Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ on C-300

[VirtualPanther]

Greetings,
Today was my first day as a proud owner of the shiny new PH C-300. I was a Netgear and WD media player user in the past, so anything Popcorn Hour is new to me.

After going through the initial setup wizard, which was admittedly amateur-looking, I decided to see how easily this player was going to play some of my media. Most of it is stored on a Netgear NAS. This is an older model, yet it has been phenomenally reliable and continues to be.

So, after being briefly surprised that PH menu does not just list all of the shares on my network (i.e. you have to navigate down to them), I stopped on my "Movies" share of ReadyNAS NV+. Although C-300 sees it, upon clicking I was presented with a login box. The only user name and password I have for it is to access the admin configuration interface, not any of the shares. I entered those and they were rejected. I do not have and can not create any user accounts on ReadyNAS. All of my previous players, my computers, my iPhone and iPad (via apps) -- all are able to browse shares on ReadyNAS without having to log in.

What do I do now? The only reason i bought this player is to play media stored on my 6TB ReadyNAS. That's it. And it is this location that I can not -- for the first time -- access without some login that does not exist.

I understand that this login box may be a requirement of whatever access protocol is used by the C-300, but... I have always had just about everything enabled on ReadyNAS (i.e. protocol-wise), so nothing else to do there... If I can't resolve this, I'll have to try returning it for a refund, loosing a lot of money and time in the process...

[halfelite]

This is a bug with browsing shares and guest accounts. to get around it manually add the share go under setup and shares. point the share to the NAS name or IP and share name and hit save it should work.

[accident]

this was with an a300 but today I had the hardest problems getting it to connect to shares.. rather odd as I've done it hundreds of times before.. (nv+ was one of the nases). now I don't use a guest but what I found is when you mod the share settings at all, reboot the unit..

try going into settings, if you have shares setup delete them. reboot. go back in and put the share in by hand with using settings. get it right the first time because if you need to edit.. delete reboot and then do it again..

[VirtualPanther]

Thanks to both of you. I will try it tomorrow, as soon as I get home after night shift

[Swen]

You don't want to set up user accounts on your NV+ or you can't? Cause on my NV+, I use user accounts without a problem. It's possible to set them up with the NV+.

[VirtualPanther]

@Swen: the answer is actually both: I can't create a user account with current configuration and I do to want to assume the risks associated wit change of configuration.

With NV+, according to Netgear forums, the new way to set them up is on a domain, with the resulting use of user accounts. The old way, in which units came configured from the factory, was for home use, with no individual accounts possible. That is what I have. I have consistently upgraded the firmware and I am currently on the latest available. However, the advice from Netger forums states that unless needed, do not change the configuration from default to domain. They claim that, first of all, this will require permission rewrite on all files and may result in major permission errors. Second, there is a possibility of data loss. Finally, with NV+ setup for domain use, "each user accessing shares will need a user name and a password".

Since I currently have close to 5 TB of media on my NAS and absolutely no issues with it whatsoever, including accessing it from any and every other device in house, I definitely did not want to take any risk associated with configuration conversion. Additionally, all of my PCs, TVs, and other media players are accessing device without credentials (i.e. via guest account), which is extremely convenient. I do not want to change that either.

Fortunately, at least for now, adding shares manually seems to work. It's rather odd, though. When I click on "Browse Network" , I am presented with a pop-up error that states, "Unable to connect to server." That is despite the fact that I was attempting to browse my entire LAN, not connect to any specific server and despite the fact that all devices shared on network do show up in the list. It would almost seem that PH does not follow the established standards (DLNA, etc.), since I can browse the network and navigate to everything shared on my other multimedia devices in the house without any difficulty. On PH, on the other hand, it took a manual share configuration to be able to access the content...

