WDTV Live G3 suddenly started behaving weirdly

Hi,

I’ve had a WDTV Live for a while now, no problems, very happy with it. Then last week Netflix suddenly started crashing a lot, taking a long time to load, freezing when going back to the main menu, etc. In tandem with this, the WDTV has dropped the Windows network share with all the kids’ movies on and won’t find it again, but the share is there, fine, mounts on other computers on the network.

This happened totally out of the blue. I have done several factory resets to no avail. Thinking about downgrading the firmware, but since this seemingly wasn’t caused by a firmware update (there haven’t been any) thinking maybe this unit has just died?

Any thoughts, suggestions, advice? Or is it just time to buy a new one?

Thanks,

Greg

greg.harvey wrote:Any thoughts, suggestions, advice? Or is it just time to buy a new one?

 

*New* WDTV’s don’t have Netflix

You’ll find it difficult to buy a *New* WDTV Live Streaming … so you’ll have to buy second hand/ / pre-owned

Hmmm, that’s a shame. Guess I’d better go shopping for a Roku! I’m going to try reinstalling the firmware from a fresh download of the zip, just in case that solves it. If not, and if no one has any other suggestions, it’s the trash for this unit. :frowning:

i’m assuming you’ve tried resetting the WDTV via the “Reset Hole” with a paperclip … and also via the Setup > System > Reset to Factory Defaults ??

Yup, tried all that. Several times. Now downgraded the firmware but it behaves the same way. I think it’s well and truly broken!

hmmm… well maybe the Netflix , Network Shares freezing could be caused by something else ?

you have’nt changed anything have you ? like a new modem/router … or upgraded to Windoze10 ?

Nope, all Linux here and nothing changed that coincides with this. The Netgear switches are all the same, so is the modem and the router. And a connection check runs fine from the Network menu, the WDTV says it has no network issues. Most odd!

Well, temporary stay of execution for the WDTV. Windows and Linux shares - Network Share option - are completely broken and seemingly irrepairable (even brand new firmware doesn’t fix) but Media Server works fine. So I’ve installed FreeNAS on a spare computer, hooked up the drive with all the movies to it and installed Plex, and the WDTV is happy to play movies via Plex.

Very strange, but at least I can watch films and don’t have to hurry out and buy a Roku. And FreeNAS is just brilliant! :slight_smile:

i just install XBMC (Kodi) on my PC and it auto shares content across my network

Lol, I just pretty most posted the same thing here http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Streaming/wdtv-Stuck-with-no-reason/td-p/907621 . Except I own 4 of them and they all do it at the same time and all started at the same time. No new hardware or software. | did upgrade to windows 10 months ago but this problem is only weeks old. I wonder if its something wd has changed on the phone home server. If they are all powered doing different stuff (like 1 streraming netflix, 1 youtube, and 2 running off harddrives) They will all lockup at the same moment.

I have 2 of these bought a year apart, and both have started acting up today.  They’ll play for about 15 minutes or so (streaming from a Windows share), then will lock up completely.  I’ve done a factory reset, rebooted my router, etc., but it still happens.  I also left them unplugged for a while and then plugged them back in.  I left one unattended for a while, and I notice it was locked up on the screen saver when I went to use it.

Since some people have suggested a potential “phone home” issue, I’ve turned off the check for firmware updates and will see what happens.  When I did a manual firmware check, I did notice it gave me an error rather than just saying there was no new firmware available.

I’ve been streaming video from a Windows share for 10 minutes or so, and I notice it’s stopped responding to the remote, but it’s still playing.

Very frustrating.

Its like there is a time bomb in the firmware, some affected 12 months ago some 2 weeks ago some yesterday.

lynnskii wrote:

I have 2 of these bought a year apart, and both have started acting up today.  They’ll play for about 15 minutes or so (streaming from a Windows share), then will lock up completely.  I’ve done a factory reset, rebooted my router, etc., but it still happens.  I also left them unplugged for a while and then plugged them back in.  I left one unattended for a while, and I notice it was locked up on the screen saver when I went to use it.

 

Since some people have suggested a potential “phone home” issue, I’ve turned off the check for firmware updates and will see what happens.  When I did a manual firmware check, I did notice it gave me an error rather than just saying there was no new firmware available.

 

I’ve been streaming video from a Windows share for 10 minutes or so, and I notice it’s stopped responding to the remote, but it’s still playing.

 

Very frustrating.

I was suprised to see this, exactly my problem these past 2 days, the box has been very temprimental, last night it played a HD movie over 2 hours no problem, today complaining running low on memeory, remote locking up etc. even after a full reset. Remote froze when playing from a linux share yet continued to ply the programme. Whats happenong with these boxes? Auto destruct?

This is happening to my WD player as well.

It just freezes after a while and remote control stops working. I have no clue what is happening.

same happening to my player, no clue why this is happening

if this is happening to all of us at the same time more or less. I believe its something about the softwate.

When I am trying to check whether I have the latest software installed, it fails to check software update.
I would like to know how to downgrade software or something to fix the problem.

I have exactly the same problem. It cannot be coincidence. WD gives no reply. We should flood WD with leeters of complaint

I’m having the exact same problem. Random freezes, have to unplug to restart. Been fine for over a year, then this just started happening.

Add me to the people who’s been having this problem. I have two boxes, my mother uses one of them to watch Netflix and I use the other mostly to play media from a hard drive. I hadn’t been using mine for some time, but my mother uses hers everyday. And since last week or therabouts she complained the device was freezing way too often. I assumed her device had broken so gave her mine, and the same thing happened. I’ve got her one of those dongles that turn the tv into a tablet screen so she can keep watching Netflix and brought back my WDTV. At that time I assumed it was a problem with Netflix, but I’ve been watching my hard drive content in my device and yep, it freezes. I’ve also noticed the error it gives when trying to look for firmware updates so I’ve turned auto check off to see if that was causing the problem.

Let’s hope there’s a solution.

exact same problems with me, just started in the last 10 days or so. player freezes after 15-30 minutes of playback only way to fix it is to unplug the power. then it freezes again after another 15-30 minutes. this is with a local network share AND from a media server. very annoying. As some one here suggested I’ve disable the automatic firmware update check in case it is a “phone home” issue as I WAS getting an error when I would force a check. im going to leave it running overnight (something I routinely do so my kid has shows on if he wakes up before us) and will report back. i had been very pleased with this product before this started but after looking into it more and noticing a trend with this company abandoning their products after breaking them I don’t think I’ll be purchasing anything WD makes again.