2x WDTV Live SMP on same network

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Streaming
1

Hi.

All my media is in 2 shared folders on my Windows 7 PC - 1 for Movies and 1 for TV shows. It looks like I can only use 1 player at which is fine.

The “old” SMP was working perfect and was off (stand-by) while I installed and setup the new SMP. After install and setup the new SMP worked fine but the older SMP started acting weird.

1st Netflix did not work and now I can’t find any of the folders. Netflix started working again after I switched of the network to the 2nd player.

Long story short… Can I have 2 SMPs on the same network (wired) and sharing the same folders? Obviously not running at the same time.

2

The existance of 2 SMPs has nothing to do with NetFlix.  But it can have less-than-desirable consequences to the Media Library…

If you’re not using the Media Library, then there’s nothing to worry about.

3

So what if you do have two?  What are you options for the media library?  I keep corrupting it.

4

I own two units, both accessing the same network-shares, even one accessing the usb-drives connected to the other. Works fine!

When I add or remove movies to/from the network-shares I  rescan the WDTV medialibrary. You have to do that for both units because - apparently - the “table” within the smp has to be updated as well. In my case (200 movies) it’ s just a matter of a second and you’re good to go. With respect to retrieving the metadata, you have to do that just once with either one of the smp-units. The metadata will be written to the network-shares by the unit that downloads the metadata. The other smp-unit will show these metadata as long as the his medialibrary is updated for the added movies/folders.

5

DrVerwoerd wrote:

I own two units, both accessing the same network-shares, even one accessing the usb-drives connected to the other. Works fine!

Oh, no it doesn’t!   Unless you’re lucky. :slight_smile:

If you EVER have an instance where both WDs are trying to update the media library at the same time, it *WILL* be corrupted.  It’s been proven and demonstrated time and time again.

The developers of the database system that WD uses (called SQLite) even have strong warnings in their documentation against doing what WD does – using database files that are in network filesystems.

6

My problem is when I switch from one to the other, it says something like no files available.  I then have to delete the library and add again.  They should give you an option where to story the media library, that way you could put in two folders.

Is there any workaround?

7

Unfortunately, in the last few versions of FW, the only workaround I had figured out also no longer works.

If you don’t actually USE both devices at the same time, you can do this:

  1.  Completely power off one unit.   (Safest just to pull the power cord.)

  2.  Power up the other, and allow it to build the full media library.

  3.  When you’re done using it, unplug it.

Basically, only have one plugged in at a time.

I know, it’s a pain in the as*.  But it’s the safest way to go.

8

@TonyPh12345 

Two devices trying to change a network-shared (database-)file AT THE SAME TIME should indeed give problems.

In practice - well, … in my home - apparantly the units do NOT update at the same time. I guess chances are really very small that two units try to change the .wdtv database at exactly the same time.  

In the Settings menu of both smp’s  I have chosen (medialibrary-- networkshares – automatic rescan): rescan only during standby. This works fine!  I presume the same counts for the other settings, once a day, once an hour etc …

I do not know when (or by what rule or trigger) the units start the automatic rescan, but normally after downloading movies I do a manual rescan of the network-shared folders using the smp in my living room. I leave the other smp on the second floor untouched. 

Furthermore, now and then I copy movies from my NAS to the usb-drive attached to one of my smp’s. This usb-drive is shared in the network and part of the medialibrary of the other smp. One would expect that moving those files from the NAS to one of the smp’s would trigger a rescan by both the smp’s, but it does not.  So far I have never had conflicting access to shared .wdtv folders.

My experience is: it works fine! Unless you’re very unlucky (i.e. the two smp’s start their automatic rescan at exactly the same moment or the scanning-times overlap). I bought my second unit after reading several posts which stated that it  worked fine, because at first I had some doubts too.

9

Not sure how technical you’re willing to get, but I’m considering getting a 2nd SMP and wanted to get around the inherent limitations with its Media Library SQLite-based database when accessing media from a single centralized server.  Even though the chance of corruption may be slim, I don’t like taking chances if it can be helped, especially when it comes to the “wife acceptance factor” for making our media devices as reliable as possible, grin.

