Wd Tv live locking up, 2 boxes needing resets daily - is that issue back?

Wd in their infinite wisdom took something offline some months back which caused many of us lock ups. But they seemed to fix the issue - UNTIL LAST FEW DAYS!!! The lock ups and need for a daily reset are back. We have three boxes and two are doing it. Anyone else noticing the same?

Just a guess: Check to see if it still connects automatically to firmware server (be enot to update firmware.) Best way to check is ti power unit down, and when you power it back up it lets you know new firmware is available (assuming you don’t have latest firmware installed already.)

Thanks for the reply - it does do the check but I know I am on the latest firmware and it informs me of this. I will continue to monitor but I know there were server issues because WD took something offline causing widespread freezing to many - the pattern of the last couple days made me wonder if WD have struck again

It appears you need to rollback firmware to previous version 2.01.86

I was just reading this post a few hours ago. It’s a long one:

See Joey Smyth’s complete instruction to rollback.

The underlying cause before was a broken website that the box continuously tries to connect to until it runs out of memory or locks up.

http://www.wdtvlive.com/wsapps/appservice.svc/json/browseapp

It looks like that website is down again or gone.

Nevertheless, the firmware rollback has improved the SMP performance for many people. and it ought to be done since the later (last) FW is broken.

Indeed the latest firmware has started to lock up during the past few days but I have to disagree that the latest is broken, it works much better for me than the previous firmware, so I am reluctant to roll back , again.

Barry, set me straight if I am wrong, but it is my understanding that the last firmware for SMP “broke” playing mp4 files, and is why folks rolled back to previous version.

not broke as such but yes some people had issues with some mp4s, it was something to do with the way they were muxed probably to do with the software that was used at the time. I only ever had that problem myself except once, remuxing it solved it. I produce all mine with MeGUI on windows.

OK, thanks. I create my own mp4/m4v files with Handbrake from ripped ISO files from my DVD collection, and they all play fine on the WDTV, computers, and mobile devices, e.g. iPhone/iPad and Kindle tablets.

I also ask, because I currently use the WDTV Live Plus players, but also have an unopened new SMP (I bought right before they were discontinued and still at a great price) and will break into and configure it if ever one of my current players goes “poof”. So, I want to know which firmware I need to install since I have them both downloaded and tucked away in folders for that rainy day.

You are well prepared then! That’s the only draw back I know of the latest firmware but I only use my WDTV for playing local content, from an attached USB drive and from my NAS, and it does that admirably, usually, except when locking up (!) like it has started doing again. :rage: I have no use for its on-line capabilities.

Ditto, I have a Roku if I want to use streaming media from Netflix, etc. I do access my WD NAS via mobile devices at home, and often remotely to play media on my mobile devices. WDTV is only used to play my media to TV at home; the online features of device are pathetic.

yeap its happening again actually heard that from other 3 people here in greece!!!what the hell is WD doing again? PLEASE FIX IT AGAIN!JESUS CHRIST.if you are unable to fix it just tell us NOT TO BUY AGAIN WD PRODUCTS!!!

FIX!

Yep still occurring. Well I think it recovered for a couple days but it’s been freezing up all weekend. That site is definetely down or been taken off deliberately by WD. As a result the WD box constantly trashes the Internet trying to reconcile with this site and eventually freezes up . The box is not smart enough to give up on it. Especially frustrating seeing as I don’t want to use anything external, just want to use my box for internal streaming from our NAS boxes.

Try disconnecting internet from box and see if things improve.

Thanks. How would I do it though? I’m happy to crush it’s Internet capabilities and hopefully stop it trying to constantly communicate with the WD site that is down or taken offline. But If I remove the Ethernet cable then I lose the ability to stream video from our NAS boxes on the internal network.

Well, a few years ago in one of the older WDTV forums there was a discussion of how to tell the WDTV to stop checking for new firmware, and someone told the URL being used for the access. What you need to do is tell your router not to accept the command to go to “xyz”.com and it will stop. Most all routers have this capability. I tried it, but it also prevented other things I want it to do, so I un-did this. I can’t remember what I did. So, perhaps your router log will disclose the URL in question (likely has WD somewhere in the URL), confirm this is what you want to block and your router instructions tell you how to block the connection.

I just checked my Asus router settings. I believe I found how to block under Firewall-URL Filter where it says:
"Key in the keywords for the sites that you want to block.
“For example, enter “XXX” in the list The URL filter will block the http://www.abcXXX.com, http://www.XXXbbb.com and so on.”

I am pretty sure this is the setting I used, because I likely typed in WD, and all access to WD sites were blocked; including the forum and the main WD site, but you could try it for a day and see if it helped. Best to find exact URL you want to block.

maybe this will help ? (from about 6 months ago)

also, the blocking of firmware updates, i explained here

https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/wd/uploads/default/optimized/3X/4/6/4648fcf29cee8c03cafcacf51cb4ddf8a95d4869_1_690x357.jpg

Thanks, Joey, so do you think if the OP filters above URL to block it that his issue will be solved and not interfere with any other WD sites he would want to access (e.g. wdc.com) would be unaffected?

is this blocking ok?anyway i will see what happens with this settings