Orange circle of death

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Streaming
1

Orange circle of death

Hi Guys,

Just got my WD TV Live box.

WDBGXT0000NBK

Everything installed easy, updated firmware, connect straight  away to my BT Hub5 and my Netgear NAS drives.

Worked great until left unused for a while, then get Orange circle of death.

Have to power cycle box to get it working again.

Tried same file and it works.

Done this many times now, trying different files from different sources.

 A Sony dvd player can access the files when the WD unit fails.

Did find post about disabling upnp and setting static address, no change. IP address doesn’t change before.

Not impressed,

Short of hitting with big hammer, any suggestions please.

TOF

2

The_Old_Fart,

What firmware release is the one you are currently using with the device? Do you experience the same results after a firmware rollback to a previous version?

Additional information is available in the following link:

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5860/

3

Hi JStaff,

Have downloaded and installed v 1.16.13.

Will see how it goes and get back to you.

TOF

4

Hi JStaff,

Same as before.

I can view files in the folders.

I have to ‘Restart’ box to get files to play.

I have Static address on WD box and Netgear NAS drive.

TOF

5

rolling back to 1.10.15.

Does no one else have this problem?

6

1.10.15 tested.

Still the same.

That hammer is getting closer to solving this once and for all…

7

The_Old_Fart wrote:

1.10.15 tested.

 

Still the same.

 

That hammer is getting closer to solving this once and for all…

If you have the same problem with different firmware revisions then have a bad unit. Get in touch with WD or the store you got it for a replacement.

8

raised a support request yesterday,

waiting for an answer from support.

9

ThePizzaMatrix wrote:

If you have the same problem with different firmware revisions then have a bad unit.

Or a network problem that’s throwing off the WDTV.

1 Like
10

Definitely sounds like network/NAS problems to me.  I suggest TOF take his hammer to all his network/NAS gear except the SMP, and then start over with properly functioning and properly configured gear.  :wink:

11

Well, the support rang, only suggested what already had been done.

wired vs wireless.

rollback firmware.

“change unit as faulty”, was all he could say, bye.

New unit arrived this morning, just the same.

Anyone else using Netgear Duo2 NAS drives, 2x3TB & 2x2TB ?

If so what settings should I try?

Can’t figure out why unit works fine for first hour but then refuses to play new files.

Box restart clears the problem.

Can’t access pc or laptop as I don’t know passord to allow box to access pc.

TOF

update: tried memory stick, same problem. So does that rule out NAS problem?

12

The_Old_Fart wrote:

update: tried memory stick, same problem. So does that rule out NAS problem?

You need to give a bit more detailed information to get any real assistance.  As I recall, you said in your initial emails that your SMP quit working while it was sitting unused.  Now you are saying it sits unused, with a USB stick containing video files plugged into it, and when you come back to use it you cannot get it to play any of the files on the USB stick?

I will mention that I have read that the SMP will quit being able to play files after you try to play “improperly formatted” files that it cannot handle.  Again, it would help if you could give more detailed descriptions of exactly what you do leading up to the point where you are having problems.  It might also help if you download mediainfo and give info about a particular file that you play after which your unit quits working.

13

I have found that most OCoD/SAoD issues I have encountered have always been due to networking.

If you search the groups for spinning arrow of death this gets mentioned a lot.

Here is a post from a while back where I was having similar problems:

http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Streaming/Spinning-Arrow-of-Death-Possible-Solution/m-p/562025#M20322

There are some useful tips on the board to help resolve this.

I occasionally still have this problem & a reboot of my **bleep** Zyxel router usually fixes all SMP woes.

I am about to embark on a whole network upgrade next month so I will post an update as to how this affects the SMP.

Regards

slip

14

I added the usb stick to check if it was only networked drives that were giving problems.

It appears that once this box fails to read that it is incapable of correcting the hangup, something that the firmware should be able to account for and reset itself.

I found that my NAS drive goes to sleep after 45mins of non use, thinking that the WD couldn’t wake the drive, I turned the sleep function off.

This morning I moved the Lan cables so that the NAS was connected into  the BT HUB5, instead of the Gigabit switch box.

I pulled the power plug on the WD box and restarted it.

Reads and plays memstick and NAS.

left WD box on

Tried about an hour later, still plays both.

left WD box on

Tried after another hour, reads the NAS directory, but fails to play and video.

