THIS POST IS NOT UPDATED ANY MORE. Always use the latest links from the project page and read the Frequently Asked Questions for other version.
Here are all the published firmwares by the Buffalo + Plex project in 2014. Click below to get details and download links to any version.
Rollback (Buffalo Linkstation v1.69)
This firmware rolls back any custom firmware to the original Buffalo Linkstation firmware v1.69.
Download for Windows Download for MacOrca (v1)
This is the first published custom firmware. Main differences compared to the original Buffalo Linkstation v1.68:
- Plex Media Server v0.9.9 integrated
- Advanced Power Management for hard drives on the admin interface
- A small fix for the iTunes enable/disable button on the admin interface
Orca is the main developer of the Plex Samsung TV application.
Download for Windows Download for MacUltima (v2)
This is the second published custom firmware. Main differences compared to the first version:
- Base firmware upgraded to Buffalo Linkstation v1.69
- Plex Media Server v0.9.10 integrated
- uTorrent web interface upgraded (RSS feed and mobile compatible view)
- Auto load folder for the uTorrent client
Ultima is the developer of the uTorrent user interface.
Download for Windows Download for MacOxygen8 DEV (v2.5)
This is an interim version with new features and developer’s access. Main differences compared to the second version:
- Transmission v2.84 and v2.77 integrated with “kettu” and “Shift” additional skins
The developer’s version additionally includes:
- SSH enabled
- Web interface timeout raised to 1 hour
- Optware bootstraps are accessible from the home folder
Oxygen8 gave me advice on what version of Transmission to use.
Developer's download for WindowsShonk (v3)
This is the third published custom firmware. Main differences compared to the second version:
- Plex Media Server v0.9.11 integrated
- Transmission v2.84 and v2.77 integrated with “kettu” and “Shift” additional skins
Shonk is the developer of another Buffalo Linkstation firmware, mainly for developers.
Download for Windows Download for MacBobby (v4)
This is the fourth published custom firmware. Main differences compared to the third version:
- Plex Media Server v0.9.11.4 integrated (minor update)
- NAS Navigator updated to latest (2.78 on PC and 2.79 on Mac)
- Network keep-alive functionality implemented
- Restart Transmission button on the admin interface
- Various bugfixes
Bobby raised the sleep issue with the Linkstation.
Download for Windows Download for MacBobbyDev (v4.5)
This is an interim version with the same features as Bobby and developer’s access. Differences of the developer’s version compared to Bobby:
- SSH enabled
- Web interface timeout raised to 1 hour
- Optware bootstraps are accessible from the home folder of root
Junwei (v5)
This is the fifth published custom firmware. Main differences compared to the fourth version:
- Plex Media Server 0.9.11.7 (minor upgrade)
- Plex now sees USB disks and “disk2” if you are not using RAID (for real this time)
- New skin for Transmission: transmission-web-control. It’s a very nice interface and you can define where you want your files downloaded. It also has a button to go back to the original “Clutch” interface.
- “Kettu” skin for Transmission is updated to the latest version.
Junwei pointed out to me that Plex didn’t see disk2 in a non-RAID scenario.
Download for Windows Download for MacJunweiDev (v5.5)
This is an interim version with the same features as Junwei and developer’s access. Differences of the developer’s version compared to Junwei:
- SSH enabled
- Web interface timeout raised to 1 hour
- Optware bootstraps are accessible from the home folder of root
Gary – I found your comments on some posts on the Plex blog site. I currently run 4 WD TV live boxes and stream my movies/Shows from a LinkStation LS420D over the LAN. I want to get away from the WD boxes as they are slow and move to some Ruko 3 boxes. Will your software/info work on my Buffalo LS420D? I appreciate any assistance or guidance.
Thanks,
David Barnes
Hi David,
Thanks for checking out my work. Unfortunately the LS420 is not compatible with this custom firmware because of processor and firmware differences. The LS420 has the Marvel Armada 370 processor which is a more modern processor (ARMv7) than what’s in the LS-WVL (Marvell Kirkwood, ARMv5). Because of that, please do not try to upgrade to this firmware.
