Dear All,
I just registered here and ask you for your help.
I have a MBL running since two years with no backup.
Since june 23rd the Shared Pictures directory does not content data,
but it should have about 20 subdirectories and a total of about 40000
.jpgs. The creation date of the directory is 23rd of june, which is strange.
I am sure that all the subdirectories and their content are alive because I
can access them via the Twonky server, when looking for pictures in the
/Public folder. To me it looks like that the pointer to the Shared Pictures
directory is damaged, but I am not an expert.
I would like to try a firmware update to restore the file system but I don’t have
a backup. Backing up now will probably not copy the files as the pointer could be damaged.
Any idea?
best regards, Thomas
Welcome to the Community.
This is a very delicate situation. However, data corruption or disk damage is not normally corrected by a firmware update. Have you tried a device restart? Are files inaccessible in your mobile devices by means of the WD My Cloud application?
1 Like
thanks for reading this!
yes, I have restarted the device several times.
I tried to access the content of the Shared Pictures directory from
-
macbook finder, shows the directory empty and created on june 23rd, which is wrong.
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pc notebook with windows7 via exploreer, same behaviour.
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android mobile phone with WD My Cloud app also shows this folder empty.
-
accessible via webinterface http://ipadress:9000 via Twonky server, but only as a viewer
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accesible via Panasonic TV via picture viewer, using the Twonky server.
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ftp from my macbook is working to MBL ip but the Shared Pictures folder appears empty.
-
ftp to the Twonkyserver via ftp ipadress:9000 does not work.
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and 5. do not have options to downlowad or copy the files.
I hope that explains it better.
cheers, Thomas
The only way to know exactly what the contents of that Shared Pictures directory is, is to SSH into the MBL.
Use Terminal on your Mac or Putty on a your PC to create a SSH session with teh MBL. Look on this forum for how to do it.
Once in the SSH session, you need to
cd /shares/'Shared Pictures'/
ls
All of your contents should be there. I am certain that you have somehow changed the permissions on those sub-directories or files - probably something to do with you Mac. You will need to change the permissions back. This is how you do it
chmod 777 -R /shares/'Shared Pictures'
I have done this but that did not chnage anything.
If I do an ls, the folder is empty.
This folder is the default folder thet came with the MBL, I did not create it.
It is strange that the date the folder has been created is June 22, which
is exactly the date when the problem appeared.
Copy and paste the screenshot of the Terminal session. I don’t believe you that you did an SSH session with teh MBL.
For Twonky to see the files, the files must be there. That means that a SSH session as root will show those files. It is impossible for Twonky to see the files and root in SSH to not.
So either you are a troll or you didn’t do as I suggested.
I did as you suggested. So you think I am a troll?
I don’t see anything in your screenshot - looks like you are limited to posting images since you are a noob to this forum. maybe in a few days, your attachment will be visible.
This forum has about 3 new posters every day. This posters are always folks who just created their account that day. They always ask the same dumb questions - questions they could figure out if they spent some time searching the forum. There are no WD people on tihs forum to help users. It is only users helping other users, so if you want someone to volunteer to help you fix YOUR problem, you have to be very nice to them and help them to help you.
Using your windows PC, use FileZilla to create an SSH session with the MBL as root. Then look around for the files.
And this is the Twonky. Finds 41 Folders in Shared pictures.
Appreciate your comments.
sorry, I did not know that I am not entitled to send pictures of screenshots.
Here I grepped the content of the terminal window. Maybe, that shows it too:
ma015075:~ tklein$ ssh -l root 192.168.6.117
root@192.168.6.117’s password:
Linux MyBookLive 2.6.32.11-svn70860 #1 Thu May 17 13:32:51 PDT 2012 ppc
Disclaimer: SSH provides access to the network device and all its
content, only users with advanced computer networking and Linux experience
should enable it. Failure to understand the Linux command line interface
can result in rendering your network device inoperable, as well as allowing
unauthorized users access to your network. If you enable SSH, do not share
the root password with anyone you do not want to have direct access to all
the content on your network device.
MyBookLive:~# ls
MyBookLive:~# pwd
/root
MyBookLive:~# cd /shares
MyBookLive:/shares# ls
Public SmartWare TimeMachine TimeMachineBackup thomas_galaxys4
MyBookLive:/shares# cd Public
MyBookLive:/shares/Public# ls
31082012_rina_schmidtheim.MP4 Shared Music Software macbook_bkp
M4H04244.MP4 Shared Pictures Temporary Items mpisachen
Network Trash Folder Shared Videos back_livebook_sistig
MyBookLive:/shares/Public# ls -l
total 70336
-rwxrwxrwx 1 nobody share 49919122 Aug 31 2012 31082012_rina_schmidtheim.MP4
-rwxrwxrwx 1 nobody share 21457826 Aug 31 2012 M4H04244.MP4
drwxrwxr-x 4 root share 65536 Jun 21 04:11 Network Trash Folder
drwxrwxr-x 13 root share 65536 Jun 17 18:47 Shared Music
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 65536 Jun 22 18:37 Shared Pictures
drwxrwxr-x 52 root share 65536 Jun 21 04:11 Shared Videos
drwxrwxr-x 4 root share 65536 Dec 11 2014 Software
drwxrwxr-x 3 root share 65536 Nov 15 2013 Temporary Items
drwxrwsr-x 68 nobody share 65536 Feb 8 2014 back_livebook_sistig
drwxrwsr-x 4 nobody share 65536 Nov 19 2013 macbook_bkp
drwxrwxr-x 2 nobody share 65536 Mar 11 17:01 mpisachen
MyBookLive:/shares/Public# cd ‘Shared Pictures’
MyBookLive:/shares/Public/Shared Pictures# ls -l
total 0
MyBookLive:/shares/Public/Shared Pictures#
Just sent you the screenshots via private message. I hope you can see those.
