WD TV Live (Gen 3) F/W upgrade claims to work, but does not

I have 2 of these devices, and both show that they are running F/W Ver. 2.03.20. During my conversation today with a WD technical support agent, he told me that the media players are no longer supported. Since online automatic updates no longer work, I attempted to perform a manual update using the procedure described on the WD Support site: Download the zip file for the latest F/W, extract the files to the root of a USB drive, and insert the drive into the player’s USB slot. If the player recognizes that the F/W on the USB drive is newer than the version currently running, an option to perform an update would appear on the banner at the bottom of the home screen. Indeed, that option did appear. When I selected it, I was presented with a screen stating that the current version is 2.03.20, and the new version is 3.03.20. I proceeded with the update, which claimed to complete successfully. After the device reboot at the end of the process, the same Update Firmware option still appeared on the home page, and the device reports that it is still running the same 2.03.20 version as before the upgrade.

I repeated this at least two more times on one of my players, and once on the other, with the same disappointing results each time.

Can anyone tell me how to get my devices upgraded to the latest (3.03.20) version that I downloaded from the product support page?

Thanks in advance for any help!

There is no version 3.03.20. The version on the support site is the last version, the one you’re already running, version 2.03.20.

As to why they have the wrong version defined in the .VER file, who knows…

By the way, you probably have the Gen 3 SMP, not the Live/Live+ which is where you posted.

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Thanks for that clarification. I had wondered if there might be some mismatch of declared/actual version number.

Regarding the distinction between the Gen 3 SMP you mentioned and the Live, I’m not sure how to tell which I have. It does say WD TV Live on the case, the default Device Name in the Network Settings screen is WDTVLive, and splash screen displayed during boot-up shows WD TV Live.

Not sure what SMP is, or how to identify one…

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Pretty much positivity identified by the fact your player recognized the firmware you tried to install.

The reason the version shows higher than the latest version available is to allow a “re-flash” of the current version if for some reason the firmware did not install correctly. It would not let you re-install the firmware if the versions were the same.

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Thanks for that. At least now, we know it is intentional, and understand the reason why.