I hooked up my wdtv live about 2 weeks ago. As soon as I hooked to my network it asked to update to newest firmware and I did. After setting it up on my network and establishing the settings I played some files from my external hd hooked to my pc. Every file I played whether avi or mkv would stop after 5 minutes and get error “not able to connect to network”. How annoying and it sounds like a common problem. I run my two xp computers through a Linksys WRT54GS router and I use this router to run a netgear 85mbps Powerline through my homes electric lines to the nearest outlet and then a ethernet cable to the wdtv live. After reading many posts and hopeful solutions I decided to try the simplest first. I went to my network settings and changed the workgroup name to “WORKGROUP” and rescanned my network settings. Lo and behold it did work!! I have played 20 different movie files in avi, mkv and h264 formats in SD and 720p resolutions without a hitch. Its awesome. The only problem I have is with 1080p files. After a couple of minutes they start to skip and wont play smoothly. This may be due to the limitations on the powerline 85mbps I am running. I hope all who are having this problem will change their workgroup name in the network setup. It solved mine and I am very pleased with it now. Beats the heck out of having to burn to disc and re-encode lots of movie files. Good luck.
This is so weird. I thought I’m the lucky one tha has no problem with the network connection. Well, after having no problems for last few days ( I got my WDTV Life for Xmas) and playing AVIs, MKVs and DVDs, suddenly tonight my network started disconnecting after few minutes the same way as all of you reported. It is very frustration as it makes this nice gizmo absolutely useless!
I also find VERY disturbing that no one from WD support reads this “WD community” !!!
I found this possible fix to the network dropping. It applies to XP
Press start button
control panel
switch to classic view
administrative tools
services
Network DDE right click then properties - startup type to automatic
Network DDE DSDM right click then properties - startup type to automatic
(you may have to turn one on before the other to get them to work)
Reboot the computer and wdtv and then see if it works.
It appears that WDTV may need these services and they may not be running. On mine they were off. Since I turned them on I have manged to watch more than 5 minutes via Network Shares.
I also changed the workgroup on my computer to WORKGROUP because this was another recommendation.
I don’t know at the moment if it was the services or the workgroup change which did the trick but I will play around later and report back
This is not my idea, I found it on another forum but its worth a try.
Looks like that might do the trick. I’ll check it out and report back. Thanks for the link. At the very least, that forum may prove beneficial.
Any ideas on how to accomplish the same thing with Vista?
Any ideas on how to accomplish the same thing with Vista?
Or windows7?
I have now done some more work and find that just changing the workgroup name on the computer to WORKGROUP allows me to use network shares for longer than the 5 minutes I usually got. (now up to 34 minutes without failure) (windows XP)
richUK wrote:
I found this possible fix to the network dropping. It applies to XP
Press start button
control panel
switch to classic view
administrative tools
services
Network DDE right click then properties - startup type to automatic
Network DDE DSDM right click then properties - startup type to automatic
(you may have to turn one on before the other to get them to work)
Reboot the computer and wdtv and then see if it works.
It appears that WDTV may need these services and they may not be running. On mine they were off. Since I turned them on I have manged to watch more than 5 minutes via Network Shares.
I also changed the workgroup on my computer to WORKGROUP because this was another recommendation.
I don’t know at the moment if it was the services or the workgroup change which did the trick but I will play around later and report back
This is not my idea, I found it on another forum but its worth a try.
You’re my hero, RichUK!!! My XP network shares stayed connected for nearly two hours after applying the changes. It was still connected when I turned it and the TV off. Many thanks for pointing out this forum.
And Network DDE DSDM must be activated before Network DDE.
I will be trying to track down the Vista and 7 solution. I did not see these settings in the Services on Vista, so there’s probably an equivalent hiding under a different name. (Why DO they do these things?) If I find the answer, I will post back. Meanwhile, this solves 90% of my problem.
I should also mention that I did not change the workgroup name of the XP machine, thus ruling it out as the soluton (at least in my case).
Network DDE is not implemented / supported in Vista and Win7.
I don’t think it’s required for WD TV Live to work.
Network DDE is disabled on my XP Pro (hardwired and has WORKGROUP configured) and my WD TV Live (hardwired) works fine accessing the shares on the XP Pro. Both have static IP addresses.
richUK wrote:
I have now done some more work and find that just changing the workgroup name on the computer to WORKGROUP allows me to use network shares for longer than the 5 minutes I usually got. (now up to 34 minutes without failure) (windows XP)
Yet mine is called MSHOME and there are no problems (I saw some linux people say that linux just ignores workgroup names anyway…)
I have tested using a different workgroup name (i.e. not WORKGROUP) and my WD TV Live still works fine.
