MyBook Live blinking, but not working like supposed

[jaqmol]

One month ago I bought a MyBook Live. I updated the drive from the start on. It runs the highest firmware version. I run it on a Mac, directly connected to the computer and via a Airport Extreme. From the day on I bought this drive I spent countless hours trying to make it running in a standable manner, without success. There are a few facts about this drive that I would like to know more about from someone from Western Digital:

1. The drive keeps itself entertained for ever. It doesn't go into sleep mode longer than 2-15 minutes.
2. The drive's webbrowser configuration interface is only accessible if the drive has internet connected.
3. Point (2) means: Effectively the drive cannot be used in a intranet environment that is disconnected from the internet.
4. If the drive is running disconnected from the internet it is not even going to sleep for 2 minutes. It entertains itself for ever, endlessly.

5. TimeMachine updates are not working when the drive is accessed via a wireless network. Everey 2 weeks the complete backup is becoming corrupted.

I would be pleased if finally someone could explain those points to me (and as I know from this forum, also to many others). Especially I would like to know how to update the drive with further firmware updates, if the configuration interface is not accessible.

[Vadir]

You should be able to access the dashboard without having an Internet conection.  Your MBL seems to be working erratically, i thin you yuo should contact WD tech support, you may need to have it replaced.

[Alucardx23]

1-Remember that the My Book Live has a lot of services that can still be running in the background like the Media Server or the Remote Access option, if you are not using any of does services you can disable them from the dashboard.

2-So if you disconnect the modem from your Router or if you connect the My book directly to the PC you cannot access the dashboard? Try this, connect the my book directly to your PC, open your internet browser and enter http://mybooklive/or the name that you selected for your my book/ and let me know if you can access the dashboard. You can also enter the IP address of your my book on your browser and access the dashboard like that.

3-Internet access is only needed for services like remote access and media server, etc. Not so you can access the shared folders or the dashboard.

4-So when the My Book does have internet access it goes into sleep mode normally?

5-You can try to press the reset button on the back of your My Book for 4 seconds, that will not delete any of your files, just the config back to default.

[jaqmol]

> 1) I turned all those services off.

> 2) If I disconnect my Computer from the network and only connect the WD-MyBookLive, then the dashboard is not accessible.

> 3) In above mentioned setup only the shares are available, the dashboard is inaccessible.

> 4) It seems. Still once in a while in the morning, when I pass by the drive it is on and blinking. After all computers in the network have been off the whole night and are not turned on yet.

> 5) This is nice but not helping much, because:

The main purpose I bought this drive for is STILL NOT WORKING!!! I bought this drive mainly for using it as a TimeMachine Backup medium. And for that it is still unusable because it corrupts the backup every 2 to 3 weeks. It does that in my wireless network, while hänging on a Airport Extreme. Pulling wires through the whole house is absolutely no option for me. So how to get this drive working as a TimeMachine backup medium - like promised on it's package?

[cman548]

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> 2) If I disconnect my Computer from the network and only connect the WD-MyBookLive, then the dashboard is not accessible.

right.  the dashboard is web GUI.  You would need a web browser to navigate to the dashbaord.   Unless I'm not understanding what you're saying.  He recommended connecting the MBL directly to the computer via LAN cable, bypassing the router.

[jaqmol]

Sorry, but it seems my explanation wasn't clear enough. Consider the following setup: My Mac is _not_ connected to the Internet via an ethernet cable, only wirelessly. If I now connect the WDMBL to it using a direct ethernet connection the dashboard is not accessible. If in turn I connect the WDMBL to my Airport Extreme, the dashboard is perfectly accessible. I assume therefore that the dashboard needs some sort of network switch functionality in place (BTW: sharing the Wlan-Internet with the Ethernet-Port of my Mac is not working for the drive).

The WDMBL dashboard is not in any way usable when you connect the device directly like a USB- or FW-drive. In order to be able to use the drive like I would do with a USB- or FW-one I would need to buy an additional network switch, put it on my desk and connect both the Mac and the WDMBL to it ...

Connecting the device directly to the Mac was actually the last option for me. I considered this solution as a workaround for finding some sort of usability case for my WDMBL. As this is not possible (due to the fact that I will not screw a Network-Switch under my Desk), the drive is actually not usable by me and I am quite unsatisfied and very angry about WD selling me a thing that came to be nothing more than electronic trash (for my use scenario).

Edit: For the case of completeness: As you can see: The WDMBL can only be used in a wireless setup by me. But unfortunately in such a setup the drive corrupts the TimeMachine-backups every 2 to 3 weeks. FYI: I bought the drive for using it as a TimeMachine-backup-volume solely. I never was interested in all those multimedia-marginalities and turned them all off from the first minute. Therefore I feel deceived by WD. This drive did cost money and is actually useless for me. And what sets the crown on top of all of that is the fact that I bought 2 of it. An additonal one fro my wife. This one too was supposed to be used for TimeMachine, but since ever is nothing more than a happily blinking blackbox, that trashes backups repetitively ...

[Bill_S]

If you're waiting on someone from WD to respond, then it may be a while.  This is not a support community.  It's a user to user community.  

Having said all that, if you have the two drives on the same network, you need to make sure that they have different names as drives.  Otherwise, they won't work right, and they will definitely have issues with backups being corrupted.  I own a My Book Live and I use it all day everyday.  I use WD2go as well, so if both the drives are acting up, then you have to look at how they're set up on the network.  Start with removing one.  Do a factory reset on the other, then change its drive name.  The factory reset will get rid of any corruption by reformatting the drive.  Once you've changed the name, set up your TM backup and let it run.  Then connect the other drive and do the factory reset on it, as well, then setup its backup.  you don't have to change the name on that one.  Let us know what happens.

[jaqmol]

Both drives never had the same names. I gave them different names right from the beginning. Any other suggestions?

[Bill_S]

I would still take one of the network and see if that makes a difference.  There could be a number of reasons why this is happening.  Have you attempted to contact support about this?

[edit]

Are you using the drives for anything else?  Or are they exclusively used by TM on one computer?

[jaqmol]

One drive is only used for TimeMachine. The other also contains an iTunes-library and is used with that one. Yes I'm currently in comntact with support. He supposed the same like you. I'm currently waiting for the diagnostics to finish for sending it with my answer.

Anyway: If I cannot run 2 drives of this sort together in the same network at a time, then they are a huge miss-conception and are violating the implicit connotations and logic behind the term "network-device".

Additionally: Both drives had backup-corruptions, while one of it was only used for backups and the other for iTunes and backups. I have to assume therefore that a concurrent-acces-issue is not causative for the corruption, but that the reason lies in the software of the drive.

To me it seems this drive is not corresponding correctly to the needs of time-machine. As someone else in another thread suspected: The AFP-implementation WD is using might cause this failures. The WD-team responsible for this alpha-to-market-product should run some more testing AFP-wise. Until the fix of this issue, deceived customers like me will need to proceed living with the fact of losing their backups with this drives.