Livewire connection issues

I find the issues some of us are experiencing with the WD Livewire devices a little strange. I have four of them, all were activated and synchronised at the same time 18 months ago. Two were taken off line and stored as spares. The two that remained in service have worked well 24x7 and appear to be very reliable.

The spares are another story. A routine serviceability check showed they continued to be working as switches for devices connected as Ethernet clients but the IP over Power connectivity is a different story. I was initially concerned when I looked up users with similar issues and the one thing that fell out as a frequent problem was a disconnection of the devices after a period of operation could result in IP over Power problem notably errors like:

Error reading NMK from the local device

Unable to set the NMK from the remote device!!!

In addition a failure of the supplied WD Livewire Utility to properly connect to or manage the failed devices is also reported such as:

Unresponsive to Device fond on network, Enter Password or Rename commands.

Inability to perform a full or factory reset.

Inability to reload firmware (as a last resort – device state remains as before as local switches).

Fortunately I have the devices in service, the filed units and 2 others that have never been connected or used (still in their original packages) to forensically examine this fault.

I find it odd that there is a common thread with respect to serviceability, time between being placed on line and eventually failing following some kind of outage. In short are others experiencing failure after 2-3 years of use, following a power or other outage or other shutdown event regardless of usage?

I look forward to delving in to the firmware binaries.

Any feedback from other users will be appreciated.

I am also curious as to how long this post remains available.

MrFisty,

Unfortunately, you units appears to be faulty.

Try contacting WD Support to see if there’s anything else that you can try.

http://support.wdc.com/contact/contact.asp?lang=en&ct=networking