My Book Live installation failure - need help

[pokeefe]

I’ve just purchased a My Book Live and have failed at the very beginning of the installation.   When I plug the ethernet cable into my hub they activity LED blinks for a while and my hub shows an active connection.  Then activity stops, the hub shows the port as diconnected, and the LED on the front of the WD drive starts blinking greeen.  The drive never shows up on the network display on my PC or as an active user on my router.  “Active user” means an IP addr has been supplied by DHCP, I think.  (The router is really a combination router, wireless access point, and DSL “modem”.)

I moved my PC’s ehternet cable into the port I had tried using with the WD drive.  It worked so I know the hub is not at fault.  I’ve also tried two ethernet cables - the one supplied with the drive and another one.  No luck.

I’ve disconnected  the power cord and ethernet cables a couple times.  I even tried a reset.  Nothing helped.  I’ve run out of ideas.  Anybody have any clue what I should do next?  It’s a bit too early in the process for me to try any PC-based debugging since the PC can’t see the drive.

BTW, the doc says the blinking green LED on the front of the drive indicates read/write activity.  That really doesn’t make much sense at this point.

[TonyPh12345]

I would swap it for a new drive.   Sounds like there may be a problem with the ethernet port on the MBL.

[pokeefe]

I tried directly connecting the drive to another PC and it works.  That required UPnP … which shouldn’t be needed with my router.  For now I’m going to assume the device is fine, but that somehow UPnP is confusing my router.  I know nothing about UPnP.   I should not need UPnP to talk with my router, but if the router is expecting DHCP exchange (whatever that is) and BML is expecting a UPnP exchange (whatever that is) maybe the two cannot talk.

My router is an Actiontec GT701-WG supplied by ISP.  It’s pretty limited in function so I may not be able to turn on UPnP support.  If that is the case, can I use another (ohpefully small and cheap) router that supports (or at least is not upset by) UPnP to build a subnet containing the MLB devide?  Is that a “normal” configuration for this deviice?

[TonyPh12345]

The only time the MBL “needs” UPnP is for Remote Access.  And even if UPnP isn’t available, remote access can still be manually configured.  So unless UPnP requests from the MBL are just totally screwing with the router, I doubt that’s the problem.

But you mentioned that the “hub” showed disconnected.   I assume you’re talking about the ethernet hub (or switch.)  There’s no reason at all that ANY type of network request from the MBL should cause the port to be shut off.

[pokeefe]

TonyPh12345 wrote:

The only time the MBL “needs” UPnP is for Remote Access.  And even if UPnP isn’t available, remote access can still be manually configured.  So unless UPnP requests from the MBL are just totally screwing with the router, I doubt that’s the problem.

 

But you mentioned that the “hub” showed disconnected.   I assume you’re talking about the ethernet hub (or switch.)  There’s no reason at all that ANY type of network request from the MBL should cause the port to be shut off.

I realize UPnp isn’t needed in this case, but I’ve seen people complaining about (the non-existance of) UPnP support in my router so I’m guessing UPnP might mess it up. I’m grasping at straws here.

Yes, I was talking about an ethernet switch, and I’m guessing at the meaning of the meaning of the status lights.  There is a light labled “Link/Act” and the doc (such as it is) says “this LED indicates that there is activity on the specific port” but does not indicate what in the ehternet interface is being indicated.  The ports for the ethernet connection to my router and PC show solid on when the devices are up and ready for use, and blink when there is data transfer.  When my MBL is connected to a switch port and then powered up, the switch’s status light shows solid on most of the time, blinking occassionally as data transfers happen, and then goes out after a couple minutes.   I’m sure that doesn’t imply the port has been shut off, but certainly means the status of some line in the ethernet interface has changed. 

For what it’s worth, the “Link LED” in the MBL’s ethernet port either never turns on, or does not stay on long enough for me to notice, when I cable the drive to my switch.  It does go on when I directly cable the drive to my PC.

My next test will be to directly plug the MBL into my router (which is also a WiFi access point) and see if I can get wireless connection to the MBL.

[pokeefe]

Oh my.  I think my ethernet switch may be the problem.  When plugged directly into my wireless router - and after a very long delay - the router and MBL started talking, and the drive showed up on my wireless “LAN”. 

Maybe my router does support UPnP, or maybe it just occassionally checks to see whose is on the local segment.  (Yesterday I changed the MBL to have a static IP addr on my router’s ethernet segment.)

So I guess now I have to ask what seems like a meaningless question:  What are the ethernet switch requirements of MBL?  The switch I’ve got - a LinkSys 5-port 10/100 ethernet switch has worked with everything else I’ve connected to it, but they’ve all been computers of one sort or another, never peripheral devices like MBL.

[pokeefe]

Solved!  Bad ethernet switch.  I have no idea what was wrong except that it would run at 10Mb only (which should not have upset MBL), but it obviously had other problems, too.  All fixed by a new switch.

Now I’ll start asking “setup” questions. 

[TonyPh12345]

pokeefe wrote:…it would run at 10Mb only (which should not have upset MBL)

Yes, it will.   The WDs will not do 10BaseT.   IIRC, They only support 100- and 1000Base-T.