Need to use WD TV USB Source without any Network Wired/Wifi

Michael_Barker · January 26, 2016, 3:42pm

WDBYMN0000NBK-00
SN [Deleted-Privacy]

I own 3 WD TV boxes. And all of them work.
But I need to be able to take one with me and have the WD TV box “see” the USB external Harddrive that all works fine when the WD TV box are on a network. But if the WD TV box is not on any network the box will not see the USB harddrives or thumb drives as it seems to lock out all other midia lib access until the box has a wifi or wired network connection.
I believe this is a bug and I need to know how to get around the issue to use the box as a straight video player playing video from the USB only harddrives.

I go on the road or go to checkout HDTV at a store and the WD TV Box will not recognize the USB drives using either USB port connection slot yet these work fine at home once the box finds a network and is connected then the box sees my source USB drive connected to the WD TV Box.
Please call me at [Deleted-Privacy] and or e-mail me at [Deleted-Privacy]
This is a very big deal and really upsets me that you can not run the box to do anything really unless on a network. Why even have the USB
Ports??
Michael Barker

ArMak · January 27, 2016, 2:29pm

Hi there,

You should be able to access your device with the USB drive connected even though there is no network connection. Try to reset the unit to see if after doing this you can access the USB drives. Here is a link that might help you with the reset process:

Michael_Barker · January 28, 2016, 1:32pm

ArMak,
Are you completely sure that WDTV can access USB without having Network connection?
I wonder if I have a defective unit as I repeated try on this one unit.
What I have not tried is my 2 other units that are more permanently wired setup in my home systems.

Is there a way to go into a service mode to turn off Network/WIFI completely?

Michael J. Barker
Product Engineer
TI Power Management
BMS MnP
[[Deleted privacy]]
[Deleted privacy] Main Contact
[[Deleted privacy]] (Office)

Joerg_A · January 28, 2016, 12:22pm

Of course. We often use the same method during shows and events where WDTV is the offline player for our TVs.
Bets would be to reset the WDTV into factory default and connect it directly to the TV. It works fluently.

Michael_Barker · January 30, 2016, 10:12pm

Ok I have now done the experiment where I had to “reset” WDTV box and not setup the network WIFI settings so there was no network connection and yes I could find the local storage USB drive and folders and files.
I still don’t understand why the box cannot find the local USB storage when system is trying to connect to a network. Other than I think the CPU is so tied up with processing power it cannot see the USB drive.
At any rate with the network not setup and the box not trying to find (after reset). Then I could get to the USB drive movie files listed on my external USB Hard-drive. But guess what the WDTV box could not play the movie *.avi nor *.mkv Movie files.
None of them. It is like the WDTV box can not run or does not have the smarts or drivers to decode so the box display “can not play file format” error message. I tried many files and all the moves that had just played fine with the normal setup now without a network the box was dumb.
I went back and setup the WIFI on to my home network. Then went the USB folders/files and selected the same movies and play perfectly fine no error messages and play all file formats like normal.

So on one hand yes you can have the WDTV off any network wired or wireless and the box can see the external folders and files and see the movie *.avi or *.mkv files but the WDTV Box then does not have any codec or drivers or smarts to be to play the files.
Then get the WDTV box on a network then the box can play all file formats fine. Which does user no good if they want to use box and movie solid state player without a network, it is useless.

Regards,
Michael J. Barker
Product Engineer