Subfolders not inheriting share permissions, users cannot access

My Cloud OS 5 My Cloud EX
1

Hello.

A client has a WD My Cloud EX4100.
The device is configured with Active Directory enabled.
Firmware 5.30.103

This latest firmware auto-updated on 2/16/2025. My client was out of the office until 2/19/2025. When they came into the office that day and started working on new folders and files, they noticed that only users who created new folders could access that specific folder. Folders and files created before the firmware update were unaffected.
I verified and replicated the issue. I signed in to three different PCs, one running Windows 11, one Windows 10, and one Windows 7. I created three separate folders, one from each PC, made using my username. No other user was able to open the folders I created from each PC, ruling out specific Windows OS versions as a cause. My username is also not able to open folders created by other usernames.

Diagnostic steps taken so far: Reboot device, no change.
Scan disk, no change.
System Test, no change.
Switch permissions on share to “Deny” then back to “Read/Write” for every user. No change.
Rolled back firmware manually to 5.29.102, no change, and new folders created with the older firmware are still affected by the issue where only the user that created them can access them.

The system logs are full of SAMBA errors that read: CIFS: Authentication for user [DOMAIN\user] has FAILED.
despite the user having read/write access to the share.

From my understanding, all files/folders inside a share are supposed to inherit permissions from the share, and there is no way to change this. As of right now, only the user that creates a folder can access that folder, and there is no workaround. My client is not able to use the EX4100 to collaborate on files anymore as no user can access new files created by another user. Files created before 2/16/2025 are unaffected. For now they are using Google Drive and USB drives to share files inside the office.

Is there some other diagnostic or hidden command I can run that will reset the permissions so that all files inherit the share permissions? Is there a fix in the works for this?

1 Like
2

Hi @Augustus

Have you checked our knowledge base articles?
(Support for Western Digital Hard Drives | Western Digital)

Have you opened a Support Case?
If not, contact Western Digital Technical Support for assistance.
(Contact Us | Western Digital)

3

Here is an update and a workaround for the issue.

I contacted support, and after sending them a diagnostic report and screenshots, they advised me to perform a 40 second reset on the device. I did the reset, reconfigured the device, and the permissions issue persisted on the affected files. We have several shares on our device, and only one share was afflicted by this issue. As a workaround, I set up a new share, and then used the Internal Backups app to do a “Copy” of the files to the new share. This resolved the issue, and the files could be opened as expected on the new share. I then renamed the old share, and changed the name of the new share to be the same as the original share, which preserved mapped network drives and shortcuts on workstations.

It is worth noting that I also tried doing a “Synchronize” to transfer the files to a new share, which copied over the erroneous file permissions to the new share, but doing a “Copy” did not. So, if you are affected by this issue and choose to create a new share, make sure to use “Copy” in the Internal Backups app instead of “Synchronize.” There is certainly a bug in the firmware that was causing permissions to not be properly set on files and folders in that specific share. I hope this does not happen again.