WDTV Live Restarting

I’ve recently bought a couple of WD TV Live devices and am having similar problems.

We will be watching a film and at a random point, most often an hour or so in, the unit will go blank and restart itself automatically.

I’ve had one box set up for a couple of weeks, the second I’ve only just set up today.  Both are running the latest firmware.  I rolled the first box back to the previous firmware version, but when I scrolled through the films in Thumbnail mode it seemed very buggy, jumping through the files several at a time, so I’ve gone back to the most recent firmware.

I’ve read comments about services on Windows PCs that might be causing the problems, and switched them off, but the first box has reset itself a couple of times today so far.  The second box carried on playing when the first stopped, so I’m not convinced it is a network issue.

Is there anything I can do to diagnose the problem?  The files that I’m playing are MKVs, encoded in Handbrake from my own DVD collection.

Any help would be much appreciated.

LooneyJetman wrote:

Is there anything I can do to diagnose the problem?  The files that I’m playing are MKVs, encoded in Handbrake from my own DVD collection.

If you have an external USB drive available (even just a thumb drive, as opposed to a full hard disk), you could try putting a couple of files you’ve had issues with on it and connect it locally to the WDTV.

Then disconnect the WDTV from the network altogether (either unplug the wireless adaptor or unplug the ethernet cable), and try playing the files from local storage.

If they play fine from local, you can be fairly certain it’s a network problem of one kind or another… it’s at least a setp in narrowing things down.

Mine still has this restarting, was able to get through 2 films ok yesterday when I unplugged the WD from the network first, will need to test a few more films before I put the blame on my network and try trouble shooting it.

might not only be caused by a computer service running, could be something in the routers firewall as well ???

I’m going to leave both boxes running tonight, one disconnected from the network and playing a file on repeat from a USB memory stick and the other playing from the network.

If it is something on the network, any ideas on how to start diagnosing it?

LooneyJetman wrote:

If it is something on the network, any ideas on how to start diagnosing it?

TonyPh12345 is our resident networking guru (and others really know their stuff too).  If it’s not something simple and obvious, I’m of no further use to you. :wink:

There’s lots of folks around here who should be able to give you a hand.

Checked both boxes this morning.  The one disconnected from the network was still happily playing the film from the USB drive, whereas the one playing from the network had crashed around 1130 yesterday evening and again at some point after I started replaying the film and went to sleep.

So it looks like something on the network might be causing the WD TV to crash.  There was one Windows 7 PC left running last night (encoding DVDs).  From information on other threads, I’d already disabled the Media Centre extender and SSDP services, so I don’t think they’re causing the problem.

The WD TV seems rather fragile, as I don’t have any other problems with networking generally.

Any ideas?

Do you have a Seagate NAS on your network, by any chance?

If not, this issue is now officially out of my league.  Hopefully someone else will pop in soon.

No, I have two 1tb WD My Book Live drives and a LaCie network storage unit.

I believe I’ve had some success in fixing this problem, although it might be too early to tell for sure.

I read somewhere that uPNP might be causing a problem and found a setting on the Virgin Superhub which related to a uPNP timeout (or advertising period, I can’t remember off-hand).  I’ve increased that setting from 30 minutes to the maximum of 1440 minutes and haven’t had the WD TV boxes crash since.  I left a few movies running and the boxes seem to be okay, so hopefully it won’t be a problem any more.  Time will tell…

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LooneyJetman

I have not got round to trying anything yet, all I know at present is that all is ok when not on the network.

Intresting about your Virgin Superhub, I have one as well, will change the setting up as you have and let you know if mine improves.

LooneyJetman wrote:

I believe I’ve had some success in fixing this problem, although it might be too early to tell for sure.

 

I read somewhere that uPNP might be causing a problem and found a setting on the Virgin Superhub which related to a uPNP timeout (or advertising period, I can’t remember off-hand).  I’ve increased that setting from 30 minutes to the maximum of 1440 minutes and haven’t had the WD TV boxes crash since.  I left a few movies running and the boxes seem to be okay, so hopefully it won’t be a problem any more.  Time will tell…

Only able to give 1 Kudos, you deserve a bucket full. lol

Increased the setting, plugged WD back onto network, filled a folder with an assortment of films and hit the play button - 14 hours later and it’s still playing, was lucky to make an hour playing before. :smiley:

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Thank you.  Fingers crossed that it is stable now.

Thanks fingers crossed, oddly enough I also have the “SuperHub” what a pile of ***** it is nothing but problems with it, but see if this makes a difference.

Andersmaten

You could try looking through your Router settings and look for any UPnP settings you could play with.

I tried rolling back the the WD firmware as far as 1.03.49v and I was still getting the restarts?

Have not heard of any other make of media player to have this restarting problem connected with UPnP (even when connected to a Superhub), so I would guess this is a bug in the WD firmware.

Hi folks,

I’ve had this problem on my WD TV Live, for some time. I have tried so many different settings and set ups, changing hdmi cables, you name it I’ve tried it, it has been driving me mad!

I’m so glad I found this thread, because I also have a Virgin Media Super Hub, I’ve changed the  UPnP settings as described above and 18 hours on my WD has been playing non stop!

Excellent, many thanks to you all especially ‘LooneyJetman’ .

Out of interest is this still working OK for everyone who has tried it?

Kind Regards

Hayden

I haven’t had much spare time (too busy ripping my DVD collection), but the handful of movies I’ve watched since making the change have been rock solid - no more random reboots.  Perhaps WD can use this information to diagnose the problem and find out why the WD TV reboots itself.

Unfortunately one of my WD TV devices is still lumbered with the info bar/non-responding remote problem, as detailed in another thread, and so is still running an older firmware.  I’m hoping that if WD push out another firmware update, upgrading will fix it…

Hayden wrote:

 

Hi folks,

 

I’ve had this problem on my WD TV Live, for some time. I have tried so many different settings and set ups, changing hdmi cables, you name it I’ve tried it, it has been driving me mad!

I’m so glad I found this thread, because I also have a Virgin Media Super Hub, I’ve changed the  UPnP settings as described above and 18 hours on my WD has been playing non stop!

Excellent, many thanks to you all especially ‘LooneyJetman’ .

Out of interest is this still working OK for everyone who has tried it?

 

Kind Regards

 

Hayden

My Live has had some heavy use over the last week or so (family member has had an operation and is at home watching films all day), have only suffered one restart since changing the UPnP settings, would have reached the 100’s before.

It works well for getting by until hopefully WD can fix the bug.

We are looking into this issue with the SuperHub.

2 Likes

Toretto wrote:

We are looking into this issue with the SuperHub.

Thank you.

My WD is still going strong since changing the Super Hub’s settings! I’m going to set the Super Hub’s UPnP setting to off and see how that goes.

Kind regards

Hayden

Hayden wrote:

 


Toretto wrote:

We are looking into this issue with the SuperHub.


Thank you.

My WD is still going strong since changing the Super Hub’s settings! I’m going to set the Super Hub’s UPnP setting to off and see how that goes.

 

Kind regards

 

Hayden

Other than the UPnP, which other settings did you change, and to what values?