When is a cloud not a cloud?

My Cloud OS 3 Personal & Network Attached Storage My Cloud
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I won’t be seeing my sister till Tues so I’ll find out then.   I used my laptop to look at the file after I got home and the words this is a test which I saved through my sisters phone were in my word  document I had edited.   I only edited an existing document though, I didn’t create a new one and save it there in case that makes any difference.

Good to know about boxcryptor - thanks.

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Hi heehee62 (and other interested parties!)

Did you try again?

Would be very interested to hear your results.

Certainly for me, edits are not automatically uploaded to My Book Live.

e.g. the following occurs:

  • Under folder Test on My Book Live drive, I have a document called test.docx

  • Using WD My Cloud App on Nexus 7, running JB 4.3, I can open the file test.docx using Documents To Go and/or Kingston Office (Just by selecting document in WD My Cloud app, i.e. not using Save As option … although I should add that ‘Save As’ option makes no difference)

  • I make changes to the document on the tablet, then save & close the app

  • The Activity tab only shows I have viewed the document (but no indication of it being uploaded automatically)

  • Directly on local network, check the file test.docx … nothing changed! It’s still the pre-edited version.

Note: The edited version is now in the folder /storage/emulated/0/WD My Cloud//Test on the tablet. This edited version NEVER gets back to the My Book Live.

Re-opening the file under WD My Cloud app will re-open this document (incuding the edits) … so to many users would appear to have saved the edits.

BUT, then making a change to the file on the local network … results in the next time the file being edited on tablet showing the locally edited version, not the tablet-edited version … .clear?! I hope so. Horrid operation whatever!

I have repeated the test on my phone, running GB 2.3.7 … exactly the same symptoms. i.e. Edits are not automatically uploaded.

Therefore if its working for you/your sister I’m intrigued to know what the differences are AND why the WD Support guy confirmed that the operation I’m getting is to be expected.

Also I’d love to know what other users are experiencing … or does no-one ever make changes to Office documents on tablet/phone?

23

Tried again this time with both excel and word files on my sister’s galaxy s4 phone.  Both worked.

I think the difference may be how I close the office program.  After I push save in the office program, I push the  back return button  that’s physically on the phone and not on the screen.  This brings me back to wdcloud and that’s when wdcloud tells me it’s saving the file back to my drive.  Then I exit out.

So that’s one button push more than just the save button which really doesn’t take any time at all.  I kind of wonder if you don’t even have to push the normal save button but I didn’t try that.

If that doesn’t solve your problem, try polaris office  4 free and do the same steps above.  That’s what my sister has on her phone.

If that doesn’t work maybe install and reinstall the wd and office apps again?  If that doesn’t work, well I’ve had to completely factory reset windows before to get another non-wd program working beforing. on my laptop.  If that doesn’t work - don’t know what to say.  It should have worked.

Good luck.

P.S.  As far as why the wd support guy gave you his response, a lot of them give wrong answers.  That’s quite normal.  I wasn’t thrilled with support when I called them once too but to WD’s credit, I still found them to be better than asus, belkin, and netgear.  The only support staff that have ever always been able to help me are sony staff.

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Many Thanks heehee62

With the information you’ve now provided, I think I’ve got as far as I’m going to get.

The main points are:

  • The WD Support guy was talking rubbish

  • Some office apps will return edits made using WD My Cloud back to drive automatically; others won’t

Expanding a bit:

  • Unfortunately, the Play Store claims Polaris Office 4 free is incompatible with both my nexus 7 & my HTC Desire … so cannot install/try that … but I now have no doubt that would work for any user whose device is compatible!

  • However, I have tried OliveOffice Premium (just to try any other Android Office App) … that works! It automatically sends any edits back. [The Activity Tab on WD My Cloud shows the file is being uploaded & the file is truly uploaded!] … Trouble is, I personally don’t like the look of OliveOffice :frowning:

  • The fact that the WD Support guy told me that edits won’t be returned back automatically & that it is intentionally done this way to prevent inadvertently editing/potentially destroying a file (if the link goes down during the upload) is clearly total rubbish!

