WD TV Live Loses HDMI signal when USB drive is removed/connected even

[jcdenton]

I've seen many posts on this forum relating to the WD TV Live dropping or refusing to pick up an HDMI signal. I ran into this problem constantly. I have a 1 TB WD external portable drive and any time I connected or disconnected the drive (which I always did with the WD TV Live powered off), my TV (an older model Samsung flatscreen) the signal would drop. I was ready to return the device as I tested at least 3 different HDMI cables on 3 x HDMI ports on the TV to no avail. I work in IT so decided to run through a number of logical tests. By disconnecting my CAT5 connection to the WD TV Live I realized that it booted and the TV picked up the HDMI connection instantly. This led me to believe there was some sort of issue with the WD TV waiting for a DHCP address and the HDMI signal not being pushed....very odd I thought, as one would expect HDMI signal to be established straight away. Anyway, by assigning a static IP to the WD TV Live and putting an address reservation into my Netgear router the issue has been solved. Everytime I boot it now...with or without  the USB drive connected I get instant HDMI signal on my TV.

Perhaps this is something WD can look at with a firmware update...along with the MUCH NEEDED ABILITY FOR THE DEVICE TO NOT POWER ON AUTOMATICALLY WHEN MAINS POWER IS ESTABLISHED.....I am still shocked that the WD TV Live does not have this feature!

Anyway I hope this helps any other people with the same issue.

[richUK]

Can we assume that the connection / disconnection of your USB drive had nothing to do with the problem and it was purely the fact that you were powering on off and on the WDTV and the solution was to change the network setup.

[jcdenton]

I only seemed to lose signal when a change was made to the device e.g a usb drive (I tried a couple) was connected/disconnected. I tried a WD, a Seagate and a Kingston flash drive all with the same result. Any change to the WD meant when powering back on it would fail to push the HDMI signal to my TV. Everytime I wished to get the signal back I had to unplug the ethernet on the WD to the router. It seems odd but I think it's a combination of changes to the device...so I would say anyone who is having signal issues...unpug all usb and ethernet to the WD and power cycle. All I can say without a doubt...since I set the static IP I can unplug any usb drive without losing signal at all. The TV always gets the HDMI signal now.

[parnott100]

It could also be a power issue whereby they WDTV is only getting a marginal power supply and cannot bring up the external connections. Seen it many times with other devices.