It seems as though my WD My Book Live product (circa 2010) is no longer supported.  It was probably among the products that had network connectivity restricted to local access due to a security concern, and that’s consistent with what I see in the drive’s Remote Access panel.  Remote Access is enabled, but Remote Access connection status reports failed.  So I’m guessing that Sonos can establish a local connection (they’re both connected through my router), but maybe this is causing the failure to be able to update the index without removing and re-adding the path to the NAS?  Can I change the syntax of my pathname in some way so that Sonos knows it’s connected locally when I try to refresh the index? 

Which model players are you using? Is your system S1 (gray icon) or S2 (gold icon)?

Gold icon

I believe I have the same MYBOOKLIVE WD NAS as you. Yes, it’s long in the tooth, but fully functional. Approaching its 14th birthday

There is an acknowledged Sonos issue with SMB v2/v3 support and local music libraries that causes indexing problems. Doesn’t happen with many NAS drives, can also happen with USB drives in routers, and can be worked around by fixing to SMB v1. Unfortunately the MYBOOKLIVE doesn’t offer this option through its dashboard.

My workaround is to plug a USB thumb drive into one of my Asus routers, and in the Asus config I can force use of SMB v1. This works faultlessly for me. 

I would also advise caution before rushing out to buy any alternative NAS. Check in this forum that it 100% works. Or upload all your music to iBroadcast (I use this too and it’s great for when I travel and free). 
 

HTH

Thank you for the helpful information.  Some of it is slightly out of my ability to navigate, I think.

For example, I can’t figure out where I might be able to force SMB v1 on any particular device.  I have a Cisco DPC3941T router provided by XFinity, and I can log onto that as admin, and I can see all my connected devices (the WD NAS is connected via Ethernet), but I don’t see any options related to SMB.

Are you saying that you store your music on a USB thumb drive connected to your Asus router, or are you saying that, because you have a USB thumb drive connected to your Asus router, that configuration somehow allows you to force SMB v1 on your old WD NAS?

Thanks also for the tip on iBroadcast.  I’d not heard of that.  I’m still hopeful I can get a local solution indexing as desired without having to remove/re-add the link to the NAS each time.  A newer NAS is not out of the question, but I’ll search forums before committing, if I go that route. 

If you don’t have a backup for your music, backup NOW. Treat that 14 year old NAS as an already cracked egg.

SMBv1-2-3 is a property setting in the NAS, not the router. If this was your issue, you could not play music stored on the drive.

Which SONOS controller are you using?

Hopefully between us we’re not confusing OP too much

I 100% agree on the backup point.

My MYBOOKLIVE works fine as a NAS for non-Sonos use, and Sonos plays music stored on it, but indexing doesn’t work. There’s nothing in the NAS dashboard that allows SMB selection, so nothing I can do to force SMBv1. The SMB version for this cannot be changed in the router’s config. This is the issue Sonos needs to fix for SMB v2/v3 in some configurations.

Using a USB drive plugged directly into one of my routers doesn’t initially work with Sonos because the router defaults to SMB v2/v3. However, I have a config option in the router itself to force SMB v1 for the USB drive, and this resolves all issues.

So for my workaround to be available, OP needs a USB port on the router that can behave as a network share, and, in some but not all cases, the ability to force SMB v1.

Okay, all is clear now, thank you.

FWIW, my current Cisco router has two USB ports, though I haven’t found any controls when I log into the router as admin that seem to present options for SMB versioning.

Points taken on the age and indexing problems with my WD.  I’ll research a good replacement with demonstrated compatibility. 

Some routers may only give you the NAS menus if they see a device connected. Stick a thumb drive in and see if that gets you going.

If the thumb drive works you might want to go to an external SSD drive for a bit more reliability if you write to it a lot.

Unfortunately, my Cisco router doesn’t seem to let me enable the USB ports.  I’ve tried plugging in several devices, and none are recognized.  I had the same thought, though. 

Got any other computers that are left running full time that you could use to share your music from? An old laptop is a good candidate.

My antique Raspberry Pi v3 is happy to serve up four (the most I’ve tried) FLAC streams with no issues. A Pi Zero will work too. Setting them up is a bit picky but not rocket science.

Oh, frabjous day!  Callooh!  Callay!

So my Sonos S2 system updated to version 15.10 yesterday.  This morning, I thought, “one more try?”

And it finally works again!  My crusty, old, but still perfectly functional NAS indexes again, without having to remove and re-add the path to the music share.

So, yeah, there’s several hundred dollars saved.  I *did* back up my entire music library to an SSD, per the wisdom of those who have contributed above.  But for now, I’ll keep using my old WD NAS, because why not?  Thanks, Sonos. 

Nope.  Spoke too soon.  It was indexing fine for a couple days, but now it won’t even connect to my NAS anymore.  *I* can still connect to my NAS on any of my computers.  Can upload and download files just fine.  No network problems.  But Sonos will no longer add my NAS path back.  Sigh.  Maybe Sonos is what I should replace. 

Okay, one more update for the benefit of anyone reading along with a similar problem.

My 13-year-old WD My Book Live NAS, which has served me well, mostly low-maintenance, appears to have been the culprit.  Though it appeared to work mostly as expected, it seems that something about the configuration had become corrupted.

Fortunately, it allowed me to back everything up to an external SSD, and then it passed a full system check, but it still wouldn’t establish a remote connection, though the network access reported “good.”  I ended up doing a Factory Restore in the WD utilities, and voila: the remote connection functionality was restored.  I restored my music backup, and Sonos now connects to the NAS, and indexing appears to be stable as well, for now at least. 

I don’t know how to “un-favorite” my previous reply about the 15.10 software update, which may have merely coincided with a stretch of time when indexing decided to work for a few days.  Not sure what the cognitive bias is about assuming causality, but that was probably an error. 

Back to researching a replacement NAS, but sheesh, these things have gotten expensive in the last 13 years. Looks like I could go WD again for a little over 300. 

I replaced my WD Live with a Raspberry Pi and a USB to SATA cable. A Pi Zero will do the job with no strain.

Ask around a lot of folks have older Pi they are no longer using that will be happy to serve up Sonos music.