Now where do you find this “homephone” option? I’ve looked but can’t seem to find it.
After a few days of use with the DNS “solution” I’ve gotten rid of the random freezes but I’ve had a small handful of “memory low” issues. I’ll get a prompt saying the memory is low and that I need to restart the device. I have a feeling that those issues may have been tied to the hard drives in my server needing to spin up and the WD TV freaking out while it’s waiting. I’ve set my server drives to never spin down, so I guess we’ll see from here.
I have tried everything. I have at least 6 WDTV live boxes. I originally thought the lock ups , freezing, not responding to the remote were due to high temperatures inside the box. I installed a cooling fan and that was not a solution. I thought that it might be overheating due to using wireless so I hooked up hard wired. I also used a powered USB hub thinking that the external HD was causing the problem. I reset the box back to factory settings and now I cannot access VuDu. I did a firmware rollback and it did not fix. I have literally tried everything that I can think of. In my opinion WD has shown no interest in resolving these issues so I will have to re-evaluate if I will continue with their products. I feel that’s it’s got to be a manufacturers issue because these boxes all worked great for over a year. Now I have two that have started locking up interminnrntly, not responding to the remote. I bought these devices to enjoy my movies not to constantly be aggravated by software problems like this.
I forgot to mention that my boxes will also not let me reset the device location.
After another week or so, I’m consistently getting “memory low” issues, or issues where it takes forever/is noticeably laggy getting through the menus, until I finally find the file I want, play it, it takes forever to load, when it does the loading circle is still spinning on the picture, and then I get an “unable to play file” message while the file is playing. And this was after I stopped my server drives spinning down.
I would like to officially change my stance on the WD TV Live from “cautiously optimistic” to “these things are garbage.” After two MAJOR issues since I’ve purchased this thing, I just can’t recommend this thing to anyone. The support is absolutely abysmal and a total deal-breaker. Not only do they not address problems in any form of timeliness, but it’s my theory that the recent issue is caused by their ineptitude. It took forever to get a firmware update to fix my first issue and I anticipate waiting forever for this issue to be resolved. I can’t wait to get rid of this thing. Unfortunately it means I’m going to have to speed up my timetable for piecing together an HTPC, but I’m willing to do whatever I have to.
I’m having the same problem with freezing memory low etc is there a fix for this please ?.
Just an update - Turning off miracast and setting media storage to local worked for about 2 weeks. Now it’s doing the same crash ie 10 minutes of netflix before the box freezes and I have to pull the power. 10 minutes more need to do the same thing.
Hi, i had that freezing problem for months, so i was very pleased to find some solutions in here. Too bad WD is not performing a new update for this issue. Anyway, i tried option 1 and 3 and so far, knock on wood, no more freezing. I just hope this problem will disappear forever. Thanx for your support, i’m no longer desperate 
- Luc (Belgium)
So I posted this link the WD facebook page and this is what they said
Thanks for reporting the issue. We’re currently working on it and our support will keep you updated. ^SJ
Not sure if this really true or just reply to keep me quiet.
Lets hope this is true…
I got a similar email. Apparently WD has people scouring these and contacting people via email. I got one to set up a service chat (which I declined), and then they sent me some questions saying “We have a report that we are working on it, however we have few questions we want to ask you.” So take that however you will.
As an update, I just tried cutting off internet access to the box at the router (it’s still networked but can’t get online) and I’ve had one freeze so far. We’ll see how it goes from here.
Well, count me as a member in this not-so-exclusive club. I came back from an extended period of being away (with my Gen 3 unplugged, no less) to discover this freezing issue. No changes, nothing, just a unit that suddenly no longer worked upon my return. I thought my box was broken, until I discovered a universe of other people experiencing the same issue.
WD, this is pathetic. I used to be in the electronics and computer business as a manufacturer, and this clearly cannot be just a coincidence. There is something going on with these players, and seeing how you have elected to lock us all out of looking inside the box, it is upon YOU to solve this issue and make us whole. I bought one of these because you removed Netflix from your newer offering (huh?? A streaming box without the most used and wanted app on the planet?) and now have a useless brick.
I remember the old days of WD, knew a bunch of people in your organization, and my dad knew Mr. Missler before WD even existed. I’ve been around the block and have been a staunch supporter and user of your products over many decades, but your lack of response to this issue and to the community asking about it makes me think I’ll have to jump ship to your competitors in both the storage and streaming markets.
Don’t make me (and I would bet a whole bunch of other people in this community) do it. Step up to the plate, guys.
Will try the rollback and will report back.
All right, a rollback to 2.01.86 seems to have solved this issue. A couple of things:
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Using the suggested settings for 2.02.32 in other threads had no real effect that I could see.
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My freeze issue was definitely related to the unit being connected to the wireless network and talking to either the router or the Internet. When I switched network settings to wired (with no cable connected) and the box couldn’t talk to anything, no freezing behavior was noted. Don’t know if it’s related to it simply being connected, or if it only happens when using wifi, as I have no way to get a wire to the unit. But, I wouldn’t want to risk a freeze-up in the middle of changing firmware, so make sure your box isn’t trying to talk to anything and change your network setup so that it isn’t.
