All firmware installations have their risks, especially when they are custom firmwares not supported by Buffalo. Here’s a quick summary of the risks you face when installing a new custom firmware from the website. The point is not to discourage people but to give them all information they need to make an informed decision.
Packaging and Deployment
You deploy the same way as any other firmware. The hddrootfs.img file contains the root filesystem and LSUpdate.ini was modified to allow any version of the firmware to be deployed. I thoroughly test packaging and deployment in multiple scenarios on the LS-WVL.
Risk level: the same as any firmware from Buffalo
New files in the firmware
There are additional files in the custom firmware thathe new features require. If any of these files are bad in any way (syntax error, corrupted file, etc), then the new features like APM settings, Plex Media Server or Transmission might not work. This will not impact the original, factory functionality of the firmware. This is a risk with every new release but it’s easy to recover from it. (Rollback to an older firmware.)
Modified files in the firmware
To integrate features onto the web interface a few of the web interface files need to be modified and also sometimes I need to fix code that already exist. If something in the web interface was mistyped, the page for System -> Storage or Extensions -> Multimedia might not load properly. In extreme cases the whole website might have issues however I haven’t seen anything like that before. Recovery is possible by rolling back the firmware.
Untested NAS
Understand this: if you install the firmware on a NAS model, that has never been tested, we don’t know what will happen, you may even break the machine. Based on the Buffalo documentation the list of devices that the firmware is compatible with is on the project page. Only install this firmware on one of those devices, those are supposed to be compatible with this firmware. A list of devices that someone has tested are marked bold on the project page. If you want me to test the firmware on a specific device, note that in the comments section when you send a donation and I will try to buy that device when enough money comes together.
Summary
There are a few risks when installing a new firmware on your NAS but most of them are covered by rolling back to another firmware. Be reasonable on where you want to try a firmware and stick to compatible devices. I’m open to develop the firmware further to make it compatible with other devices but I need your help to buy other devices.
Hi there,
I’ve just installd the 1.69 Firmware on my LS-WXL.. though it said it has worked, the Firmware on the NAS is showing 1.69-Twonk… the additional features/buttons are not there?
Any ideas?
Hi Nick,
You have to make sure you clear your browser cache. The website is javascript heavy which is cached by a lot of browsers. You will find the extra functions under System->Storage, Extensions->Bittorrent, etc.
Hi Gary, got it installed and you were right – it was cached!
So, thats all going “OK”… i now have a serious issue with packet loss 🙁 The poor NAS is loosing data by the second. I am getting on average 34% packet loss. Which is undeniably awful. Most of the time the web interfaces just time out.
I am almost certain this is Plex, which is what i wanted it for in the first place 🙁
Any ideas you may have would be great… i’ll give anything a try right now.
Nick
Hi Nick,
First of all, if you think it’s Plex, try disabling it from the web interface. I haven’t seen anything like it before. Is Plex indexing lots of stuff?
Check what else you have enabled. If DLNA, iTunes, Plex, etc are all running that might have an impact on the NAS CPU which in return might have an impact on the network connectivity. (Although this is a bit far-fetched.)
Check your network too, what if your switch only has your PC and your NAS connected, do you see the same issue?
I would also try to revert to the original 1.69 firmware to see if it’s something with the NAS or with the firmware.
– GaryT
Hi Gary,
Can i firstly just say thanks for being that one person on the Internet who not only provides a great *free* product but actually responds and helps!! Its getting rarer on the internet nowadays..
Ok so tonight i found that my NAS was pinging OK (like 98% of the time) but still wasnt satisfied with the overall performance. My torrents didnt complete, they were slow, access was slow, playback was hit and miss.
So i decided to try flashing the firmware again. This got so far and then aborted, it could no longer see the NAS at all. pinging was still fine, and now web interface wouldnt come up AT ALL!
So eventually, had to restart it with a hard reset. It then rebooted. It did the old 2 long and 5 short flashes of the Amber LED. I take this as ‘rebuilding firmware’.
When it restarted i still had all the same problems. This time i followed a post of yours i found on another forum, which suggested a Debug rebuild with a forced update. All other options left ticked as default.
It has now flashed fully, i can see the device perfectly fine, ping responses have so far been 100%. I loaded the Plex browser interface and it was much MUCH quicker. The thumbnails whizzed through (they were terriblly slow before) and its not losing any packets whilst doing it.
Also – when i eventually got into the NAS, the interface was much more responsive again. I noticed however, from your previous suggestion of disbling DNLA Media service – this completely cuts off Plex too. The Plex interface just cannot see the NAS’s Plex Server at all. I re-enabled the Media service and its now working great 🙂
So all in all, at the moment (fingers crossed) its perfect. It may have just been one of those things, a double flashing fixed it!?
Hopefully all will be fine from now on…
Cheers for your help!
Nick
Hi Nick,
Thank you for the compliment, I really appreciate it.
The product is still made by Buffalo, I’m just giving some free advice because I think these devices are awesome. 🙂 (And I like the challenge.)
I’m glad to hear your NAS works fine now. I’m not sure why disabling DLNA disabled Plex, I’ll look into that when I have a free moment. I hope all will be fine now. Enjoy Plex on your device!
Regards,
– GaryT
Hello from Greece and keep going with the good job you’ve done.I really appreciate this work you’ve done.I have a ls-xhl and i’m thinking of flashing your firmware but i have files in the disk.Will i loose them?tHANKS AGAIN!
Kalimera kostas,
You are not supposed to lose your files on the LS-XHL with this custom firmware. As I state above, the risk is that I never had the chance to test the firmware on your device, so after you upgrade please check back with the results.
Apart from that, your device uses the exact same firmware as mine. If you ever upgraded to a new version of the Buffalo firmware, you must have seen that all your files were kept in place, that’s what you’ll see with this custom firmware too.
Regards,
– GaryT
Ok GaryT I’ll post the outwork of the flashing probably after the Christmas holidays and probably in January sometime cause I don’t want anything to go wrong and I’m bored to set up the machine if that happens…….one more question please:I’m running Firmware version:1.60 but I don’t remember ifit shonk’s or stock (if it helps you it has squeezebox server installed -i doubt that it is stock) the question is do you know the mtorrent client that runs what version is?thanks again in advance!
Thanks for trouble kostas.
I would advise to upgrade to one of the Buffalo supported firmwares first to get the hang of it (again, you should not lose any of your data). 1.64 and 1.68 are both decent firmwares that were in the open for a long time. If that works for you, you can upgrade to the custom firmware. (The latest was released yesterday, version “Bobby”.)
Unfortunately I didn’t find any version numbers for the torrent client (or any other versions I could update to on the Internet). I’m afraid that the microTorrent client wasn’t really updated with the Linkstation firmwares. All I did was replace the web interface with newer ones (the latest open source version) so at least that looks nice. The custom firmwares are based on the latest stock firmware which is version 1.69.
– GaryT