Using the Windows 7 “MKLINK /H” command, it is possible to use the Windows NTFS filesystem feature called hardlinking to create mirrors of files against an original folder structure (for a Linux-based NAS, hardlinking is also a possibility); I think the solution would better call for hard links as compared to symbolic links or directory junctions, if one goal would be to keep a set of “MasterFiles” outside of the Windows shares that the WDTV devices would utilize.

Bottom line, this would allow for multiple isolated sets of .wd_tv folders even though the single set of media files and any metadata files would not need to be physically duplicated/etc and therefore not wasting extra disk space.  Something along the lines of an AutoIt script could crawl through a “MasterFiles” folder and then either create or delete hardlinked files within any duplicated per-WDTV-device folder structure.  From what I understand, NTFS allows for hardlinking of files but not folders.

As an example:

\ Media \ MasterFiles    (your “master” folder where you’d perform routine copies, deletes, ThumbGen updates, etc)
\ Media \ MasterFiles \ Movies \ .wd_tv \
\ Media \ MasterFiles \ Movies \ filename1.ext
\ Media \ MasterFiles \ TVShows \ .wd_tv \
\ Media \ MasterFiles \ TVShows \ filename2.ext

\ Media \ WDTV1 \ ShareMovies \ .wdtv \
\ Media \ WDTV1 \ ShareMovies \ filename1.ext  (hard linked to the MasterFiles filename1.ext)
\ Media \ WDTV1 \ ShareTVShows \ .wd_tv \
\ Media \ WDTV1 \ ShareTVShows \ filename2.ext

\ Media \ WDTV2 \ ShareMovies \ .wdtv \
\ Media \ WDTV2 \ ShareMovies \ filename1.ext  (hard link to the MasterFiles filename1.ext)
\ Media \ WDTV2 \ ShareTVShows \ .wd_tv \
\ Media \ WDTV2 \ ShareTVShows \ filename2.ext

The above ShareMovies are just examples for folder names of shares for Movies.  Looking at filename1.ext as an example, as far as NTFS is concerned all three files are exactly the same physical file… it just happens to have multiple entries within the filesystem representing the same file.  Hardlinking can allow for different filenames representing the same physical file but for our purposes we would want to keep the naming exactly the same.  For the example three filename1.ext files it is not until the last of the three is deleted that the physical file truly gets deleted from the filesystem.  I did a quick crude test on my SMP with a single media file and this hardlinking appears to work ok.

So some sort of “synchronize” script would need to be run after you’d make any changes to the MasterFiles folder structure so the changes would be replicated to any duplicate folder structures meant for each WDTV device.  Personally, I would write an AutoIt script to accomplish this if and when I get a second SMP.

10

mklink sounded like an excellent idea! I just gave it a try with a couple sample movies, and no luck. The WD doesn’t see the movies that are linked, so I copied in a couple instead of linking and they worked fine.

Then I figured I would try a hard link insstead and violoa! That worked! :smiley:

I would have preferred just to link the directory, but you can’t do that since the WD writes right to the root, so will have to create a script that syncs it up every so often.

Nice! Thanks for the idea Krusty!

11

I now have a VB Script that runs and makes two folders, one for each WD.  It does it recsurviely as well as deletes files that don’t exist in the source.  Leaves all folders that start with a ‘.’ alone.

Working like a champ, thanks again for the idea.

12

This is an interesting workaround!

But note:  Windows call “FOLDER” links “Junctions,” and the syntax is a little different:

mklink /J LinkName x:\path\to\target\dir

Worth a try?

 

(All my filesystems are linux based, so I’m not able to try that.)  Yeah, I know I could do the same thing with Linux hard links, but I’m just not anxious to tear into the structure that much.  :)

13

@LowTide, nice!  For the source files are you also keying on the creation date for them? Remember, a physical file won’t get deleted from the filesystem until the last of the hard links is deleted.  There could be situations such as when using ThumbGen where a source file (A) might get *recreated* (as B) rather than being edited/updated in place; even though the source file (B) would *appear* to be the same file based upon a filename match only, in fact this would be a new file entirely and the files (A) represented in your WD folders would be pointing to the old physical file and not the new physical file.