Here is my setup:
WD TV Live
v1.01.12
Hardwired (CAT5 cable) to a Linksys WRT54GL
Static IP address
XP Pro SP2
Workgroup name: HOME now back to WORKGROUP
Network DDE and Network DDE DSDM services are both disabled
Hardwired (CAT5 cable) to the Linksys WRT54GL
Static IP address
The built-in “Guest” and “Administrator” accounts are both disabled
Permissions on the shares - Everyone Read only
A separate user level account (with read only access to the shares) is used to connect to the shares from the WD TV Live.
_ Update: _
After testing a different workgroup name for longer and power cycled the WD TV Live a few times, I have experienced the share disconnection for the first time!
It was rock solid when I had WORKGROUP as the workgroup name. So it seems WORKGROUP is the trick.
Hello All 
I’m posting here because I recently acquired a WD TV Live (for Xmas), and experienced a network share dropout yesterday.
Specs & Network :
-
1 x Win 7 comp.
-
1 x Win Vista comp.
-
1 x Win 2008 server comp.
-
Fully wired Ethernet network
-
Firmware : xxx.0.11
So, after I had this dropout, I started investigating on what could be the source of this trouble.
I’ve played with samba & Linux a few years ago, so I’m not a complete stranger in this domain, and what I tought is that there was maybe a master browser conflict between the computers & the WDTVLive, so I deactivated all the automatic network discovery features & master browser broadcats to see what happens next.
So far, I had no trouble and no dropouts.
I’ll keep you posted fellows 
so if a person turns off network discovery, Window7 will still see the WD live? Or does one have to manually input the network address?
'lo
one thing that could help, since I had the same problem with my servers in our company:
net config server /autodisconnect:-1
this should be entered from an Adminstrative cmd-prompt.
Microsofts explanation about that command is found here. This also applies to XP/2003 and up
Cheers
entered where exactly…few here understand anything about networking!
Hello oldslow
Network discovery features from Windows is basically this :
- every computer keeps sweeping your network actively regularly and maintains a list of the devices & other comps found
Now, there is also a mechanism called “Master browser election” (wich samba users know pretty well…) that will define which computer is gonna be the one to maintain the Master list (and other comps will refer to the Master after to get the list)
To summarize : if you turn off the network discovery feature on your computers, all the network devices will still be accessible, including the computers, but the WDTVLive will be the one to maintain that list.
I’ve been having the same connection drop issue after about 5 minutes of play time. I’ve tried the methods below but with no luck. I have yet to try a fixed/reserved-ip address on the WD TV Live, or using the workgroup name WORKGROUP on the Vista computer being shared. This is pretty annoying to make it work. The D-Link Boxee and other devices will pose some competition. Maybe I’ll get an XBOX 360 if it can play most content.
Prevent mysteriously dropped file shares (SMB):
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/297684
net config server /autodisconnect:-1
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950836
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters SMB2 DWORD:0 to disable SMB2 and use SMB1 if necessary
http://www.windowsreference.com/windows-vista/slow-network-copy-and-connection-drops-in-windows-7/
netsh int ip show offload
netsh int ip set global taskoffload=disabled
disable and enable the network adapter
netsh int ip show offload
Setting the Windows Network Workgroup to “WORKGROUP” worked for me. I had tried various other settings below and while these also may be of use it was only the WORKGROUP that solved it.
Prevent mysteriously dropped file shares (SMB):
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/297684
net config server /autodisconnect:-1
OR FOR SAY A 6 HOUR TIMEOUT
net config server /autodisconnect:21600
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950836
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters SMB2 DWORD:0 to disable SMB2 and use SMB1 if necessary
http://www.windowsreference.com/windows-vista/slow-network-copy-and-connection-drops-in-windows-7/
netsh int ip show offload
netsh int ip set global taskoffload=disabled
disable and enable the network adapter
netsh int ip show offload
From my own experience, there’re two issues, one is the network disconnection that happens around 5 mins when the file sharing PC is not configured with the workgroup name WORKGROUP.
The other issue is the WD TV Live cannot find the file sharing PC(s) at all, this is likely due the Master Browser issue, when there’re multiple PCs on the network.
For me, my solution was to identify the PC that had forced browser elections and I disabled the service “Computer Browser” on that PC (that happens to be a laptop on wireless).
The “Computer Browser” service is in all versions of Windows (XP, Vista, Win7).
So my suggestion for people having network issues is to use WORKGROUP as the workgroup name, and disable the “Computer Browser” service on PCs that seem to be causing browser elections if your WD TV Live can’t find the PCs from time to time.
I’ve found that if you turn on the player and leave it alone for about 15 or 20 minutes, then you can stream video from pc to player over network without dropping connection. Works every time.