Unfortunately Plex Media Server only supports ARMv5 for now. This may change in the future but I don’t have any roadmaps. (ARMv7 is definitely a better processor, so eventually they should start looking into it.)
The firmware the LS420 uses is also a bit different, so even with the same processor I would need to repackage a custom firmware to the LS420.
I try to keep up with Plex news, if anything changes for the ARMv7 processors I’ll know about it. I’ll need to get my hands on one of the models and I’ll try to build a firmware for them.
As for Plex Media Server and Roku in your home, I have mixed results. With Plex, the important part is that one device in your setup needs to have enough power to play the movie. In your current setup, the WD TV Live has a chip integrated that decodes most of the movies you watch and the LS420 only serves the files (I guess through DLNA or the SMB protocol.) So the WD TV Live is the power horse. If you change that to the Roku, your interface for movie playing is going to be faster, but the Roku has a very limited decoder chip which cannot play a lot of formats like DivX or x264. Roku, Chromecast or the Amazon Fire TV will only play H.264 (MP4) video files for you and only a few specific formats (AC3 audio is supported and AAC in some cases, but no MP3 for example). If you have older movies (usually DivX video codec and MP3 audio), Roku will not be able to play it.
Another option that I really liked while it lasted was an old PC with Plex Media Server installed and the Roku. In that scenario the power horse is the old PC which had enough power to transcode the movie into a format that the Roku can play on the fly. As I said, the important thing is to have a power horse in the setup.
As for Buffalo + Plex, the Linkstation is not a power horse. My best setup is with the Linkstation and my old Samsung TV which has a built-in Plex client and a very good decoder chip. Just like with the WD TV Live, the interface is not very fast but it plays any movies I throw at it from the Linkstation. Newer Samsung models (anything after 2011) doesn’t have the interface slowness problem, they have a better chip integrated.
Feel free to ask more questions if something isn’t clear, I understand that this is a lot of information and not very well organized.
Hi, I’m trying to hunt down an option for waking my Linkstation via WOL, I’m running into the issue a lot of folks out there have mentioned…keeping the box awake. Can you point me in the right direction please for a script and hopefully a guide to implementing it. TIA & thanks for the firmware.
NOWTV Box
Linkstation LS-VL115 with your firmware
Hi Bobby,
I was a bit puzzled by your request at first, I never checked any power management before for my NAS, since “always online” gives the best experience to the torrent community. I understand that this is a regular issue with most Linkstation devices, I’m reading through these links currently to understand it better:
http://buffalo.nas-central.org/wiki/Left_overs_for_%27X%27_and_%27V%27_series
and
http://forum.buffalo.nas-central.org/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=21982
(the type of Linkstation device doesn’t really matter when you re-implement everything to your own taste.) I think it would make sense if we had an interface for sleep options on the administration web page, I’ll try to gather some more information on what would make sense there.
Please send updates if you get anywhere with a script, maybe your contribution would make this custom firmware even better.
Regards,
– GaryT
Hi Gary, I wish I could help but my skills in that area are limited at the least.
I have XBMC (with the Advanced WOL plug in ) running on Android & Apple TV devices and can waken the Linkstation and keep it alive using those devices, it’s a bit of a nuisance though if I want to use Plex on NowTV… I have to start XBMC on Android and keep it running to waken and keep Linkstation going.
I have tried a few Android apps but they only waken the Linkstation, not keep it alive… I read it’s to do with the app not sending further magic packets at regular intervals… I have this feature through XBMC by the way.
I should probably just let the Linkstation run 24/7 but it’s one of those little things that irks not having the option lol
Thanks again, Bobby.
So what if…
Option 1: There would we a setting on the management interface to “delay sleep by X minutes” so if you know that you want to do something special on the Linkstation, it would keep it alive that long for sure.
Option 2: “Do not sleep while Plex is serving data”, it would check if any clients are connecting to Plex and supress sleep until everyone finished their connection…
I can’t really start implementing Plex plugins (channels) at this time, so waking up the Linkstation is still need to be done through an Android app (or any other app), but keeping it alive should be manageable…
– GaryT
I’d take any of the options…
I’ve created the second option with a bit of enhancement: if there are any connections to the Linkstation, then most probably something is happening so it should not go to sleep. All you have to do manually is to wake the Linkstation, but you don’t have to send keep-alive packets.
