Some files won't play from share, but will from direct usb connection

Having exactly the same problem, I think I found what it is.

When a network share is created, the files that are already in it can be accessed and play fine. However, if sometimes later you copy other files into the share, the newer files will appear on the WDTV but they could not be accessed (played). 

Any other network end-point (like a laptop) would still be able to access and play these files. I also found that if you remove shares from the network, they are still listed.

My conclusion is that there is a bug in the WDTV firmware that caches the files table from the network share, but it fails to update them when files are added or removed. 

The only workaround that I found (besides renaming the share) is to turn off the WDTV and disconnect the power for a few seconds. When it is restarts later, the cache will be cleared and once again you’ll be able to play all the files.

This is really annoying - someone should report this bug to WD.

Nice find bigAl, I’ll give it a go later.

It is quite crazy that the WDTV is caching this stuff, especially between sessions (ie power on/off). Obviously, as from other posts, the power off button is not that since it stays so warm after turning it “off”.

Come on WDTV, what are you going to do about this? Please respond.

Welcome to the forums.

Unfortunately, I cannot reproduce that bug (i.e.: I can copy or delete files from my net shares and the Live reacts just fine without having to reboot it – I do this all the time, in fact).  Now, I will say that I am not in the same folder on the Live at the time (that is, I need to either go out of the folder and then come back in or be in another folder for it to refresh but I don’t think that’s unreasonble).

I’m not saying it isn’t a problem in your setup, or that it may not be a problem with others, only that it doesn’t work that way for me – so we’d have to have more people test this out to find out exactly where the problem is (yeah, I know, WD ought to be doing this instead of us, but they don’t seem to have a lot of interest in net shares as a playing approach, even if a whole lot of us think that’s the best way to use this thing).

Perhaps others reading this can try this out in their system and report the results in this thread.