WD Photos on iPhone not showing Smartware folder so no pics

WD Software & Mobile Apps My Cloud 3rd Party & Mobile Apps
1

I have WD Photos on my iPhone 5s.

When I go into it and it goes into My Cloud Mirror it just shows 4 of my share folders.

All3 girls with 5,777 photos (probably correct)

Dropbox with 0 photos (correct)

Public with 2 photos (Correct)

TimeMachineBackup with 0 photos (INCORRECT, there are lots)

but the main one which holds all my photos, Smartware (Backup of my windows machine with all the pics), is no where to be seen.

I have uninstalled the app off the phone and reinstalled it but things are as they were, not right.

Does anyone have any idea please?

Pete

‘Leave me in the dark and I will find the light’.

2

Papadadio wrote:

I have WD Photos on my iPhone 5s.

 

When I go into it and it goes into My Cloud Mirror it just shows 4 of my share folders.

All3 girls with 5,777 photos (probably correct)

Dropbox with 0 photos (correct)

Public with 2 photos (Correct)

TimeMachineBackup with 0 photos (INCORRECT, there are lots)

 

but the main one which holds all my photos, Smartware (Backup of my windows machine with all the pics), is no where to be seen.

 

I have uninstalled the app off the phone and reinstalled it but things are as they were, not right.

 

Does anyone have any idea please?

 

Pete

 

‘Leave me in the dark and I will find the light’.

A couple of questions – why are you backing up with SMARTWARE into the TIMEMACHINE folder?

Also, when you’re using Smartware to backup the photos, are you backing them up as FILES (using Sync) or are you backing them up using the typical “Bundle” method which does not actually store Photos as Files – they’re files containing TONS of files, which, of course, the WD Photos won’t even try to display.

3

Hello Tony and thank you for taking an interest in my query.

In answers to your quesions and to clear up ambiguities on my part.

I backup my windows 7 machine using Smartware and my partner’s Mac backup uses time Machine. They are seperate backups but both to the same cloud mirror.

When I backed up my windows with Smartware I selected the items I wanted to back up and didn’t use categories such as documents and pictures.

I am able to view them using the ‘My Cloud’ app on the iPhone and they are shown in a parent directory (My Pictures) and all the sub folders each containing many pictures.

So as I have mentioned, I can see all the pictures on the ‘My cloud’ app on the iPhone as they are shown on my home computer. It’s just using WD Photo’ that I can’t.

I open the WD Photo and after clicking through I get to the list of shares as shown in my original message, All3Girls etc.

The only share folder missing is Smartware and that is where all the backup from my windows machine are including the photos.

So in bried it is the Smartware share folder that is missing.

I tried to read through some threads re the problem and on one it mentions having to put them in a public folder.

That is not what I am after or would use.

I am hoping it is something simple and I await directions on where to turn next.

Pete

‘Leave me in the dark and I will find the light’.

4

also,

my Media serving is off for the Smartware share.

Is it needed and what does it do?

I have that setting off for all my shares because I didn’t know what it did.

Is that why I don’t get thumbnails in My cloud on the iPhone.

I get thumbnails in WD Photos without it though.

Confused, I surely am.

Pete

5

I found this on a WD knowledge database page

Is this a possibility?

and

Should I do it and I couldn’t find the remote access to disable?

Problem:
WD Photos does not display all the photos on a WD Personal Cloud Drive or WD NAS Drive.

Cause:
The processing of photos may be slower than expected or the WD device has halted photo processing. This can also occur if the crawler, which indexes the photos, needs to be restarted.

Solution:
The first thing that needs to be done is to determine if the crawler simply needs to be restarted. For assistance doing this, please follow the instructions below:

  1. Start the WD network drive.
  2. Access the Dashboard or Network Storage Manager.
  3. Disable remote access to the drive.
  4. Reboot the network drive then re-enable remote access.
  5. Attempt to access the photos again after a few minutes.

Pete

‘Leave me in the dark and I will find the light’.

6

I keep getting greeted with a pop up when I open WD Photo telling me that I do not have access and to enter an activation code.

I go to my Dashboard get a code and enter it and press done on the app. This keeps happening.

I am then presented with a screen showing 3 WDMyCloudMirror names & icons.

  1. Already added - WDMyCloudMirror
  2. Found in network - WDMyCloudMirror
  3. WDMyCloudMirror.com

Sometimes I just get 2 without the network one

I click on one and it sends me through to the page showing my shares as shown at the beginning of this thread.

But still no smartware folder.

Sorry to keep adding things but I am trying to give as much info as possible.

Thanks

Something is not quite right me thinks

Pete

7

The WD Photos app, IIRC, requires photos to be in ONLY the

\Public\Shared Pictures

folder.   It won’t look anywhere else.

The My Cloud app, on the other hand, will look in every folder the user is allowed to access.

8

I am a bit confused with this as all my pics of my daughters etc which are in similar shares and not public are clearly visible. ???

So why some and not the one I want.

Could it be because the others are in shares I have created and Smartware is a folder already on the machine? Sounds like a possibility to me.

Yes, I can see ALL shares and ALL pictures in the My Cloud App.

Pete

9

THE ANSWER TO THIS PROBLEM.

I came to the conclusion that WD Photo could not pic up Smartware and therefore didn’t list it when I opened the WD Photos on my iPhone.

The reasons for this could be one or the other of the following situations.

1/.  Smartware was originally installed as a share on the MCM. (What negates this is that it shows Time Machine which was also pre-installed. You would not see any photos in this anyway because Time Machine is just a restore function and does not allow viewing of what it has saved.)

OR and most likely

2/.  Smartware was set up to automatic backup so any changes within a file were automatically changed on the MCM.

To get round this I created another share called My Pictures and set it to Private. I set it to private before I added the pictures because I saw in a message on here that if you set it to Public, add the pictures then change it to private, it doesn’t work.

Anyway I am now able to see all my pictures with WD Photo WITH thumbnails which is great because the My Cloud app won’t alow thumbnails.

If you have loads of photos, use WD Photo because it has thumbnails unless you enjoy opening every file to see what it holds, in that case use My Cloud.

The only downside to this and its not a major problem to me is that I have smartware backing up my pictures to MCM (68Gb - 27,892 pictures) and I also have a second copy of them in the My Pictures share.

So I am using up 136Gb when I should only have to use 68Gb.

The bonus of this is that I have two copies of all my pictures albeit that they are on the same backup device. But if I delete it off one share by accident, at least it is in the other!

For people with a similar problem, please read

I keep seeing people adding to posts of this nature (WD Photo) that all pictures in WD Photo HAVE to be in the Public folder.

THIS IS NOT THE CASE AS I HAVE JUST SHOWN ABOVE. So you can assign just yourself or whoever you want to view them from your Dasboard.

So don’t go through all the problems of uninstalling My Photo and re installing it etc.

WD Photo is not at fault, My Cloud Mirror is not at fault, it’s down to the software which is limited in what it will allow you to do, and see.

Pete

‘Leave me in the dark and I will find the light’.