I recently bought a 2TB MyCloud and have come across an odd problem. My main computer is an iMac (OS 10.6.8) but I want to also be able to read/access the files on a Windows laptop (Thinkpad T410, Win 7 Home Premium).
I began by loading my folders of CD backups as well as a folder of Humour items. When I booted up the PC, the drive came up just fine but to my surprise some of the CD folders’ names had been changed to a short series of capital letters followed by a swung dash and a single letter. The files (audio tracks) inside were OK, however. One .jpg image in the humour folder was also changed.
As an experiment, I copied the “offending” files from their original location (another external drive, formatted FAT32) to a flash drive. These appeared normally on the PC. I also duplicated one CD folder, keeping the name exactly as it was but adding “TF” (Test Folder) to the name to differentiate it from the original. When I copied it to the Cloud drive, it appeared normally.
I called WD Tech Support (40 mins. to get on!) The tech was, I think, as baffled as I was and could only suggest enabling DLNA, which might affect streaming audio but I doubt could have any effect on folder names. Before I contact them again I thought I’d post here in case someone has had the same situation.
“A picture being worth a thousand words”, the screen shots below illustrate the problem:
My guess is that what you’re experiencing is called “Name Mangling.”
You probably accessed the device via your Mac with AFP, and your PC must access it via Samba.
For some reason, you’ve put a character in the folder name that is LEGAL on AFP, but is NOT legal via Samba, so Samba “mangles” the name.
One thing that’s weird in your screenshot is that your “mp3 files” folder appears to have a leading space in it. It’s actually " mp3 files"
If you’re accessing using both Macs and PCs, you should access them via Samba ALWAYS.
To fix your issue, you’ll probably need to get back in on your Mac using AFP and correct or modify the names of those folders.
Thanks, Tony. Could you enlighten me about AFP and Samba? These are not terms I’m familiar with. It is odd that the same files, when loaded on to a flash drive, do appear perfectly normal on the PC, though. If I have to rename them, I can probably find some away of automating the process as there are a lot of them!
At first I was suspicious of the spaces between the BWV numbers on tha folder as Windows usually doesn’t like to see spaces, but as the duplicate folder with TF added shows, the spaces themselves don’t seem to be a problem. I know that the underlying Unicode infomation for letters etc. can get misinterpreted between Macs & PCs. My gf often finds this when a Mac colleague sends her a file; sometimes a letter is replaced by some strange substitute.
As to the extra space in “mp3”, yes, I’m aware of that and will change it. The empty folder I use as a default when creating mp3 files has the space (as does the one for CDs) because on the Mac OS that will force the folder to the top of the list; I then rename them with the appropriate content. No reason to title the actual mp3 folder however.
AFP = Apple Filing Protocol.
Samba (a/k/a CIFS) is WIndows protocol.
Thanks again. I did a quick Google search and this seems to be a common problem between platforms, so there are a number of links I need to check out, one of which will no doubt help me to get this sorted before I commit thousands of files to the cloud drive! My PC laptop (and a netbook) also runs Linux, which is another thing entirely, but for now getting the Windows compatibility sorted out will be good enough.
Stuart
oldbrownhat wrote:
Thanks again. I did a quick Google search and this seems to be a common problem between platforms, so there are a number of links I need to check out, one of which will no doubt help me to get this sorted before I commit thousands of files to the cloud drive! My PC laptop (and a netbook) also runs Linux, which is another thing entirely, but for now getting the Windows compatibility sorted out will be good enough.
Stuart
Double check how your linux system connects to your shares(test with a dummy share ), mine did it via afp by itself until i mount NFS or specifically connect via samba.
Strange letters appears on filename/folder names (unicode?).
sammarbella wrote:
Strange letters appears on filename/folder names (unicode?).
I may have the terminology wrong. My gf figures that the underlying code that actually defines the characters may sometimes not be the same or may clash somehow between Mac & Windows. I doubt this myself, but she has noticed that Mac-originated files she is sent will sometimes have an unexpected character substitution in the text. That’s a whole 'nuther discussion, though. For now (actually probably tomorrow or Monday) I’ll have my hands full getting the Mac-PC thing sorted out. Then I may tackle Linux…
Stuart
TonyPh12345 wrote:
My guess is that what you’re experiencing is called “Name Mangling.”
…If you’re accessing using both Macs and PCs, you should access them via Samba ALWAYS.
To fix your issue, you’ll probably need to get back in on your Mac using AFP and correct or modify the names of those folders.
I’ve been away from this for a while…
It appeared that the problem occurred only whe accessing the cloud drive via the Network panel on the PC. When I did it “properly” via the MyCloud app, the names all looked OK. Except that they weren’t. When I tried to actually play an mp3 file, some wouldn’t play, and going back into the Network panel access view, I saw that, although the name read correctly in MyCloud, the name there was mangled. There seems to be no rhyme nor reason to this. On one album of 15 tracks, all but the first would play OK. When I re-typed the name (on the PC) , it played properly.