Look out for this feature in the next version of the firmware.
Hi Gary, that’s great…I will keep a look out for the update. Many thanks, Bobby.
Hy Gary,
is your 1.6.9 custom fw compatible with the LS-WX2.0TL/R1?
Best regads
Apparently the LS-WX uses the same firmware as the LS-WVL so I think the LS-WX is compatible with this custom firmware. (The original 1.69 firmware of the two devices are exactly the same and all my modifications keeps compatibility as much as possible.) Unfortunately I don’t have a way to test this so you are still on your own, except if anyone else had a chance to test the firmware on LS-WX.
If you decide to install it, please give a heads-up so I can put it in the compatibility list.
Yeah..it’s working! thanks a lot
Hi
I have upgraded my LS-WX2.0TL/R1 with no problems as of yet. I have just finished uploading my films and tried one last night on my LG smart TV worked well.
Thanks for the feedback Conrad, I really appreciate it. Have fun!
Hey Mate,
You can add the LS-WX4 to the List of Supported Devices. It worked very well for me.
And will donate ya 5 bucks for the great work. Thanks very much!
Greets
Sven
Hi Sven,
I really appreciate your donation, thank you very much. It will help me keep the project going.
Thanks for your feedback too, have fun with your Linkstation.
Regards,
– GaryT
I am attempting to install the ls_series-169junwei.zip on my LS-WXL with stock 1.69 firmware.
I extracted the .zip, ran LSUpdater.exe, it finds my NAS, but when I attempt to update, I get the error “The LinkStation already has the firmware installed”. What step am I missing here?
Thanks in advance!
Hi DarkCanuck,
Can you please check your LSUpdater.ini file? At the bottom it should say “VersionCheck = 0” (under [Flags]) and “Debug =1” (under [SpecialFlags]).
If that’s the case, you should be able to upgrade without version issues. Please run LSUpdater.exe and check if there is a “Debug(D)…” option in the system menu. If there is, in that menu check if “do not check version” is checked. You can try to tick “Force update” and retry again.
Do not tick the options “Rebuild partition table” or “Delete user data partition”, you will lose your data if you do so.
– GaryT
.ini file was correct, but the Debug in the window menu solved it. Thanks!
Perfect, thanks for the feedback. Good luck with your new firmware.
“… Please run LSUpdater.exe and check if there is a “Debug(D)…” option in the system menu…”
I didnt understand this, but means to click in the Updater Window top left, the ALT-menu, this shows the debug menu.
For me this was a bit hidden, didnt know this but then it worked.
Here a screenshot:
http://abload.de/img/clipboard-hp1948cgu4i.jpg
Thank!
Perfect… thank u! Works 4 me 😀
Firmware version:
1.69-junwei
I’m trying to use the RSS feature of the BitTorrent extension but no matter what I do, I can’t get it to load and data/information.
I added a feed (https://kickass.so/usearch/Modern%20Family/?rss=1 for example), tried updating the feed, but nothing. It never loads any data.
Any suggestions?
Hi DarkCanuck,
I think it has to do with the link you provided. I tried it with a different one and it works properly. My guess is that the client can’t download HTTPS links. There were a few issues with HTTPS in the past months (for example Heartbleed) and because of that a lot of providers updated their HTTPS implementations. Unfortunately the Linkstation’s implementation is quite old and I think it just can’t cope with the new versions.
I advise you to try FlexGet with Transmission, maybe you’ll have a better result there. If I have the time I’ll check it too. (With FlexGet you should have a better experience, since it’s a brand new version, but you have to set up a config file manually that you can read about on the flexget.com website.)
Regards,
– GaryT
Thanks Gary. I’ll give flexget a try shortly. In the meantime, can you send me the sample RSS feed you used that worked?
Try http://www.mininova.org/rss.xml, that worked for me.