What I cannot work out is whether the problem I am seeing is related to WD My Cloud app or to the Office apps.

If a ‘WD techie’ can provide information in this thread, I would be very interested.

i.e. What is the trigger for WD My Cloud to upload a file? Does WD Cloud need to handle the auto uploads better or is it the manner in which some office apps open/save the file? Any work arounds?

Note: Just to re-iterate from previous comments in this thread - the applications that don’t work with WD My Cloud (at least for me & my devices!) are Kingsoft Office and Documents to Go. Shame, cos in particular, Kingsoft has some extremely nice capabilities.

If anyone knows of a nice Android Office app that does work with WD My Cloud, I’d be very interested to hear (except for Polaris which for my devices are incompatible!*?!)

Anyway … heehee62 … you really have been very helpful … many, many thanks!
 I won’t ask you to do any more testing! :slight_smile:

25

John159 wrote:

Interestingly enough I originally posted this thread to WD Mobile Threads forum … but it was moved by someone (?) … guess the forum moderator? But that’s why it’s in this forum. :smiley:

Sorry for the confusion, guys.  We’re still getting this down ourselves.  This thread should have been moved to the Mobile Apps board.  I’m going to leave it here, now, since it’s already this far out of the gate.  I’ve renamed the Mobile Apps board to WD My Cloud & Mobile Apps to help clear up the confuson.  I hope.

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For those interested, I’ve done a bit more research on which apps work ‘properly’ with WD My Cloud from Android tablet ( Nexus 7) And those that don’t!:

[i.e. Those that you can use the Android Tablet App to access office files & edit them directly, with the edits being uploaded back to drive after saving]

Documents To Go - Edits not saved back to drive. Looks like edits have been saved, but actually only saved locally.

Kingsoft Office - Edits not saved back to drive. Looks like edits have been saved, but actually only saved locally.

Google Drive - When trying to save, it recognises that it is not possible and forces edits to be discarded or saved elsewhere

Polaris Office - Could not test, since won’t install on Nexus 7 … but from comments earlier in thread would probably work

OfficeSuite Pro - Works perfectly.

Would love to know why though!

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Hey, if you don’t like any of the office programs you can use - you might give bittorrent sync a try.

http://community.wd.com/t5/My-Book-Live/BitTorrent-Sync-installation-script/td-p/588057

It was way easier to install than I expected with the help of the above thread.  It’s super easy to use too.  Note, the older versions had issues with never powering down so used a lot of battery but I read that problem should be solved with current update  (though I’m having issues at the moment which hopefully can be resolved).

Also, right now, you can’t officially sync subfolders which is a huge bummer for me.  But I assume they’ll change that probably sooner than later with future updates.

Hope you find what you want.  I’m still leaning towards skydrive cause I hate all the android office apps but I guess my sister and mom are the android users so I’ll see what they want.  Your list on which progams do work is helpful to me as it lets my family know their options.  Thanks.

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Forgot to say,

You need to SSH into your MBL for bittorrent sync so it’ll void your warranty if you use it.

So I guess you might not want to do it.  But SSH opens up so many uses for the MBL, it’s worth it for me.  My MBL was only $119 anyway.

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Thanks again HeeHee62.

In truth, the BitTorrent solution too much effort for me … although you’ll probably say its easy!

Have now purchased OfficeSuite Pro 7 … can again confirm it works perfectly with the My Book Live drive using WD My Cloud, i.e. All edits are uploaded after saving any file (docx, xlsx, pptx).

Interestingly, got email from WD supportsaying they have now done similar tests to me and confirm my results. They have indicated that they will ask their engineering team if this is possible to implement … be interesting to see if they resolve it.

30

Hi Would you elaborate on the virtural ftp drive map-er setup?  I’m trying to ftp sync my remote drives to My cloud and having troubles, do you need to setup FTP server? I assume My Cloud has ftp built-in that’s why there is a selection to enable that?  but after forwarding the ports and using Ftp client, I was not able to access my cloud…

Any suggestiosn would be gealt appreciated.

WC