@TonyPh, yesterday I tried a directory junction and it didn’t work with my SMP.  Someone else is welcome to test and verify, but I think directory junctions and symbolic links are more similar to Shortcuts (.lnk files) as compared to hard links, but I could be mistaken.  I hear you about digging into Linux.  :slight_smile:

14

Krusty, I guess I am approaching it a bit different. As far as the file system goes, I have something like this:

\MovieSource\
\WDFR\
\WDBR\

All data is stored in the MovieSource folder and I am hardlinking it all and sub directories to the other 2 folders. I am doing by extension, so only mkv, avi, wmv, jpg and xml for now.

The process goes through first and recurses MovieSource and if it doesn’t exist in either destination already, it makes a hard link.

Then the process recurses through each of the destinations (ignoring all folders that start with a ‘.’) and if the file doesn’t exist in the source, then it deletes it from the destination. This will leave some folders around that are empty or no longer used, but not to worried about that.

Worse comes to worse, I just nuke the destinations completely (except the .wdtv folder) and relink, only takes like 30 seconds.

15

Also, forgot to mention I am only hardlinking files not directories.  I am creating directories on the fly in the destinations to match the source.

16

Great work LowTide.  While discussing hardlinking… I’m still learning about my new SMP but I’m getting the impression that it could be a time-consuming process to switch between themes due to having to re-generate the supporting files via ThumbGen, especially if you’ve already spent the time with a previous theme and a large media collection, true?  Maybe I don’t yet understand some theme-switching time-saving features that ThumbGen might possess, but I wondered tonight about using hardlinking and themes; creating multiple root folders based upon theme name and then hardlink and replicate your entire media-only files structure into each root theme folder… thereby allowing you to more-easily revert back to past themes you’ve already spent time generating supporting files for, simply by pointing the SMP to different share names for the theme folder or something along those lines.  Generally off topic I know, but just putting the thought out there.  If someone thinks there might be some merit to this then I could start a new discussion.

17

Sorry, haven’t checked up in a while.  I don’t really mess with the themes, so not sure what the impact is there.  I can say after using this hardlink script for the last 2 weeks I am pretty happy.   No issues and the DBs are nice and seperated, script takes like 3 seconds to run so can’t complain.  Thinking about just putting it on a scheduler to run once an hour.

18

Don’t mean to resurrect a dead thread, but better than starting a new one on the same issue…

I would like to get a second WD TV SMP for the TV in the bedroom, but want to avoid corupting the Media Library I’ve been compiling all day.  Could I just disable the Media Library completely on the secondary SMP and browse by folder and have the primary SMP manage the Media Library only?  I imagine that would allow me to remain problem free?

Thanks

19

TonyPh12345 wrote:

DrVerwoerd wrote:

I own two units, both accessing the same network-shares, even one accessing the usb-drives connected to the other. Works fine!

Oh, no it doesn’t!   Unless you’re lucky. :slight_smile:

 

If you EVER have an instance where both WDs are trying to update the media library at the same time, it *WILL* be corrupted.  It’s been proven and demonstrated time and time again.

 

The developers of the database system that WD uses (called SQLite) even have strong warnings in their documentation against doing what WD does – using database files that are in network filesystems.

 

Tony, (or anyone) can you pass on some cavaets pertaining to this issue for me and others:

My original Plus unit is wired to the home network, and has two drives attached to it.

Last week I set up a second Live Plus (changed the name of it first while unit 1 was turned off ) and it is wirelessly connected to the network and shares files from the drives on the first unit.  I have no HD connected to the second unit.  If I do put a drive on it, what problems may I expect and how do I prevent them?  Is it best to not put a drive on the second unit?

Thanks!

20

With PLUS’s?   Nothing.   The PLUS doesn’t have a Media Library on NAS shares.