Any chance you could release a version with updated PHP, MySQL and lighttpd?
Ho objecttothis,
I remembered your request from eariler and it’s in my queue of feature requests. Most probably I won’t have the time for it, but I’m working on a “how to do it” blog entry that will give you an outline how to implement it through SSH.
The problem I had with this, is that the optware binaries that are compatible with the Linkstation are fairly old, so there’s not much point upgrading to those. The Debian binaries for ARM would be new, but they need newer GLIBC libraries (like Plex did) so I’d have to upgrade the whole GLIBC section. With that I have to upgrade the kernel too, which is an enormous task if you also want to keep compatibility with all the current features.
I thought about compiling it from source too, but it’s quite a big task. The only reason I see why it would make sense is security, which is very close to my heart, but as I see, even if those are upgraded, security is not really a priority for the Linkstation and it will still bleed from a hundred wounds. (OpenSSL needs upgrades, etc.)
So, I’m not planning to upgrade it, but you can run optware with the new version of the firmware or run a Debian kernel on it.
– GaryT
IPKG project is not mantained anymore!
is there a way to install OPKG on the Linkstation?
OPKG has PHP 5.4 and MySQL 5.1.53 packages..
“The development for this project has been discontinued..”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipkg
Hi Felipe,
I’m sure that it’s possible to compile opkg on the Linkstation, however I’m not looking into it for now. I’m contemplating starting a new project which would require most of my free time. I haven’t decided yet but it would mean that the Buffalo + Plex project would only receive new versions of the current features, no new features implemented. (The biggest issue is that I only have one Linkstation device and my family would like to use it. 🙂 )
– GaryT
I thought of opkg just as a shortcut to upgrade php and mysql..
Let me know if you need some help to accomplish anything so that I could help you with what I can.
So I looked into opkg a little bit and I can’t find a quick way to do this. The compiled versions are for a different (MIPS) processor and currently I don’t have the time to set up a development environment. If you can make someone compile an arm5te version of opkg than we could try hacking it on the Linkstation but even then I’d rather do it as an optional feature through SSH; only for developers.
Pcloud is charging to download any of your custom firmware now and since I have a family to support I certainly won’t be paying those lamers a damned cent. Greedy bastards. Get a load of this lameness: “Access to this file is limited due to high downloading traffic. Save this file in your pCloud Account in order to use it.”
^^^^Which of course costs $$. They can go stuff themselves, I totally hate that kind of BS. If it were me I would find a quality place to host your files. Once I get my network back up I would be more than happy to host quality firmware mods for anyone interested. I checked the box: Notify me of follow-up comments by email. So I will recieve your replies. I would like to get some of the mods on this page but its not possible. Could I possibly get them elsewhere or could someone email them to me? Juneweid 5.5 seems interesting, anyone have any recommendations for a good modified firmware for one of my Linkstation LS-QVL/E?
Solarsails says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
2016-10-30 at 11:10
Pcloud is charging to download any of your custom firmware now and since I have a family to support I certainly won’t be paying those lamers a single cent. Greedy rates. Get a load of this lameness: “Access to this file is limited due to high downloading traffic. Save this file in your pCloud Account in order to use it.”
^^^^Which of course costs $$. They can go stuff themselves, I totally hate that kind of BS. If it were me I would find a quality place to host your files. Once I get my network back up I would be more than happy to host quality firmware mods for anyone interested. I checked the box: Notify me of follow-up comments by email. So I will receive your replies. I would like to get some of the mods on this page but its not possible. Could I possibly get them elsewhere or could someone email them to me? Juneweid 5.5 seems interesting, anyone have any recommendations for a good modified firmware for one of my Linkstation LS-QVL/E?
Access to ‘ls_series-169-junweidev.zip’ was limited due to high download traffic.
You can still download the content of this link – get Premium plan or higher. Click to continue.
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The file host has become greedy. They claim that the file has been downloaded so many times that they hav3e to start charging for it.
(I believe that they are full of crap)
Could someone email me the latest version of this open source firmware for LS-QVL?
Thanks in advance.
solarsails@hotmail.com