Buffalo + Plex Firmware 1.69-ultima released for PC and Mac

By 2014-11-01 November 17th, 2014 Buffalo + Plex

Buffalo released a new firmware which addresses Shellshock (a security issue). Plex also released several new versions of their Media Server and I’ve also implemented a few new features for the BitTorrent client built into the NAS. It is time to upgrade the firmware. The latest release contains:

  • New Plex Media Server v0.9.10.1 (notes below)
  • A new folder for the bittorrent client called “_auto_load”. The torrents put in this folder will be picked up by the client automatically. (In about a minute.)
  • A new web interface for the bittorrent client that supports RSS feeds. The interface was develeoped by Ultima for the uTorrent (microTorrent) so if you have ever used uTorrent it will be familiar.
  • A smartphone compatible BitTorrent web interface. (Look for the button on the Buffalo torrent page.)
  • Links to Chrome and Firefox plugins to manage your torrents from your browser without going to the webpage all the time. (Also on the Buffalo torrent page.)

Unfortunately the latest Plex Media Server version (0.9.11) is not compatible with the Buffalo Linkstation. The Synology package that I have used so far was upgraded to newer Synology firmwares that are different. I’m still waiting for an upgrade to the QNAP package, maybe I’ll be able to use that going forward. (News will be posted on the blog.)

The _auto_load feature uses the web API of the new web interface to load the torrent files for download. This means that the feature needs access to the torrent website. If you set a password for the site, be sure to set the same password on the Buffalo torrent page also. If you don’t set it correctly, the autoupload feature will not work.

According to the readme at Buffalo, their firmware is compatible with the following Linkstation devices:
LS-XHL,LS-CHL,LS-WXL,LS-WSXL,LS-SL,LS-AVL,LS-VL,LS-WVL,LS-QVL,LS-XL,LS-YL,LS-WXBL Series
The Ultima firmware was written with that in mind but I was only able to test it on the Linkstation Pro Duo (LS-WVL) so take precautions before you upgrade to any other device.

Many thanks to Ultima, the developer of the uTorrent webui.

Regards,
– GaryT