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If you’ve been fooling around with settings (like I was) trying to solve this issue and turned Check For New Firmware (or whatever it’s called) off, the unit won’t see the firmware files and the New Firmware tab will not appear when you stick the flash drive in. So, make sure that you turn that back on before you stick the USB drive with the firmware files on it, but make sure the unit isn’t connected to the Internet when you do.
After you’ve flashed it, you can reconnect to your network and see if your problems are gone. For now, mine are, I will see if the box is still working 24 hours from now.
I wonder if the act of upgrading has flipped a giblet somewhere. Has anyone tried going back to 2.02.32 after a downgrade and seeing if the issue returns? I may try this and see, after I am sure this is working again.
For me worked 2 ways:
Rollback to Firmware 2.0.1.86 or
Setting the DNS from my WDTV Live to 127.0.0.1 by using Firmware 2.02.32
Thats it!
Greetinx from Germany
Well, setting it to loopback is certainly one way to keep it from talking to the Internet, which is somehow related to this problem. But that means you can’t use it to play Netflix content, for example. That’s one of the reasons I bought this version over the newer one.
13 hours into the rollback and all is still well.
Update:
While the rollback kept the box working, a number of things that the newer firmware fixed/enhanced were gone, of course. One of these was apparently some codecs, as a number of stations I stream via TuneIn no longer worked.
So having nothing to lose and realizing I could roll back again, I went ahead and let the unit update back to 2.02.32.
It’s run all night without issue, woke up this morning to find it working as expected. I’m wondering if my original question of simply doing an update is toggling something somewhere and correcting this issue. I will keep reporting back…
After cutting off internet access to the box at my router, I’m still getting freezes. But they’re the freezes where the box slows down to a crawl, then plays a video for a few seconds before telling me it can’t actually play that video.
It’s nice to hear your experience so we know that this is most definitely a WD issue. Something funky has to be going on. Your 2.03.32 > 2.01.86 > 2.03.32 “solution” is intriguing, though. I’ll be keeping track of this thread to see how it pans out.
I’d also like to comment on your “jump ship” comment a few posts ago. I hate this box with a passion, which is surprised because as far as storage goes I’m WD for life and will be for the foreseeable future. WD has been great to me in terms of hard drives. Which is weird because this box here is such a failure. Maybe that’s the point, though: they branched out and got in over their heads. Like McDonald’s selling pasta. Despite my anger, I just wanted to point out that while I can’t see myself buying a WD TV Live again or recommending it to others (this may change depending on the expediency of this “firmware update” we should be expecting) I’ll still be buying WD storage.
@everyone else:
Straight from the horse’s mouth. Received this email from WD today in response to a questionnaire of sorts I mentioned earlier:
We will pass this information to our development team to add it to the report we currently have related to this issue. As soon as we have an update it will be provided via a firmware release. Unfortunately we do not have an ETA for this but our team is aware of the current issue and currently working on it. We appreciate your time and patience and thanks for your cooperation.
Mine’s has stopped allowing me to reset the device location too, rendering my Hulu subscription useless.
Well, still working after the downgrade/upgrade exercise.
@CF: I would hate to jump ship. I have used WD products since (like I said) the beginning of time for storage almost exclusively, with stellar results. But my last two experiences with WD have been exceptionally poor. I bought a 3TB MyCloud, which, up until whatever FW is running in it (I’ve not done the latest upgrade, since a lot of folks seem to hate it) was an unmitigated disaster. There was an issue with copying files from another drive where the MyCloud would grind to a halt (gee, rather like the Live box!) Days and days of tech support, including a device exchange, solved nothing. On my own, I was finally able to determine that an invalid filename was causing the MyCloud to barf. Ever hear of basic error-trapping, guys? And there were serious shortcomings in both the device and the documentation for it. For example, they didn’t bother to tell anyone that the USB 3.0 port on the drive runs at the network speed if you initiate a copy from it to an attached drive via the network. For simple stuff like copying files, there ought to be a TSR (millennials, look that one up!) that translates between Windows and Linux and lets that port run at full speed. That issue took a couple of days for me to figure out, again, by myself. Any ordinary mortal would expect USB 3.0 performance on a transfer between two connected USB 3.0 drives.
For this box to now break everywhere around the world and to have no comment from WD in their support community leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. OK, we’ve heard indirectly that WD knows about this and is purportedly working on a fix, but someone from that company should get in front of this and make some sort of an announcement. It’s the right thing to do and it’s not that hard. This sort of non-response and inaction is what makes me seriously think about not buying any more WD products.
One thing I will say is that they clearly need to hire some better coders.
While we’re at it, WD, if you are going to fix this with a FW update, how about adding an option to let us update the apps in the box to their latest versions? We shouldn’t be forced to live with inelegant apps because you folks won’t allow for any sort of user upgrade path.
Bad news. Just went to the box and found it locked up. So the downgrade/upgrade does not work permanently.
