Network Sharing

Community Archives WD TV Live Hub Network
1

I’ve had my Live HUB for about a week now & am so far pretty happy with it. Today I took delivery of a WD livewire kit to create a network with my PC. Everything worked fine out of the box, except network sharing.

I have read a number of forum posts (& hunted around the net for other ideas), but no matter what I do, I still have the same problems. Worth pointing out at this stage that I’m not especially technical, hence the appeal of “work straight out of the box” products!

I can see my HUB on my network & have been able to transfer files to it through the network. I can also see the content of the HUB & play files from it in Windows Media Player on my PC. I also have access to web based services, such as You Tube on the HUB. Aside from some speed issues, which I presume are due to the wiring in my house & the capabilities of my router, everything is working a treat, except I simply cannot access the files on my PC.

I have done several resets, unplugged the HUB for a while, rebooted my PC, rebooted the router, checked the workgroup names match (both are WORKGROUP), I’ve got the latest firmware & I know I’ve set sharing up properly on my PC because I can stream the content to my bluray player, which is also hooked up to the livewire.

Occasionally the HUB has found files on my PC under the Media Server option & some of them did play briefly, but after a few minutes, or by coming out of the file & attempting to access another, the system fails & after a minute or so I receive a message telling me “the content source has been removed”. Similarly every time I have been in to the Network Share option I receive a message saying “no storage present”.

The instruction manual available online for the HUB does not include a troubleshooting section & I’ve run out of things to try.

I would really appreciate some help with this problem (although judging by the number of similar problems I’ve read about, I’m starting to think this is an issue with the HUB itself). Anyone got any ideas? Or should I exchange the HUB?

Thanks

Dean

2

You actually have a BluRay player that uses Samba Shares?   That’s unusual.  What model Blu-ray player is it?

If it says the content source was removed, that’s actually a valid error.   It means the Hub lost contact with your PC.

For whatever reason, your network isn’t stable.

Keep in mind that you’re not ever going to see messages from the thousands of people that have no problems with network sharing; people come here when they have problems, and a few of us stick around to help.

At any rate, try PINGing your Hub while you try to watch a move.

  1.  Shut down your hub COMPLETELY.

  2.  Reboot your PC.

  3.  Wait for the PC to fully boot.

  4.  Open a CMD prompt window and type 

      ping -t [ip address of your live hub]

It will initially look like this:

C:\Users\Tony>ping -t 10.0.0.20

Pinging 10.0.0.20 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 10.0.0.8: Destination host unreachable.
Reply from 10.0.0.8: Destination host unreachable.

 The two addresses shown will not necessarily match.

  1. Then go start up your hub.

The PC’s output should, after about a minute, change to this:

Reply from 10.0.0.8: Destination host unreachable.
Reply from 10.0.0.8: Destination host unreachable.
Reply from 10.0.0.20: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 10.0.0.20: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 10.0.0.20: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 10.0.0.20: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64

  1. Now go try to find your server and watch a movie.

  2. If ANYTHING goes wrong, immediately go back and look at your PC to see if it’s doing this:

    Reply from 10.0.0.20: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
    Request timed out.
    Request timed out.
    Reply from 10.0.0.20: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
    Reply from 10.0.0.20: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64

 If you see ANY “Timed Out” or “Host unreachable” messages in the middle, AFTER the hub initially started REPLYing, then that’s proof your network isn’t stable enough.

3

Thanks Tony, I’ll give this a go with fresh eyes tomorrow. Be helpful if you could tell me how / where to type a command prompt. As I said, I’m not very techie.

Sorry about sounding down on the HUB. Just frustrated that I’ve been trying to make it work all day!

Incidentally my bluray player is a Sony BDP S370 (I was as surprised as you when I connected it & saw my PC & the HUB listed under the videos menu, Didn’t realise it had this functionality built in) & it hasn’t lost connection to the network at all since I hooked it up tp the livewire this morning. If I have an unstable network (which I’m guessing I shouldn’t have with a wired connection), It’s odd that a device that isn’t primarily a media server works, but my Live HUB doesn’t??

Anyway, thanks for the reply. I appreciate it…

4

Sorry, one other thing - should I attempt to access my PC from the Media Server option or the Network Share option?

Thanks…

5

I’ve always used Network Shares.   Only Media Server I use is PlayOn.

to open a CMD window, hit START, and in the little search box, type CMD.  It will appear in the list above.  Click it.

6

Okay, I’ve just gone through the process you suggested.

When I selected the meida sharing option on the HUB it told me no storage was available. From the media server option some folders were displayed but then it got stuck when I tried to go in to a folder so I turned it off again.

Meanwhile the info coming back to my PC was a recurring line as follows…

Reply from [IP]: bytes=32 time =3ms TTL=64

Once the 3ms changed to 5ms & a few times to 4ms

Any idea what I should try next?

