Known Issues

Unfortunately, the DNS-323 isn't the perfect piece of equipment and it contains a bunch of bugs and some compatibility issues.

Firmware: 1.05
Severity: High
Description: Adding a new disc will cause both to be formatted if user believes the DNS323 prompts!!!!! When you add a disc the DNS323 will say naturally that it needs formatted. It specifically says that your data is fine, dont worry. After the NEXT reboot the DNS will AGAIN say the drive needs formatted. DO NOT SAY YES TO THIS as the drives have swapped in software and now it will format the OLD full one. I think this bug is almost criminal :(
Workaround:Let the device format the drive the first time and then cold restart the device (after the prompted reboot). It should not prompt again.

Firmware: 1.05
Severity: High
Description: After some period of normal usage, shares on the DNS-323 can no longer be accessed by Windows Vista.
Workaround: Files can be recovered by connecting via FTP, or from a non-Vista computer.
Fix: Disable Flow Control, IP Checksum Offload, Priority & VLAN, TCP and UDP Checksum Offloads if your network adapter has these options and you should be able to access the DNS-323. This is based off a Nvidia based chipset. Options will differ per board or card.
Fix:If you still can connect to the DNS-323 configuration through web browser go to “Advanced/Network Access Settings” and try to give all accounts access to the shared folder Fix: Still investigating. The actual root cause for this problem is still elusive. I have suspected that it may have been caused by installing Vista Service Pack 1, but I'm not sure, because even removing SP1 doesn't fix it, and I'm not about to reinstall Vista, at least not yet. Workarounds attempted so far:

• Uninstall Service Pack 1.
• Run secpol.msc and change the NTLMv2 authentication - N/A not in Windows Vista Home!
• Set LmCompatibilityLevel to 1 in the registry (http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=670498)
• Turning off IPv6
• D-Link Tech Support suggested reinstalling the EasySearch utility. Didn't work.
• Many have suggested checking my firewall settings. I did. I also did some TCP connectivity diagnostics. It's not the problem.
• The DNS-323 itself does not seem to be at fault. I can still access it from a Windows XP machine that's plugged into the same router.

Firmware: 1.04
Severity: Medium
Description: DNS323 causes problems when clients mounting using smbfs. Shares will vanish and clients lock. The behaviour is random and hence smb mounting is unusable (at least for this and a few other users). CIFS mounting should be used for linux clients. Windows is unaffected (CIFS).
Workaround: Do not use smbfs from a linux client to mount shares (use CIFS). NFS through funplug also works normally.

Firmware: 1.01, 1.01b23, 1.02, 1.02b, 1.03
Severity: Medium
D-Link correction: 1.04
Description: When printing via the printer server when the printer is off, and then turning on the printer, the print jobs may be buffered but never printed, or printed next time a new print job is sent to the queue.
Workaround: User may need to delete the printer spooling directory manually. Will be fixed in 1.04 according to d-link.
Update: fw 1.04 creates a new partition containing, among other things, a new .lpd spool directory. It also adds a “clear” button in the GUI to clear the spool directory. So far no further problems (other than having to redefine the printer on the client side).

Firmware: 1.01, 1.01b23, 1.02, 1.02b, 1.03
Severity: Critical for international users
D-Link correction: N/A
Description: DNS-323 is unable to save all international characters. Danish characters such as æøå will not be saved correctly on d-link dns-323 from MacOSX
Workaround: None. Will be fixed in 1.04 according to d-link. Note that it is not sufficient to simply upgrade to 1.04; the hard drive(s) need to be reformatted afterwards.
Update: Even worse in 1.04 with smbfs on Kubuntu (copy a file with such characters and it corrupts the name on the Dlink. Unable to delete it without windows after that) USE cifs.

Firmware: 1.01, 1.01b23, 1.02, 1.02b
Severity: Medium
D-Link correction: 1.03
Description: When daylight saving time is enabled in the DNS-323, every night at 01:59 AM, an at job is executed. This job executes the program /usr/sbin/daylight with 1 or 2 as argument. These arguments represents EU (2) or US (1) in WEB GUI. When the program is executed, it injects itself in the at-queue two times.

The effect of this is that every night, at 01:59, the number of at jobs is doubled. After a month, the number of entries in the at-queue will be, in theory, 1'073'741'824.

