make a backup copy of your smb.conf file, just in case you need it.)

I added the line
guest account = nobody

to the [global] parameters section of the smb.conf, this turns on the “guest account”.  Then I modified the ‘share’ definition section like such (My share name is SDRAID and the path to my share is /exports/SDRAID).  You’ll also have to modify the “hosts allow” to be whatever you need…for a local network like mine 192.168. would allow everything I need.  The other entries are there due to debuging different things over the time I’ve owned the device.

#New custom “GUEST” account parameters
[your share name]

comment = Guest access share
path = location of the share
browseable = yes
read only = no
guest ok = yes
hosts allow = 192.168.
hide files = /.*/aquota.*/

Mine looks like this…

[SDRAID]

comment = Guest access share
path = /exports/SDRAID
browseable = yes
read only = no
guest ok = yes
hosts allow = 192.168.1.100, 192.168.1.110, 192.168.1., 192.168.
hide files = /.*/aquota.*/

You will have to clear the Network share username and password in the network setting on your  WD Live box for this to work.  You’ll also have to either restart Samba for the changes to take effect or simply restart your NAS.  This setup works on mine, I can access the NAS via Samba and I’m running the latest 1.4.x.x version of the firmware on the WD Live.  My NAS is now running Samba 3.4.4, but with authentication turned off, I suspect the version shouldn’t matter nearly as much.  I suspect, this solution should work just as well with the Samba 3.0.31 I had previously.  Any Samba gurus out there that can confirm?

It should be noted that my particular NAS has no way to set up a “guest” or anonymous login from the supplied Web interface.  I’m not sure if this is typical, but doing these changes cripples certain functionality within my Web interface.

69samael69 wrote:

Hi kmcewen,

If you only have a single user account for your NAS and authenication is not important to you (i.e. you’d rather not have to use a username and password) and you have access to edit the smb.conf file on your Dlink, try this.  (Make a backup copy of your smb.conf file, just in case you need it.)


69samael69 wrote:

Hi kmcewen,

If you only have a single user account for your NAS and authenication is not important to you (i.e. you’d rather not have to use a username and password) and you have access to edit the smb.conf file on your Dlink, try this.  (Make a backup copy of your smb.conf file, just in case you need it.)

 


 

Unfortunately I have 8 user accounts set up with different access rights and I have no idea how to find the smb.conf file on my dlink nas. Since WD broke this, it is my view, that they should fix it and not the user.


69samael69 wrote:

Hi kmcewen,

If you only have a single user account for your NAS and authenication is not important to you (i.e. you’d rather not have to use a username and password) and you have access to edit the smb.conf file on your Dlink, try this.  (Make a backup copy of your smb.conf file, just in case you need it.)

 


 

Unfortunately I have 8 user accounts set up with different access rights and I have no idea how to find the smb.conf file on my dlink nas. Since WD broke this, it is my view, that they should fix it and not the user.

 

P.S. I just installed the latest firmware on a Popcorn Hour A200 and guess what, every thing still worked after the update and they actually fixed some bugs without causing any more, the A200 can now play an ISO file served up by a uPnP server unlike the WDTVLive.

kmcewen wrote:> P.S. I just installed the latest firmware on a Popcorn Hour A200 and guess what, every thing still worked after the update and they actually fixed some bugs without causing any more, the A200 can now play an ISO file served up by a uPnP server unlike the WDTVLive.

Really?   With full DVD Menu support?  I’m not seeing any mention of that in the RN’s.

Hi Tony;

You are right, there is no menu support when using a uPnP server, but the ISO file does play. The DVD menu function works great over a samba share. The WDTVLive can see the ISO on a uPnP server but can not play it and it can only play the movie (no menu navigation) on a samba share (that is if you can get samba to work with it).

Thanks for the reply.

The Live WILL Play DVD ISOs via UPnP as long as the DMS supports ISO.  That’s the difference.   The Popcorn DLNA NMJ SERVER will unpack the ISO.   In other words, if you use your PCH as WDTV’s SERVER it will work the same.  So, really, PCH is behind, not a pioneer.   WD’s has done that for a long time.

I’m not understanding your other points.   The WDTV does support DVD Navigation for ISOs through network.

kmcewen wrote:

 


Unfortunately I have 8 user accounts set up with different access rights and I have no idea how to find the smb.conf file on my dlink nas. Since WD broke this, it is my view, that they should fix it and not the user.

 

P.S. I just installed the latest firmware on a Popcorn Hour A200 and guess what, every thing still worked after the update and they actually fixed some bugs without causing any more, the A200 can now play an ISO file served up by a uPnP server unlike the WDTVLive.

Too bad.  The only way you could even come close to doing that with this approach would be to create separate shares and use the “allows host” parameter to only allow certain IPs.  This would work only for separate devices though and is by no means as powerful as truely authenticated Samba. Such an approach would not allow the use of DHCP since a change in IP would mean a change in access. 

I asked WD twice via their incident tracking system to confirm if the Samba version is what was actually causing the issue and the exact version of Samba the WD firmware 1.3.x.x is running, and I have yet to get a reply.  So, I’m not holding my breath waiting for WD to fix it any time soon since it seems to affect only stand-alone Linux based NAS boxes running old versions of Samba…probably a small portion of the market to begin with.  Even then, many of those using such devices would opt for uPNP/DLNA right off the get-go, rather than Samba.  I did, however, present WD with what seems to be, in my thinking, a fairly simple approach to a solution.  We’ll see.  I’m just not that patient and the uPNP/DLNA was making angry.  I realize that it’s not WDs fault my NAS uses a crappy uPNP/DLNA software, but WD is still the cause of my frustration.  If they didn’t break Samba, I wouldn’t have had to resort to uPNP/DLNA.

Hi Tony;

Which firmware? I am not seeing this with the v 1.02.21 firmware. I can only play the file over a samba share and there is no menu support. uPnP just does not work with ISO’s on the WDTVLive on any firmware that I have installed, including v1.03.49_V and v1.04.10_V.

TonyPh12345 wrote:

I’m not understanding your other points.   The WDTV does support DVD Navigation for ISOs through network.

Not for firmware 1.2.x.x which kmcewen said he was reverting to.

kmcewen: 1.03.x or higher.

What I’m saying about ISO is it is a requirement of the SERVER, not the WDTV, to support ISOs.

Which DLNA server are you using with your PCH A200?

69samael69:

The WDTV Live 1.03.xx uses either 3.0.28a or 3.5.1 depending on the minor release.

I *THINK* Version 1.04.10 uses samba 3.5.6, but I can’t be sure because the GPLs aren’t available yet.

TonyPh12345 wrote:
What I’m saying about ISO is it is a requirement of the SERVER, not the WDTV, to support ISOs.

Which DLNA server are you using with your PCH A200?

Yes, I quickly discovered this.  uShare, the DLNA software my NAS uses reports an MP4 as audio. Correct or not, most of the time these days MP4 is used for video files.  So the WD Live plays it, but only the audio portion because that’s how the DLNA reports it, it does not play the video.  Now, if I change the file extention to M4V (MP4 Video) and give the DLNA appropriate time to update, then it detects it as a video and the video plays fine on the WD Live.  It took me a while to wrap it around my head.