Thanks…

7

Only thing I can guess is you still don’t have your Network Shares or PC set up correctly.

SOMETHING is preventing your Hub from discovering your server.   As to why it would hang when you’re just browsing folders, I have no idea about that.  

See if this tutorial for troubleshooting helps:

http://community.wdc.com/t5/Networking/Troubleshooting-Windows-File-Sharing/m-p/92642#U92642

8

Thanks for your efforts Tony.

Just tried working through the trouble shooting guide & hit a problem on the second step - the command “nstat…” brought back a message saying it was an invalid command.

I’m going to give the helpdesk a ring (sure I read somewhere there is one). In the meantime, a bit of additional info… Yesterday when I connected up my livewire I enabled the homegroup functionality of windows 7 - this appears to have linked my blu ray player up to the network & gave me partial access to files via the HUB periodically. I have since read that this should be disabled, which I have now done (I no longer have access to PC or HUB folders from bluray player). I have also removed sharing permissions from all folders except one, which shows up as a network folder on my PC, but not on the HUB.

I have also renamed the workgroup of my PC & HUB again & done a couple more restarts.

Still no joy, if anything I’m further back than before I started messing with settings!

Should I get a solution I’ll post it, as I’m sure others will find it useful.

Thanks again…

9

it’s “nbtstat”, not “nstat”. 

10

Sometimes I astound myself with my own stupidity!

Okay, been through your troubleshooting guide. To be honest I’m simply following instructions but don’t really understand what I’m looking at. I think that the point you made previously about my settings being wrong could be the answer, as the information I’m getting back from the commands is sparse. Importantly, I can see the HUB listed as registered, but there’s not much else there, in comparisson to the amount of info on the examples you included in your guide.

I’ve copied the info below (sorry - includes a couple of invalid strings):

 

Would I be right in thinking that the reason I could see my network on my Blu Ray player yesterday was via the Homegroup functionality of Win7, but that it isn’t compatible with the HUB? I’ve disabled that now.

I’ve also discovered that I have some Windows Live programs running on my laptop. Do I need to remove all of those?

Beyond that I believe my settings are all okay, but I’ll check them against the info you provided on another post to confirm.

Once I’ve done all of that, is it simply a case of enabling sharing on the folders I want available, rebooting all the hardware & everything should work, or is there anything else I should do?

11

I kinda doubt HOMEGROUP has anything to do with it.   As far as I know, the only thing that supports HOMEGROUPs is other WIndows7 boxes, not hardware boxes.

Also need to see the same nbtstat command for your PC itself:

nbtstat -a DEANO-PC

12

here it is…

btw I’m wireless at the moment (not sure if that’s relevant or you can tell from the info below), but have been wired when encountering problems.

13

Images require a moderator approval.   If you can post the text you get, that’ll probably be faster.

14

okay, here goes…

Local Area Connection:

Node IpAddress: [0.0.0.0] Scope Id:

Host not found.

Wireless Network Connection 2:

Node IpAddress: [192.168.1.65] Scope Id:

NetBIOS Remote Machine Name Table

Name                                     Type                         Status

WORKGROUP           <00>   GROUP                  Registered

DEANO-PC                <00>    UNIQUE                 Registered

DEANO-PC                <20>    UNIQUE                 Registered

WORKGROUP           <1E>   GROUP                  Registered

WORKGROUP           <1D>   UNIQUE                 Registered

…__MSBROWSE__.   <01>    GROUP                 Registered

MAC Address = C4-46-19-0B-F7-11

15

Are you using Win7 or Vista?   If so, make sure your Network Sharing options are configured like this:

16

Using Windows 7. Yes, all settings same as your example.

17

… sorry, I give up…   Only other thing that I can think of that could be in the mix is a PC firewall that’s blocking the WD for some reason.

18

Thanks for all your help Tony.

Definately not a firewall. Looks like I need to exchange the HUB, must be a faulty unit.

Cheers

Dean

19

I have now solved my networking problem, with a lot of help from a lot of people…

The route of my problem seems to be linked to the wireless functionality of my router (when it’s off network shares works, when it’s on it doesn’t) however, I’m pretty sure that other settings that I changed, as a result of advice from WD representatives & Tony have all played a part. So, thank you for all your time Tony…

Top tip for anyone reading this who has a similar problem making network shares work - persevere… You will get there with the help of the good people in this forum & at WD, but be prepared to get your ISP/router manufacturer involved too, as based on my experience over the last few days I can confidently say that there is not a “one size fits all” solution to network sharing with the Live HUB.

Hopefully WD will include some software, or at least a user manual of some sort to help with this kind of thing in future.

20

I am facing same problem. Off my wireless still not able to get it.