WD App for Windows 8 can't find my server

I just completed update to 2/27/2013 firmware and patch to install WD media server on my My Book Live.  WD app on my Windows RT Surface cannot discover my WD media server. There are not settings or config options (as far as i can find) in the WD app.  What can I do to solve this?

See if you can access the My Book dashboard page or one of the My Book shared folders. Also share the name of the WD app you are using on your Windows RT Surface to access the My Book media server. 

I upgraded my WD My Book Live drive to the new firmware and I too can no longer see my drive in the WD SmartWare application.

This has happened to me before where WD SmartWare “loses” my drive but that was becuase of a network address change. Since then I have forced a fixed DHCP address on my router so the IP won’t change. In the past I would fix this by removing the WD SmartWare software, and reinstalling it from scratch. This time it didn’t work and I’ve done it a few times.

I can access the administration console of the drive just fine.

I have 2 mapped network drives - 1 to my public area, one to my SmartWare share and I can access the network drives just fine.

I ran the “My Net View” and it shows the network drive.

I ran the WD Link software and it shows the network drive and allows me to create new mapped drives.

I am able to use the drive just fine any other way but NOT with WD SmartWare.

I’m using Windows 8.

How does the WD Smartware app find the drive? It seems that it discovers it upon installation or first launch and then “remembers” it. Is that the case? Is there a config file or registry setting that might need to be changed / cleared to get it to find it correctly?

I have restarted the computer several times after re-installing the software a good 3-4 times now.

To be clear, when I open the WD SmareWare application, my local drives show on the left but NO drive shows on the right side where my WD Live drive usualy shows so I can do a backup.

If you don’t have it installed, try downloading the latest Smartware version. Click below for the download link. 

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/wdsmartwareupdate/

I have the latest version. I download it each time from the website and delete the installer after installing it assuming (heh) that I won’t need the installer again… Boy how wrong I’ve been…

In any case, I have resolved my issue - The issue turned out to be that while I could connect to the NAS in just about every way, my network connection changed and if I went to windows explorer and clicked on the “Network” section, it told me that the device discovery capability was turned off. Once I turned it on, the network devices all then listed there and when I opened the WD software the NAS device now appeared…

Having said that, I would think there would be an easy way for the Smartware software (which doesn’t seem all that smart) to determine if the network discovery returned NO devices because there are NO devices or if there are NO devices because network discovery is turned off…

About a week or so ago there was an update to the WD Windows 8 app availble in the Windows Store - after installing that I am now able to successfully access the WD Media Server on my My Book Live.

I would tell you the current version info of the WD Windows 8 app on my Windows RT device as of right now, however I can’t because the version info is not listed anywhere in the settings panel as far as I can find.  I would highly recommend adding an “About WD app” settings panel to display version info.

(note about other posts on this thread - I was never talking about the SmartWare desktop software, so those comments dealing with SmartWare don’t really apply to the original topic of this thread.) 

re: “can you share the name of the WD app” - this one:

WD app for Windows in the Windows Store

http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/app/d04896e8-f364-4a31-9095-b786ba3a0336

I recently purchased a Surface Pro and it automatically installed the WD windows 8 Live Tile app.  When I opened the app it showed an icon of my MyBookLiveDuo drive.  When I clicked on the drive it said I needed an update to my MyBookLiveDuo in order to use the app.  I went ahead and installed the latest firmware.  Afterwards, the WD app says “No Supported WD device found.  Connect one to use this app.”  I am able to get to the drive’s settings screen by going to http://mybookliveduo and I can also see it in Windows Explorer.  How do I get around this issue?

Have you try quit then relaunch the app? 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2c9ptM3llE