My PR4100 is getting stuck somedays on "System is shutting down", possible plex issue?

I have energy saver setting enabled for power schedule. Each night from 2AM to 8AM my system suppose to shutdown or hibernate, what ever the case may be. Lately (at least three times this month), I noticed that my system is completely offline (none of the shares / apps work) and upon a visual troubleshooting, I keep finding the same message on the LCD: “System is shutting down”. I tried using a power button to get the system to shutdown/reboot, but it was fully unresponsive. Only unplugging a power cable and plugging it back in would bring the system back online.

I’ve seen some mentions on factory restore / firmware reflash, but I do not wish to loose the contents of my RAID 5 and I have nowhere convenient to backup 10+ TB of data contained therein.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Regular logs showed nothing of note, I’ve turned on extended logging and will update this post shout the “extended” shutdown occur again.

Thank you,
Gene

P.S. A quick followup: Upon enabling Extended Logging within Utility settings, system notified me that a reboot is needed. It has been stuck offline with “Rebooting” message for over an hour until I was forced to do a power cycle.

P.P.S. I am using the latest firmware version 2.30.165, and have not really had issues like these until after the update.

Hello,

I recommend you contact WD support for assistance with this.

https://support.wdc.com/support/case.aspx?lang=en

Thank you @Hamlet, I’ve done as you advised and created a support ticket. As a response I was informed that such issues can sometimes (their words) be caused by third party software utilities. The only “app” I use is Plex, does anyone else experience a similar issue?

I was further advised to download WD Quick View, but unfortunately after trying to use it on two different computers (one Windows 10, the other Windows 7), only option I see is “about WD quick view” screen, exactly as described here (link).

I’ll continue trying to get WD software to work, but does anyone have any helpful advice about how WD quick view can be used to fix and issue similar to mine or can everything be accomplished over PR4100’s internal management interface (website)?

I’ve recently updated the plex server software, lets hope that the issue goes away. I’ll keep this thread updated.

Thanks,
Gene

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I personally don’t think it is Plex. I believe the software on the PR4100 does not take into account when the device is being accessed during Sleep time. Last night I was using handbrake to convert movies, and I had this problem happen. I believe this is an issue when there is activity on the drive when it is going to sleep.

Energy savings should be more of a recommended setting vs. causing a conflict.

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It has been happening more and more lately. At this point I’m going to just rely to less efficient drive sleep to conserve energy. Hope WD comes up with a fix or at least determines what is causing this issue.

I wonder if I could write my own shutdown script / app. Seems that a few well placed “kill” commands prior to a shutdown would negate any issues. Is anyone familiar with a process wd uses to turn the system ON and OFF?

I’m also considering buying a power timer, so it will physically cut the power at night (after the system was suppose to shut down)

Hi Gene,

Did you ever find a resolution? Mine has been doing the same exact thing over the last 6 months. I too have Plex running on it, but thats it.

I have the same issues. Have updated all software for the unit and it still seems to happen.