NAS was left running all the time.

I’m at a loss what to try next.

TOF

15

Tried another swich box,

set Static address on everything.

reset everything.

Still the same.

16

The_Old_Fart wrote:

I added the usb stick to check if it was only networked drives that were giving problems.

 

It appears that once this box fails to read that it is incapable of correcting the hangup, something that the firmware should be able to account for and reset itself.

 

I found that my NAS drive goes to sleep after 45mins of non use, thinking that the WD couldn’t wake the drive, I turned the sleep function off.

 

 

This morning I moved the Lan cables so that the NAS was connected into  the BT HUB5, instead of the Gigabit switch box.

 

I pulled the power plug on the WD box and restarted it.

 

Reads and plays memstick and NAS.

 

left WD box on

 

Tried about an hour later, still plays both.

 

left WD box on

 

Tried after another hour, reads the NAS directory, but fails to play and video.

 

NAS was left running all the time.

 

I’m at a loss what to try next.

 

TOF

So did playing video files from the flash drive ever quit working?  That is clearly important, as if this is happening only with the NAS, then that points to a problem with the SMP communicating with your NAS.

What I read on the forum definitely suggests that the SMP is not terribly robust about recovering from communication failures.  There also are a fair number of people that have gotten on the forum and reported issues that are ultimately traced back to their NAS devices.  Definitely has made me leery of buying an NAS, when a $300 PC with Linux is vastly more powerful, flexible, and (apparently) dependable. 

A couple other things I am not clear on:

(1) How are you accessing files from the NAS?  Windows Shares (SMB), NFS, a media server?

(2) If SMB/NFS, are you using the Media Library?

(3) Your networking from the SMP to the NAS is completely wired?  (No Wifi links?)

(4) When you say your SMP still “reads the NAS directory” but cannot play files, what exactly are you doing that makes you think it is still reading the directory at that momemt.  (I ask because it is likely that some information has been cached.)

Can you wire both the SMP and the NAS to the switch, to eliminate other networking device issues?  (Then connect the switch to your router to maintain Internet connection.)

Do you have a PC that you could enable a share on, move a few video files to it, and see whether the same thing happens with it?  This would help test if there is something about the NAS that is causing problems.

17

Hi ncarver,

Thanks for you post, the most helpfull todate.

It could well be a cached directory that I’m seeing.

I’ve tried all options to read the NAS drive.

I’m going to try pulling the plug on the NAS units, and access via the usb stick and laptops to see what happens.

Will report back later with results.

The Sony dvd player can access the NAS drives, all the time, but can’t play all the codecs. (it’s been switched off for these trials)

TOF

18

3 hours on:

Box has been on for 3 hrs.unused.

Nas drives still disconnected.

Can’t play anything from laptops.

restarted box and can play films from laptops.

Even less impressed with WD.

TOF

19

So you have the same exact issue with a share on your laptop as a share on your NAS?

And your laptop did not automatically go into sleep mode from lack of use?

And how was the SMP networked to the laptop for this test?

While I understand why you aren’t impressed with the SMP, the fact remains that its proper functioning is 100% dependent on your networking gear functioning properly.  Just because some other device doesn’t have problems on your network is no guarantee that your network is functioning properly.  Unfortunately, computer networking was not designed for consumer-level use and is trivially easy to screw up.  Just assign the same IP address to two devices on your LAN and watch the fun follow.  It took me <5min to get my first SMP streaming from an already functioning Samba share, and I have never encountered a single network-related problem with two SMPs over several years now.  Of course I am a CS Prof who understands networking and has a properly setup network.  A vast fraction of the people that get on this forum complaining about their SMPs being worthless pieces of junk in the end find that there was actually a problem with their networks.

20

One of the laptops did have to restart, so presume this caused the box to stop working.

I’m watching a second film which started without problem.

In todays energy saving society I’m very suprised that the sofware written into the firmware can’t cope with this.

I have programmed computer controlled production lines consisting of some 50 stations, I would have been fired if they couldn’t recover from a hiccup, and these were networked back to the offices as well.

It seems that the only way to use these boxes is to power off completly, so forcing a restart each time.

TOF

edit: just finished watching film, guess what, can’t play anything, not even the film I’ve just watched.

(all wired, not wireless)

This box is too much trouble, going back to Sony player.

TOF