All in all, I must admit, a vey poor first impression, both with the company and with its "newer-than-new" flagship product;

- clumsy and amateur-looking user interface
- error-prone setup wizard
- huge box (why is it so-o-o big?!)
- aforementioned DLNA connectivity problems, apparently well known and still not resolved from prior series
- very expensive, given the unfavorable pro/con ratio

Oh, one more thing. After flashing the new firmware and manually configuring the share to access my movies, I decided to "look around" other setup settings. Imagine my surprise when I went to "Audio" section and found out that the default configuration is to "downsample" just about every audio format! Why in the world is that? Each and every player I have used befor was able to decode every audio format, except DTS (licensing is too expensive). I do have the C-300 connected to an amp, which decodes everything just fine. But... What if I didn't? Am I to understand that after paying double the price of my former player, the newest PH cant natively devote any audio without downsampling? Not even Dolby Digital?

What exactly did I pay $378 for?

[halfelite]

You are confusing some things. Downmix/pcm does two things. You either get two channel stereo. and which being on this forum for many years there are by far more people that just connect to their pch to the tv then to an amp. So shipping with downmix set to on is a smart choice. Second some formats can be outputted as multichannel pcm not all but some, I dont remember the specs off the top of my head right now, But i know aac/wma can both be sent out 5.1 and i think dts and dd can also be but not sure on the last two.


Second DNLA has nothing to do with browsing your network DNLA is a protocol to share media that is very poor and can change drastically between two devices its up there with UPNP. If clicking browse network brought up in error most likely master browser for some reason did not send a list of known computers/shares to the pch. Samba shares have to be broadcast across the network for all machines to see from one master on the network. If its just the error of asking for a user/pass when trying to access a guest share its just a known bug at this point and will be fixed soon. Its not a show stopping bug as who wants to browse to there share every time adding is the right way to go

If you are looking for devices that can output 7.1 analog and things the price goes up a lot. I think the dune model that does it is 500$ or so

Also box size. For couple reasons. Fitting a a 3.5" drive and a 2.5" drive plus having no fans means you need air space for itself to cool, plus a lot of people like the big case as they start modding in 2x3.5 drives and a bdrom or another 2.5" drive. Its a hifi case designed to look that way If you did not want the huge case why not got with the A300 instead.

[VirtualPanther]

I understand that DLNA is not the protocol that my PC, for example, uses to access my NAS. I was referring to media, hence the though of protocols pertinent to that came up. Of course, I don't care what protocol is being used, as long as access is achieved without errors. Given that is the first time I encountered NAS access errors, I'm sure it's easy to understand my frustration and disappointment with the device...

I have looked at Dune and I would have paid its price, if it weren't for so many terrible reviews of the product, company, and support. Of course, when I was buying PH I had no idea it would come without owner's manual -- in print, PDF, or online! Almost $400 for a media player is a lot these days. Many companies may not make a vastly superior product but at least they have better customer support.

I suppose time will tell if all of these headaches will have proven worth it...

[accident]

(01-27-2012 10:30 PM)VirtualPanther Wrote:  With NV+, according to Netgear forums, the new way to set them up is on a domain, with the resulting use of user accounts. The old way, in which units came configured from the factory, was for home use, with no individual accounts possible. That is what I have. I have consistently upgraded the firmware and I am currently on the latest available. However, the advice from Netger forums states that unless needed, do not change the configuration from default to domain. They claim that, first of all, this will require permission rewrite on all files and may result in major permission errors. Second, there is a possibility of data loss. Finally, with NV+ setup for domain use, "each user accessing shares will need a user name and a password".

Ok wow. I'm not sure how to start helping you understand the options with the nv+ after this blurb. I've had an nv+ since it came out in 2003 and a lot of this information is incomplete and some of it is wrong.

It's not a bad thing to not touch it and I see a few posts after this one so if needed I'll be more than happy to spend some time re-explaining your authentication options and which have what risks.

[orangehead911]

I've been experiencing the same issue with setting shares up on my A-300.

I can only agree with some of the observations made by VirtualPanther with regards to first impressions and Look & Feel.

I'll try to cold reboot the device and set the shares up again...

[davexyz]

The login box is a common issue on SMB shares for the ReadyNas NV+

If you have a ReadyNas NV+ V1 these are the ones which can only have a max of 8Tb Hard disc space try the latest beta firmware, RAIDiator 4.1.9-T6 link below

This cured the issue for me

Netgear's notes state [T6] Updated CIFS service, works better with 2008r2 domain functionality.

http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopic....17&t=59222