Thanks for the message. I can’t see teh images there either. Doesn’t matter though since you posted the text of the Terminal session.
the directory ‘Shares’ is really just a collection of symbolic links. The real data is stored in DataVolume.
Try using FileZilla to do a SSH session. Then look in /DataVolume/ and see what is there.
Do you see that the ‘owner’ and ‘group’ of Shared Pictures is different than the other directories?
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 65536 Jun 22 18:37 Shared Pictures
drwxrwxr-x 52 root share 65536 Jun 21 04:11 Shared Videos
That’s the permissions problem i mentioned in my first answer to you. You need to get that changed.
in SSH, do a
chmod 777 -R /shares/Public/'Shared Pictures'
Then try a
chown -R root:share /shares/Public/'Shared Pictures'
I did what you suggested:
MyBookLive:~# chmod 777 -R /shares/Public/‘Shared Pictures’
MyBookLive:~# chown -R root:share /shares/Public/‘Shared Pictures’
MyBookLive:~# cd /shares/Public/‘Shared Pictures’
MyBookLive:/shares/Public/Shared Pictures# ls
MyBookLive:/shares/Public/Shared Pictures# ls -l
total 0
MyBookLive:/shares/Public/Shared Pictures# cd …
MyBookLive:/shares/Public# ls-l
-bash: ls-l: command not found
MyBookLive:/shares/Public# ls -l
total 70336
-rwxrwxrwx 1 nobody share 49919122 Aug 31 2012 31082012_rina_schmidtheim.MP4
-rwxrwxrwx 1 nobody share 21457826 Aug 31 2012 M4H04244.MP4
drwxrwxr-x 4 root share 65536 Jun 21 04:11 Network Trash Folder
drwxrwxr-x 13 root share 65536 Jun 17 18:47 Shared Music
drwxrwxrwx 2 root share 65536 Jun 22 18:37 Shared Pictures
drwxrwxr-x 52 root share 65536 Jun 21 04:11 Shared Videos
drwxrwxr-x 4 root share 65536 Dec 11 2014 Software
drwxrwxr-x 3 root share 65536 Nov 15 2013 Temporary Items
drwxrwsr-x 68 nobody share 65536 Feb 8 2014 back_livebook_sistig
drwxrwsr-x 4 nobody share 65536 Nov 19 2013 macbook_bkp
drwxrwxr-x 2 nobody share 65536 Mar 11 17:01 mpisachen
MyBookLive:/shares/Public#
Shared Pictures remains empty. It is really strange. Why the hack does Twonky finds all the files?
Can twonky stream any of the content in teh Shared Pictures directory? Twonky maintains a database of the media content it scans periordically. It is possible that Twonky has not rebuilt its database since before the Shared Pictures directory became empty. You should try to get Twonky to rebuild its database - that option should be in the MBL Dashboard.
You can also try
/etc/init.d/twonky stop
/etc/init.d/twonky start
There is the chance that the content in that directory is actually gone, and that Twonky is only showing the index of the content from the last time Twonky scanned for content.
Did you look around using FileZilla for the files? Did you look in /DataVolume/ ?
You should also look at where your current version of Twonky is scanning for content
nano /etc/contentdir
or
vi /etc/contentdir
use this as a loose guide
http://community.wd.com/t5/My-Book-Live/GUIDE-Solving-Sharing-settings-in-Twonky-Media-Server-are-lost/td-p/545047
By the way, you should really upgrade your Twonky to the latest version. In doing so, Twonky will definately rebuild its database.
http://mybookworld.wikidot.com/forum/t-459592/complete-guide-to-upgrade-to-twonky-7-8-version-my-book-live
If it turns out that the contents of the Shared Pictures directory are actually gone, you will have to do some data recovery. Pay someone, or do it yourself.
http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/80270/unix-linux-undelete-recover-deleted-files
OK. Your explanation on why the Twonky server finds the files sounded bad. I was really shocked.
I know that we had also some movies, taken with the smartphone, stored in that folder. I looked them
up with the Twonky and I can really watch these movies. I concluded that the file must be there.
So I simply searched the file with find -name filename and it found the file under /Shared Videos/Shared Pictures/filename !!!
Obviously, on June 22nd, a user of the MBL dragged and moved the folder ‘Shared Pictures’ into ‘Shared Movies’.
Because these are system folders, the folder created itself again with the date 22nd June, being empty. That irritated me
and I thought the files are gone because something else happened to the disk. I could have been more smart and use the
find command to look for what is missing! But I was really irritated by this empty folder.
I have now moved the content back and bkupd everything. I would like to thank you for your help. Although, you had not the direct solution to this problem, you perfectly guided me into the right direction. Thank you so much!
Great that you found the cause of the problem. You might consider using a ‘private’ directory for those photos and other things - that way you could set the permission in MBL Dashboard for each user, limiting them to read and write only, no deleting or moving.
And you should definately upgrade your Twonky.