However, the unit degrades and becomes unusable after 7-10 days and needs to be rebooted.
Workaround: Disable daylight saving in the WEB GUI.

Firmware: 1.01, 1.01b23, 1.02 and 1.03
Severity: Medium
D-Link correction: N/A
Description: If you have, for some reason, failed to print from the unit there might be unfinished jobs in the lp-queue. The printer daemon will access this directory every 10th minute or so, causing the disc to spin-up.

Workaround: Remove the hidden directory \.lpd in \\NAS\HDD_1 (1.01 FW) or \\NAS\Volume_1 (1.02 and 1.03 FW) or telnet to the device and clear the lp-queue with command /sys/crfs/LPRng/lprm.

To see the lp queue, use /sys/crfs/LPRng/lpq or if you shutdown and startup your DNS-323 often, you can create a fun_plug with the following line in it:

/sys/crfs/LPRng/lprm all

which should clear the print queue at start up.

Spin-ups have been reported even after the workaround has been performed. If this happens, print one succesful page and it should then be fixed.

Firmware: 1.01, 1.01b23?, 1.02? and 1.05
Severity: Low
D-Link correction: 1.03, again broken in 1.05
Description: When using the iTunesServer WEB GUI, sometimes the GUI gets corrupted. After this, the iTunesServer WEB GUI can no longer be used.
Workaround: Telnet to the device and “cp /sys/crfs/default/mt-daapd.conf /etc/mt-daapd.conf”

Description: The DAAP server's database can become corrupted and needs to be deleted. Symptom: Song list loads in iTunes but can't play – songs get an exclamation point error flag.
Workaround: Telnet to the device and “rm /mnt/HD_a2/.systemfile/.mt-daapd/.songs.gdb” then stop and start the iTunes server via the web interface.

Firmware: 1.01, 1.01b23 and 1.02
Severity: High
D-Link correction: 1.02b
Conceptronic correction: works fine in CH3SNAS firmware 1.03beta6a (don't know about older versions)
Description: When a failed disc, in a RAID-1 configuration, is replaced it's not properly rebuilt. Following the instructions from the unit will even destroy all data on the unit. Confirmation?!? Anyone?!?
Workaround: (Possible) Upgrade to 1.02b firmware.

Update: 05-Jan-08 Running on the d-link 1.03 firmware does not seem to have fixed this issue given the following steps:

1. Powerdown, remove a disk, powerup
2. Make filesystem change.
3. Powerdown, readd disk, powerup. (added disk should be blank and formatted: was it ?)
4. RAID is not rebuilt, and files added during the intermission get Input/Output errors.

Update: 12-Mar-08 Running on the CH3SNAS (conceptronic) 1.03beta6a firmware does seem to have fixed this issue given the following steps:

1. (if exists) remove /mnt/HD_a2/fun_plug
2. Powerdown, remove a disk, powerup
3. Make filesystem change, powerdown
4. Add blank formated disk (new)
5. Powerup, follow steps to format new disk on web interface.
6. RAID is properly rebuilt. No problems at all.

Firmware: I had 1.05 at the time this occurred
Severity: Medium
D-Link correction: N/A
Description: I had only been using RAID-1 for less than 24 hours, after owning the DNS-323 for many months without a problem, so I assume the RAID-1 was the likely root cause for this. RAID-1 had been enabled the prior day by adding a second drive to an existing one-drive setup. Mirror rebuild was fully completed that same day. I did some basic testing and everything seemed fine before shutting down for the day. When I powered up the DNS-323 in the next morning, the shares were not found. Logged in through the admin GUI to find the unit was prompting me to reformat the drives.

Workaround: Pull one of the drives out of the DNS-323, connect it to a PC to extract the files. I guess you could use a Linux system but I used ext2ifs on Windows Vista. I was able to recover all the files successfully in this manner. I'm turning off the RAID-1 feature from now on.

Firmware: 1.01, 1.01b23, 1.02 and 1.02b
Severity: High
D-Link correction: 1.03
Description: Users with Windows 2003 and Windows Vista has reported that they fail to transfer 'large' files to the unit. Some reports indicates that this is not an issue with Windows XP. Apparently files in the range 2-4Gb, 6-8Gb and 10-12Gb fails to transfer while 0-2Gb, 4-6Gb, 8-10Gb and 12-14Gb transfers ok.

