DMS v2.0.1.2 ID 174004 - External hard drives no reaction after 15 minutes

[Komet]

Hello dear development team,

I have found that if the DMS is only turned on and I only after 15 minutes make a movie of an external hard drive, the DMS tries to access it and then gives a message that the attempt has failed. That disturbs! If you then immediately after playback, the movie will be played as desired. This always happens after 15 minutes with only the DMS switched on and only with external hard disks. The problem does not occur with the internal hard disk and the Qnap-Nas. Even if you have watched a movie and would like to watch another movie from another external hard drive immediately afterwards, the problem also occurs.

All external hard drives are Western Digital and sleep mode is off at all. All hard drives always run through so you can access them immediately. All hard drives are connected via USB and I do not use a USB hub.

Maybe the DMS turns off the USB port after a certain amount of time and when you access it, it takes time. The problem and the error message on the screen disturbs!

Does anyone have an idea, tips or the same experience?

Otherwise it would be nice if the problem could be solved with an update.

[october262]

did you try turning off the screensaver feature ??

[clioschrotter]

I guess external HDDs go into sleep mode after a certain time when no access has happened. A NAS isn't going into sleep mpde. This also would explain why you can access the movie on the 2nd attempt. So it would have nothingto do with the DMS

[Komet]

...Yes that's true. But that's exactly what you can do with Western Digital with the software. And I did that too. Or it may be that the hard drive is running but still in a sleep mode? Exactly because of that, I switched it off, so that does not happen.

[Dead Eye]

I'm guessing that USB port scanning by any OS is constant, it's the only way to make new hardware detectable and available when plugged in. The bridge board that converts SATA to USB could be programmed to put the drive to sleep, or if the drives on-board electronics are setup to put the drive to sleep after a preset time of I/O inactivity.
.
If you put the drive in a PC and use the WD software to tell that drive to never sleep/park and it still does it, it is probably the bridge board in the external enclosure.

[Komet]

Okay, that I understood, thank you for the explanation. So that means that it is not because of the DMS as I first suspected, but rather on the external hard drive, although I have communicated with the WD software hard drives that they should not go to sleep mode.

Yesterday I tested that, after two hours the hard drives without them were still running, as intended. And yet the DMS could access it only after the second time.

I will disconnect the hard drives and come up with something else.

[Dead Eye]

What I am curious about now is if solid state drives have the same symptoms as mechanical ones.

[tbrown25]

I have seen this problem with some WD USB drives. They cannot be set to a mode that does not spin down/sleep. As stated above, the problem also exists for some external enclosures..

Note that if you access the drive from the VIDEO section, the DMS will patiently wait for the drive to spin up. From the poster wall, it doesn't wait, but issues an error. Then trying to play again work cause the drive has spun up by then. Be nice if the DMS playback from poster wall would wait instead of issuing an error message.

[Komet]

I'm sorry that I accused the DMS that DMS can not really do anything about it and I hereby withdraw my accusation.

In fact, WD's external hard drives are to blame for that, which I could not believe, as I used the WD software to tell the hard drives that they should not go to sleep. This is apparently only halfway. The drive itself runs though, but the housing say the electronic goes after 15 minutes anyway in the sleep mode, so that the DMS can not access it first and outputs the error message. The second time it works then. I have learned something new and will make some changes to myself.

Thanks for the suggestions ...

[Dead Eye]

....the DMS will patiently wait for the drive to spin up.

.
Seems to me that the same section of the firmware code that allows that behavior from the video selection function could also be reused to allow the same behavior from the poster wall. Consistent behavior across the platforms code base should be a desirable target.

[intvfan]

I have this problem with the internal drive! No WD either.
But it is clearly a spin up thing, cause I can hear it. maybe the drive should spin up when you start navigating the menu?

[Komet]

I have it on all external hard drives, although I've told them via WD software that they should not go to sleep mode. The hard drive itself also runs and it makes the appearance as if you can access it immediately. But after about 15 minutes rest of the DMS and even if you have looked at another movie and then another from another external hard drive, the problem occurs. The DMS tries to access it when queried and outputs an error message. If
Immediately thereafter, clicking on playback on the poster wall, it works. The same external drive to Win10 PC works without problems and you can always and immediately access it.

Error message and access time to the external hard drives bother me a lot. With the internal hard drive of the DMS everything seems to work perfectly. I think you can buy a large internal hard drive (16GB) for the DMS and you have no problems. Have all external hard drives disconnected and use only one internal in the DMS.

[intvfan]

"Error message and access time to the external hard drives bother me a lot. With the internal hard drive of the DMS everything seems to work perfectly. I think you can buy a large internal hard drive (16GB) for the DMS and you have no problems. Have all external hard drives disconnected and use only one internal in the DMS."

I have a 14GB drive with a little more than 7GB used. I get this same issue on the internal drive. If I navigate to the folder and play any file, it is fine.

[Dead Eye]

I am using an 8 TB WD Red Pro drive. The Red series of drives are optimized for an NAS environment(maximum availability) as opposed to the Black(on-demand performance), Blue(economy) and Green(multi-speed and energy saving). The drives electronics have different programming for the model type. I have a 4 TB solid state drive that I have in a portable enclosure that I use occasionally to watch content that I keep on it from the USB port on the DMS, but I use the 'Video' app to access it as I don't let it be scanned by the DMS by using the '.nomedia' file trick.

[Komet]

interesting that also the internal hard drive can go to sleep mode. It actually arrives on the hard disk. I have now installed a 10TB WD NAS-Red in the DMS and it does not go into sleep mode. Even after 3 hours she is immediately accessible, film starts immediately and no error message. Thanks for the inspiration, that brings me to an idea that I put the second 10TB WD NAS-Red hard drive in a hard drive docking station, connect them via USB 3.0 with the DMS and hope that this also does not go into sleep mode. Then I could use both and be happy.

But what about "nomedia 'file trick"? That does not quite understand.