OK I have upgraded the firmware to 1.02.36 and can say that the issue appears to be mitigated somewhat, but not solved.
Since the upgrade I have copied media files to shares with MEDIA SERVING turned OFF and there is still evidence (per the /var/log/wdmcserver.log file) of trawling of this share. But it seems as though the wdmcserverd process no longer peggs the CPU. With wdmcserverd (and wdphotodbmergerd) busy, I’m seeing it keeping over 10% CPU headroom at all times. Which is good.
Interestingly, on a share with MEDIA SERVING tured ON and a number of movie files copied, there is no exidence (per the log file) of any of this activity - the activiity only occurs to the share with MEDIA ACCESS turned OFF.
Still not sure why /var/log/wdmcserver.log shows wdmcserverd crawling a share with MEDIA ACCESS turned off.
Looking at the log, there appears to be 3 passes (" AutoTranscoding P1 :96x, AutoTranscoding P2: 1024x, & AutoTranscoding P3 160x), After these 3 passes, rather than the log going quiet, it will repeat all over again, but without wdmcserverd using allt he CPU.
So the problem appears not to be solved, but mitigated, although still a puzzle on why the share is crawled in the first place, Given this behaviour though I canot see how the EX4 would ever enter “Standby” state with drives set off.
a cut from the log is here - the offending directory is “Foobar 4” on Share 2 - this cycle has repeated over 10x in the last 30 minutes.
"Apr 18 12:11:04 Info AutoTranscoding P1: 96x
Apr 18 12:11:08 Info Finished extracting metadata on ‘/shares/Volume’ for category: ‘image’ (0 items, 3.407 W 0.000 U 0.000 S 0.0%).
Apr 18 12:11:08 Info Finished transcoding on ‘/shares/Volume’ for P1 (0 items, 0.088 W 0.000 U 0.000 S 0.0%).
Apr 18 12:11:11 Info Finished extracting metadata on ‘/shares/Volume’ for category: ‘audio’ (0 items, 2.863 W 0.000 U 0.000 S 0.0%).
Apr 18 12:11:13 Info Finished transcoding on ‘/shares/Volume’ for P1 (0 items, 2.388 W 0.000 U 0.000 S 0.0%).
Apr 18 12:11:16 Info Finished extracting metadata on ‘/shares/Volume’ for category: ‘video’ (0 items, 3.244 W 0.000 U 0.000 S 0.0%).
Apr 18 12:11:17 Info Finished transcoding on ‘/shares/Volume’ for P1 (0 items, 0.449 W 0.000 U 0.000 S 0.0%).
Apr 18 12:11:20 Info Finished extracting metadata on ‘/shares/Volume’ for category: ‘other’ (0 items, 3.134 W 0.000 U 0.000 S 0.0%).
Apr 18 12:11:20 Info Finished transcoding on ‘/shares/Volume’ for P1 (0 items, 0.190 W 0.000 U 0.000 S 0.0%).
Apr 18 12:11:20 Info AutoTranscoding P2: 1024x
Apr 18 12:11:20 Info Finished transcoding on ‘/shares/Volume’ for P2 (0 items, 0.100 W 0.000 U 0.000 S 0.0%).
Apr 18 12:11:24 Info Finished transcoding on ‘/shares/Volume’ for P2 (0 items, 3.808 W 0.000 U 0.000 S 0.0%).
Apr 18 12:11:24 Info Finished transcoding on ‘/shares/Volume’ for P2 (0 items, 0.288 W 0.000 U 0.000 S 0.0%).
Apr 18 12:11:24 Info Finished transcoding on ‘/shares/Volume’ for P2 (0 items, 0.099 W 0.000 U 0.000 S 0.0%).
Apr 18 12:11:24 Info AutoTranscoding P3: 160x
Apr 18 12:11:25 Info Finished transcoding on ‘/shares/Volume’ for P3 (0 items, 0.120 W 0.000 U 0.000 S 0.0%).
Apr 18 12:11:28 Info Finished transcoding on ‘/shares/Volume’ for P3 (0 items, 3.089 W 0.000 U 0.000 S 0.0%).
Apr 18 12:11:28 Info Finished transcoding on ‘/shares/Volume’ for P3 (0 items, 0.020 W 0.000 U 0.000 S 0.0%).
Apr 18 12:11:28 Info Finished transcoding on ‘/shares/Volume’ for P3 (0 items, 0.013 W 0.000 U 0.000 S 0.0%).
Apr 18 12:15:28 Info Finished crawling: ‘/shares/Volume’ (0 items, 260.990 W 0.000 U 0.000 S 0.0%).
Apr 18 12:15:38 Info Finished crawling: ‘/shares/Volume/Share 1’ (0 items, 0.047 W 0.000 U 0.000 S 0.0%).
Apr 18 12:15:46 Info Finished crawling: ‘/shares/Volume/Share 2’ (0 items, 0.075 W 0.000 U 0.000 S 0.0%).
Apr 18 12:15:53 Info Finished crawling: ‘/shares/Volume/Share 2/Foobar 1’ (0 items, 0.044 W 0.000 U 0.000 S 0.0%).
Apr 18 12:15:58 Info Finished crawling: ‘/shares/Volume/Share 2/Foobar 1/Foobar 2’ (0 items, 0.069 W 0.000 U 0.000 S 0.0%).
Apr 18 12:16:06 Info Finished crawling: ‘/shares/Volume/Share 2/Foobar 1/Foobar 2/Foobar 3’ (0 items, 0.060 W 0.000 U 0.000 S 0.0%).
Apr 18 12:16:12 Info Finished crawling: ‘/shares/Volume/Share 2/Foobar 1/Foobar 2/Foobar 3/Foobar 4’ (0 items, 0.045 W 0.000 U 0.000 S 0.0%).
"
A re-boot fixes this behaviour. Until the next time I put files into that directory.
