…and that is laughable. I want to scream “user error” instead of blaming the product, or even the company (since trying to log into accounts, retrieve passwords, get into any kind of support has been impossible and also laughable), but it is a bit too ridiculous.
I really have a simple need. I have an iPhone 6 with many photos and videos. I have a MacBook Pro with no storage space. I have a WD Cloud that I would like to (mostly) easily transfer these photos/videos too, free up space on my maxed out iPhone, and be able to retrieve or view these photos/videos from the computer or phone or other devices.
I-CAN’T-DO-THIS.
Right now I’m so exhausted I don’t even want to go over everything I’ve done (which is everything) and how everything has failed. But I want to ask…why in god’s name are their TWO iPhone apps? Why is every bit of UI everywhere just messy and clunky and full of errors? Why after tinkering with this **bleep** for a couple weeks, when I don’t have time for this, I finally miraculously get photos/videos on the Cloud from my phone (this should not be a miracle), only to have all the original dates disappeared, so everything says it was created on the date it was uploaded? Which, by the way, consists of two days because it had to go overnight because it was taking such a long time. Guess what? This backup is USELESS without any kind of hint of the original, correct date.
Maybe we could just go back and start with how it should be easy to upload photos to this Cloud, and not get incorrect error messages. Or maybe easy to retrieve a lost password to get into the account I have it registered with, like any other lost password email, or maybe even to access some kind of customer support instead of b*tching on this forum. Which I had to make a new account for.
I do so wish I could return the thing, but it came from Amazon a while ago (when I first got it, it worked just as it should! I thought it was the greatest invention! Maybe it has been infested by tech gnomes ).
I really have a simple need. I have an iPhone 6 with many photos and videos. I have a MacBook Pro with no storage space. I have a WD Cloud that I would like to (mostly) easily transfer these photos/videos too, free up space on my maxed out iPhone, and be able to retrieve or view these photos/videos from the computer or phone or other devices.
I-CAN’T-DO-THIS.
Yes you can do exactly what you ask (backing up or uploading photos from your mobile devices). Did you read the WD My Cloud User Manual, in particular chapter 9 titled “Accessing Your Cloud Remotely”? That chapter not only explains how to configure the WD My Cloud for remote access but what each of the two mobile app are for and what they do. It only took minutes to install the WD Photo’s app (to my android phone), active it for use with my WD My Cloud, then begin uploading photos. If I remember right the app when first run should even prompt the user right off the bat if they want to sync/upload their photos to the My Cloud.
As to your complaint about the file date. That is a valid complaint. It is a feature lacking in the WD Photos app. In one sense however it should be no surprise that the files uploaded to the My Cloud would have the date the files were created on the My Cloud rather than the date the photos were taken with the mobile device.
I think you have misunderstood; the OP is referring to the WD Photos app changing file dates when uploading photos from a mobile device to MyCloud. Not Safepoint, TimeMachine or Smartware.
So is there a solution to the ‘missing date’ issue? I have the same issue (different phone, environment etc, but the issue seems to be the same) All files get created date with the day i did the backup, if this is done continuously it might be ok, but when doing the backup for the first time and you get ~ 1000 phots all with same date, it is kind of hard to sort them
To the OP: Lots of good advice and suggestions above, first and foremost is RTFM (read the fine manual) You can find it for your model of My Cloud device in WD Support. Go find it and download it. If more people did this there would be a lot less questions and gripes here.
The app to use to move photos from iThings is the My Cloud app; the current app for these WD cloud devices. You need no other WD app; WD Photos is old tech.
I have a My Cloud DL2100 NAS and it is fairly new and I have gradually been moving my media files to it, including all my music to Shared Music, all my movies to Shared Videos and most recently, all my iPhone/iPad pics and vids to Shared Pictures. I copied my music and movies by simply copying from drives to the NAS. For photos and videos in iThings, I used the My Cloud app and all the photos and videos have their original dates. So do my movie and music files.
(The one thing that has the transfer dates are the main folders for them, because they have to be created at the time the media is transferred.)
So, after you read the user manual and use the correct app, delete your photos on the My Cloud and do it over again – correctly.
I could not agree more with you OP. This is the most piece of junk technology to hit the market and I have been a sys admin for 18 years. I have had my unit for a year and I moved my data from it long ago and recently thought I will give it another try. So did a factory reset since my dashboard doesn’t load, slow response, data copy failing etc. etc. The reset took about 12 hours. Forget copying data back to it, token ring network was faster and I run a gigabit network. WD has failed miserably with this product and I will not ever recommend this to anyone or my enemies.
Anyway, I am thinking about ripping this think apart and taking the drive out.
Perhaps you’d be more comfortable with a Synology NAS. The My Cloud is designed as an affordable home-user solution, but it does require some tweaking for optimal performance. If you disable the non-essential services, Samba is fast as hell.
I do not have a basic My Cloud (and never did). Instead I have a stepped- up newer model My Cloud called a DL2100 NAS. Like other quality NAS devices, it performs extremely well, it has a very fast processor (most tasks happen “now”). I recently completed uploading all photos and videos from 2 iPhones and 2 iPads. using the newest WD app for this purpose, the WD My Cloud app, and it was flawlessly completed in less than a half hour.
But, not without an important issue; giant uploads can take longer than 5 minutes, but the Auto-Lock feature of an iDevice causes the device to go to sleep after 5 minutes and the upload will stop – even if not completed.
The solution is to not allow the device to time-out. This is accomplished by setting the Auto-Lock time above 5 minutes, and it is not just a higher number, it is called “Never”. Set your Auto-Lock to Never if you have a long upload coming up, and remember to set it back down after the successful and completed upload. This is not a bug in the app, it is the way an iDevice works. Android devices are not affected by long uploads.
I’m on my phone so I can’t link you to my prior post about what I’ve disabled, but for me, nonessential is everything except samba services… All the indexing ■■■■, Apple services, etc. I’ve turned off perhaps half of the stuff running.
The easiest way to stop unwanted processes is to enter them in S98user-start. This script is the next to the last script run on every boot. It does not get changed when firmware is upgraded. It also allows you a single point of change to have the system back to original settings.
No guide. But here is an example of how to stop a process from running. Put the following line in the user-start file. You will need to know how to ssh into the My Cloud. If you don’t know how to use a Linux editor. You can copy the user-start file to the Public folder and use an editor that you are familiar with. Then copy the file back. The line below will stop netatalk.
/etc/rc2.d/S50netatalk stop
).