It is going to be exceedingly annoying if I have to re-type dozens and dozens of file names. I feel that if the drive is supposed to be Mac & PC compatible, its software ought to be able to reconcile this without my intervention. (MyCloud seems to be able to read the names OK.) I am hoping that I can find some software that can “batch” convert" the files; otherwise it will be of limited use as a cross-platform device. They must be tranparently read on either platform.
Ironic that it runs on Linux but doesn’t have any Linux support.
I guess this is just “one of those d****d leaning experiences.” Unfortunately I’m new to networking and its dark secrets (“ext4” filesystem?) so it looks like there is going to be some aggro involved to get it sorted out. My main computer is a Mac so I’m going to have to find a way to make sure the filenames are compatible right from the start as I am regularly adding CDs and mp3 files, which so far seem to be the main offenders.
I guess I can blame Mr Jobs for insisting that we “think different”. 
oldbrownhat wrote:
Ironic that it runs on Linux but doesn’t have any Linux support.
Do you mean “Official” support?
Yeah, that’s tough for any company, because “Linux” is just a word. There’s so many thousands of variants out there it’s impossible for a company to provide tech support to Linux users because there’s absolutely no consistency.
“…one of their VIP customers…” !!!
Actually, the call was from one of the Quality Supervisors. I had talked to a Customer Service rep about this problem and he seemed to get a bit worried when I mentioned that I am primarily a Mac user. He went away for minute, presumably to seek advice, and came back with a suggestion that turned out not to be relevant. I subsequently got an e-mail from WD asking for feedback on my CS experience and I had to say that the poor guy tried his best but wasn’t able to help. Lo and behold, a couple of weeks later (last Thursday) I got an e-mail, followed almost immediately by a call, from the QA supervisor, saying he had listened to the conversation and was calling to see if there was anything else they could help with. (The call was apparently to check that they had my tel. # correct. It seemed that they hadn’t got it when I registered and only found it in my sig. line from the e-mail response I’d sent.)
I don’t know how often they do this, but I was impressed.
It just occurred to me that when I upload files to my Dropbox account, I don’t seem to have any name mangling problems when I (or others) access them on a PC. Just to be sure, I identified an mp3 file which came up as mangled on the WD Cloud drive and uploaded the same file (from my iMac) to Dropbox. When I went to Dropbox on the PC laptop, the file appeared normally. This would suggest that Dropbox (and presumably other cloud-based services) must have some software solution for resolving this.
WD-Fan wrote:
Your description lets me guess that names stored in MyCloud are correct but when such names are sent to your MAC that translation process does not work as expected.
Actually, it’s the other way round; they are created on the Mac and don’t read properly on the PC. But I have just found some useful info on the Dropbox website. When I accessed my Dropbox via the desktop shortcut, the test file hadn’t synced.When I accessed it via the Dropbox website, it did show up. But I also got a notice stating, "“Some of your files won’t sync with Windows. View these files and find out why.” There were quite a lot of them, mostly indicating “Filename contains an invalid character.”
There was a link to this page, which also has a link to a Microsoft page about “characters incompatible with the Windows file system.” In the case of the test file, it had a backslash in the title, which is a no-no, being a directory instruction, and in another set of mp3s the first track had a ? in the title, which is also apparently not allowed! When I removed that it showed up OK. Both showed up normally in Dropbox on my LInux system, however.
Many of the other offending files have “invalid charcters” that I cannot see, but at least this is a start. There may yet be some software that will allow me to scan files for uploading on the Mac (or after uploading on the PC) and do a “search and replace” or similar function so that Windows is happy.
Live and learn… and maybe do a lot of typing.
I came across a programme called Name Cleaner, from Sig Software. It’s $35.00 but the trial version will clean 20 files. I made up a test folder whose folder name was corrupted as well as containing a number files with corrupted file names, all mp3s. I selected 4 files and ran the lot through File Cleaner and all read correctly on my Lenovo laptop, both in Dropbox and on the WD MyCloud drive.
Given that the Mac has always had to play nicely with Windows I feel it should have such a function built in, but for the moment this would seem to be able to resolve the problem. (I will keep looking for a free solution of course!).
Name Cleaner goes back a long way; it can even process files from the Classic OS (OS 9 and before).The latest version seems to be from 2008 and the documentation only mentions up to XP. However, it seems to run OK on OS 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard.)
I went through the folders of my mp3 files and discovered that in most cases the offending characters were my use of slashes and the occasional quotation marks in the album titles- quite inoffensive on the Mac platform but a serious no-no on Windows. Only about 40 folders’ titles were corrupted so corrrecting them wasn’t as onerous a task as I had feared. I haven’t gone through all 4,000+ mp tracks themselves (!) but I’ve found a few with the same affliction. There were a few corrupted files whose names seemed normal when viewed on the Mac which I simply re-typed on the PC. I also used the NameCleaner program on a few. (The trial version will only do 20 files before you have to relaunch it but this hasn’t proven to be a serious restriction in my case.)
One other small problem has been some old text files without extensions, but the Mac’s “Automator” program was able to batch-process those files and add “.txt”.
The only other problem so far has been the inability to stream a folder of mp3 files but that’s a topic for another thread if I can’t sort it out.
Many thanks to all who contributed to this thread.
:) Stuart
