Good morning,
5/28/19 Edit: 2/3 of this post is description and rant. Skip to the bottom for the “solution”.
When accessing the dashboard as administrator from a browser using the IP address (simply 192.168.x.x), the dashboard of my WD My Cloud EX21400 will slowly load everything except the Capacity section, then freeze. Nothing I click on works and there is no sign of any life except on the unit itself, with drive lights blinking frenetically.
The NAS is running firmware version 2:31.174. It has two 4TB WD Red drives and the last time I was able to get in, I was in the process of putting them into Spanning configuration. The Diagnostics section of the page mocks me with a blue check mark and the word “Healthy”. The unit is visible in all my W10 machines under Explorer’s Storage section and double clicking the icon responds with the frozen dashboard page. I’ve turned off all the other apps (I think! Can’t get far enough into the dashboard to confirm!). Over the past week, I’ve (intermittently) deleted most of the data and shares because I’m re purposing the drive. Pretty sure there’s less than 200GB on it now.
This is the final step in the “how slow can we go” game that this beast plays with me. Both data and UI have always been slow but adequate. The interwebs are full of complaints about the EX2100 being slow, so I simply assumed that the WD division of Muppet Labs produced a clinker and I’d have to live with it.
Until last week.
Now the dashboard times out after 10 minutes to 2 hours with nothing to show for its efforts. I’m never permitted to actually, you know, administer, change settings. It used to be that if I was patient enough, the Capacity section would eventually display (10-35 min after initial web page display) and I could proceed with my business. No more . Now the dashboard simply displays, minus the Capacity section, for an indeterminate amount of time then simply goes away leaving nothing but my browser’s “we can’t find this link” message. Twice now I’ve waited upwards of 45 minutes for the dashboard to complete loading, only to have the Capacity section display, then immediately be forced to sign in again because the web page timed out. Now that’s just EVIL!
There are several theories bouncing around the internet about this behavior. One says that if the there’s “indexing” going on, this slows down the Apache server. It’s suggested that I close the dashboard page to prevent Apache from stealing precious cycles from the indexer allowing the indexer to finish its job and let Apache work. Of course this is the stupidest theory in the world, but I’m desperate and tried it anyway. Not sure how go about it, so I’ve been closing the browser tab containing the dashboard and re-entering the address about 5 minutes later only land exactly where I left off: Dashboard page, no Capacity information, frozen dashboard. BTW, those silly lights are ALWAYS blinking from the first day I plugged it in. When does it ever STOP “indexing”?
Another theory posits that the thing is overheating. I’ve taken it out of the comm closet and placed it on the dining room table (spouse is NOT happy) with a table fan blowing directly on it. Sill no joy. Like I said, I’m frustrated and desperate and tying stuff that’s both stupid AND useless.
I’ve held off on the 40 second reset thing because darn it! This is aberrant behavior and must be dealt with! I don’t want to lose all my settings just because some bonehead at the WD division of Muppet Labs was too lazy that day to build adequate multitasking into the OS or push for a bigger processor and more memory!
Please tell me how to fix this or get it fixed, or find a way to tell me that I paid way too much for a boat anchor.
Yours very truly,
Paul
5/21/2019 Edit: Changed number size of drives from 2TB to 4TB. Correct configuration is 4TBx2
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5/21/19 Edit:
Tried the 40-seconcd reset procedure twice. It did not fix the frozen dashboard problems. In the end, I removed the drives and examined them individually using a linux distribution. Each disk contained 4 partitions, a linux swap partition, two ext4 partitions formatted for Linux LVM and another ext4 partition, none had any errors. Deleted all partitions, reinserted the drives into the EX2100 and reformatted them through the dashboard with had suddenly improved its response time.Interestingly, I still retained my users and groups and other “firm” settings in spite of the wiped disks. Someone with more skill and patience may be able to actually fix the disks instead of erasing the problem.
Please be advised that one of the responses from WD tech support was wholly inappropriate in that it instructed me to use the dashboard to reset the machine. The support case was about my inability to use a frozen dashboard.
So.Fixed in relation to a frozen dashboard. No acceptable in terms of keeping data.