According to findings by tobyg, as posted on our forum, the problem is a signing issue in the 2.x.x branch of Samba. Or to put it as tobyg says:

So go into byteorder.h and change this line:
#define CVAL(buf,pos) ( ( (const unsigned char *)(buf))[pos])

To this line:
#define CVAL(buf,pos) ( (unsigned)( ( (const unsigned char *)(buf))[pos]))

Workaround: The Samba daemon needs to be replaced. tobyg has submitted patched files and a script, which can be used at own risk. Instructions and the files needed can be found in this thread.

Mounting from Linux: Many linux distros will not mount smb default with Large file support. Use the mount -o lfs option to get Large file support. thread

Firmware: 1.02b, 1.03
Severity: High
D-Link correction: N/A
Description: After the DNS was booted it is not possible to access any network shares. You need first to log on to the DNS, go to the NETWORK ACCESS section and “touch” at least one rule. Still not corrected in FW 1.03…
Workaround: telnet to the device and issue smb restart

* can anyone actually confirm this issue? My DNS-323 runs firmware 1.03 and if I reboot the machine, I can access network shares via SMB without logging in to the machine…

confirmed, did not know about network access fix, just ran the wizard every time and restarted the dns
Also confirmed - Win XP SP2 / DND-323 1.03 Raid1 500GB HDD x 2 - smb restart also works as documented.

* I have firmware 1.03 and after a “normal” reboot I can access network shares without logging into the machine, but after a power blackout I have to go to the NETWORK ACCESS section as described above. *

Update: 25-Aug-07; from D-Link tech support in Australia helped resolve this issue by doing the following:
[My setup is DNS323 FW v1.03 with static IP of 192.168.1.199 and a netbios name of “dns323” going into a WRT54G @ 192.168.1.2. The gateway is set to 192.168.1.2 on the DNS323]

For my XP (SP2) box:
1. Tried accessing the samba shares using \\dns323 after cold boot. No dice. Worked by using the IP of \\192.168.1.199. suggested adding an entry to my hosts or Lmhosts file. I updated the hosts file at: c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\ with
192.168.1.199 dns323
and then rebooted both the dns323 and my XP box. I could access the dns323 using its UNC path perfectly.

Remark: The firewall ZoneAlarm has blocked the connection, too. After setting the ip-address accordingly to the secure zone the above described steps succeeds. With an additional batch program in the folder autostart
NET USE * \\DNS323\Volume_1 password /USER:name /PERSISTENT:NO
it works automatically fine for each user

For my Vista x64 Ultimate box:
1. Ran secpol.msc. Went to Local Policies, Security Options, Network Security: LAN Manager authentication level. Made sure it was set to Send LM & NTLM - use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated.
2. Rebooted PC and dns323 - could not access dns323 in Vista x64 Ultimate using \\dns323 or \\192.168.1.199
3. Ran compmgmt.msc. Went to Local Users and Groups, Users, Administrator. Unticked “Account in disabled” and clicked Apply then OK. (double-check the admin account is enabled by going back to secpol.msc, Local Policies, Security Options, Accounts: Administrator account status and checking it is enabled.
4. Log out of my standard user account in Vista x64 Ultimate (Start > Log Off), and click on the Admin account (it has no password by default I think). If you've never logged in as Administrator in Vista it will give you a new profile and desktop settings.
5. Tried accessing the dns323 using \\192.168.1.199 and it worked. I had to add an entry to the hosts file like in step 1 in my XP box above. Also copied lmhosts.sam to lmhosts and added the same entry at the bottom before saving and closing (one of these files was read only so I had to make it writable before saving, then switched 'read only' back on afterwards.
6. Rebooted and logged in using Administrator account. \\dns323 was now accessible.

from D-Link Tech Support said the other option is to install a DNS server on your network somewhere and add an entry for the dns323 which has a static ip. He also mentioned some routers have an area where you can enter the IP, MAC Address and sometimes the hostname, (sounds like a built-in dns server on the router to me) but my router doesn't seem to have that feature. (at least with the standard firmware I'm using on the WRT54G!).
Update: 01/18/08: He is probably referring to a feature called static DHCP, which still assigns IP addresses via DHCP, but ensures that each MAC address always gets the same IP. This is typically done by providing a {MAC address, IP address} value pair in static DHCP configuration. Many third-party firmware releases of the popular Linksys WRT54G router (prior to hardware V.5) support static DHCP, for example.

Hope this helps some people - you can email me at sneakers05AToptusnet.com.au if you have any questions. Or ask the guru - ! :)

**Update: 05-Sept-07; Same problem for my network (cannot accès the DNS, no disk mapped). I fix one static IP for my DNS-323 (192.168.1.99) and all works fine !!!!!!

Thx for this issue.

Firmware: 1.02b, 1.03
Severity: High
D-Link correction: 1.04b63
Description: When browsing through the UPnP AV created directory-structure using a UPnP client the server stops responding for some reason, when browsing the “files” folder. Also there are not all Artists and Albums shown even when the refresh was successful.
I have started the UPnPAV-deamon from the telnet console in order to get some debug infos and found the following errormessage:
39Execute SQL query Error
Can't Verify filename[]
After this message the upnpav-Server never responds anymore until it's restarted and has rescanned.

When browsing through the directories I also see erromessages like this all of the time:
UPnPAV: all of the data wasn't sent, so queue this up.(ILibAyincSocket_Send)
Workaround: Disable onboard upnpav and install Twonkyvision?

Firmware: Prior to 1.03
Severity: Low
D-Link correction: 1.03

This is a (poorly worded) quote from an email I got from D-Link tech support about the Email Alerts not working. Got this 02/09/2007

Yes we have has some issues with the email being able to work in Raid 1 What hard drive models are you using? We have release FW 1.02b that has fixed some of this we are also releasing 1.3 very soon which I was told has fixed these issues.

Description: If you are running pre 1.03 firmware, first you will want to upgrade. If you have upgraded and are still getting failures, it is likely that you haven't put DNS information into the LAN settings. Click on the SETUP tab in the DNS-323 web configuration page, then on LAN. In the DNS1 and DNS2 fields, put in your router's IP address, unless you have your own internal DNS server.

Firmware: 1.02b
Severity: High
D-Link correction: N/A
Description: When trying to access DNS323 via Network Neighbourhood the box shows but will not open and the error message

“DLINK-XXXXXX Volume_1 is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network device. Contact the administrator . . .

The network path was not found.”

Appears.

Easy Search Utility fails to map drives with the message “Failed to map drive”

Workaround: Remove Zone Alarm
Upgrade Zone Alarm: go to the firewall setting, select zones then 'open' the IP address for the DNS323, alternatively you could open a range of IP addresses.

Note: If you don't want to remove Zone Alarm you can follow the workaround for the “Share not accesable after reboot” issue above.«

Hardware: A1
Firmware: 1.01
Severity: High
D-Link correction: N/A
Description: When the device is powered up the fan starts but no leds turn on, regardless of whether there is one disk, two disks or no disks in the device. In addition the power switch works to turn the device on but cannot be used to turn it off no matter how long it is held down for. The reset button on the back of the device also fails to do anything measurable because the only indication the device gives that it is on is the whirring of the fan.
Workaround: none
Solution: Called Tech support and will be getting a new device.
Comments: This seems to be a known problem with hardware A1. Only solution is a replacement of the unit. Since the LEDs is the only way to know if a drive is broken, the device needs to be replaced.

Firmware: Only tested with 1.03, 1.04
Severity: Medium
D-Link correction: N/A
Description: When editing a saved Schedule, the Login Method is reset to Anonymous (even though the User Name and Password still show). If you notice and change it back to Account, the User Name and Password are cleared, and have to be re-entered. If you don't, and save it as-is, the download fails because the Login Method is Anonymous. Also the DNS-323 seems to randomly delete the saved schedules.

It would be very handy if D-Link provided a GUI interface to rsync for scheduling of backups in a future firmware release.
Workaround: None.

Firmware: Only tested with 1.05
Severity: Medium
D-Link correction: N/A
Description: The Dynamic DNS (DDNS) feature used to update your dynamic IP and host a server, doesn't behave correctly. After a few hours, you will get blocked from www.dyndns.org and get a notice: Hostname Blocked Due To Abuse.
Workaround: Look at this thread: http://forum.dsmg600.info/p15441-2008-05-23-06:16:22.html