Firmware updated and now shares won't mount
Answered
Powernode 2, Node 2, and Pulse Flex - all working for several years but today the whole group updated the firmware and now my network share (an apple airport NAS) will not read. The details have not changed, the IP is static etc, but my library has vanished and adding the same share manually again is failing.
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Official comment
UPDATE:
Thank you for your patience - in speaking with our QA and Product Development team, we have discovered the root of the problem. BluOS 3.18.7 includes a Security patch that closes a Network Vulnerability used by many ransomware attacks. This vulnerability has been avoided by disabling Microsoft's NTLM authentication for file sharing. Microsoft themselves identified this in 2010 and completely removed it from Windows as early as 2016.
It looks like NTLMv1 is still the only security authentication used in Apple Time Capsules. Apple has not provided a Time Capsule update since early 2019. Many older NAS devices and older ISP-provided routers are also using this authentication method.
If you are experiencing this issue please review your NAS security settings and change your authentication method from NTLMv1 to something else. Check with your NAS manufacturer for a security update to your NAS firmware. If you are unsure how to do this, reach out to our Support Crew via Help, Send Support Request in the App and they will reach out via e-mail to point you in the right direction if you let them know the make and model of your NAS.
Other possible workarounds include moving the USB drive attached to your router as a local USB stick until your ISP can update your router or your NAS has been secured.
We do apologise for the inconvenience but thank you for your understanding.
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Not happy with this strategy as Blusound just prompts with "new firmware available" but I never saw any informations about expected changes or side effects.
Using an USB drive is also not recommended by the Bluesound support - I know that because I had tons of problems (very slow start, slow thumbnail, dropouts) when doing so.
So there should be a transition path to allow user to be prepared or a very quick firmware update which includes the possibility to choose the protocol authentication method within the configuration menu.
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I agree about support, sending out resolved emails when issues are still unresolved. I was extremely annoyed to receive one about my problem with Qobuz following the firmware update. There are some others that are having problems with Amazon streaming that also are annoyed with resolved notifications when nothing has been resolved.
Bluesound may not want lots of unresolved tickets on their system but sending out resolved emails is not good for customer relations. When I bought my Node2 there were few problems but recently there are plenty.
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I have two Node 2’s. Both were purchased in early 2018 with the purpose of ripping most of my cd collection to a digital music library so I could have easy access to my music on my two hifi systems. The idea was to add more Bluesound wireless speakers in my kitchen and office space and soundbars to my TV’s later on to have a one-stop solution for all my audio needs around my home.
At the time I also upgraded my Spotify subscription to Tidal at double the monthly cost to take advantage of the high resolution audio streaming the Nodes are capable of.
I spent hundreds of hours ripping 800+ cds to 16/44 FLAC files, editing metadata and adding images (I’m retired and have too much time on my hands). All of this is stored on a 2TB Apple Time Capsule NAS. This worked perfectly fine until Bluesound decided to pull the plug on my music library with the latest BluOS firmware update a couple of weeks ago.
I contacted support through the BluOS app before I found this thread. Their response was : ”BluOS will no longer support devices with outdated NTLM authentication to avoid security concerns.” So if you’re still hoping for a fix from Bluesound Support, don’t. There won’t be one. Like with everyone else they marked my case as solved and apologized for the inconvenience. Lovely…
The only solution is to buy a new NAS, such as a Synology like Bluesound Support suggests : ”Many of our customers have great success when using NAS Synology's with Bluesound Products.”
So after spending $1350 4 years ago on my Node 2’s, I now just spent another $700 on a Synology NAS (DS220+ with 4TB hard disks). When it arrives I will have to spend additional hours setting it up, copying my music files, configuring it as a Time Machine backup, etc. Judging by the comments I read online there will definitely be a learning curve…
This comes on top of all the other issues there have been with my Node 2’s over the past 4 years, none of which Bluesound Support ever offered a solution for either, though in some cases they confirmed they were aware of these issues and were working on fixes.
A few examples :
Using a USB drive (which Tony W. suggested as a possible workaround for the NTLM issue) is not a solution because it has its own set of problems. It’s very slow and suffers from dropouts rendering it essentially useless.
Bluetooth has a significant audio lag which makes it useless for video files. Though initially this issue was recognized by Customer Support and a fix in the form of a future firmware update was promised, this never happened. The final explanation was that this was inherent to the Bluetooth system. This is not true, I have other devices from Bose and Sony which also use Bluetooth aptX that don’t have this problem.
Sources connected to the digital or analogue input cause streaming services to act up and crash. Customer Support’s solution : disconnect digital or analogue source when using streaming services. Great. Very convenient solution.
Connectivity issues with WiFi. Blamed by Customer Support on my WiFi modem (of course) though none of the 16 other devices connected to it in my home have any problems. I eventually ended up running ethernet cables to both my Node 2’s. It took me 2 days of fishing wires through walls and ceilings (as I mentioned above I’m retired and have nothing better to do with my time anyway, right ?) and cost about $100 on cables and connectors. One friend to who I recommended the Node 2 sold it after a few months because of the same WiFi connectivity issues. Running ethernet cables was just not a practical option for him.
Bottom line : Bluesound systems do not perform as advertised. They suffer from numerous bugs and issues which their customer support is incapable of resolving even after (in some cases) years of waiting for solutions.
I have two friends who use Sonos systems. One of them has a music library stored on a 16 year old PC (running Windows XP !) and it works just fine. Sure that will probably create a network vulnerability exposing him to a potential risk of ransomware attacks. But who cares if the only data stored on that old PC is his music library (for which he has a backup on an external USB drive in case something happens). At least Sonos didn’t lock him out of his library. And yes, it’s not hi-rez. But it works. He can play music from his library, I can’t.
So would I have spent $1350 on Bluesound products 4 years ago if I had known all this ? No. Will I purchase more Bluesound (or NAD or PSB or other products from Lenbrook Industries) as I originally planned ? No. I have lost my confidence in their customer support. Will I still recommend Bluesound products to friends as I’ve done before ? No.
Hopefully my $700 additional investment will solve the current issue and hopefully there won’t be another future BluOS update that turns my Synology NAS into a brick as well. Because I know I won’t be able to rely on Bluesound Customer Support to provide me with a solution when that happens.
What we all should do is share our experiences on social media, various forums and any retail website where we can leave reviews (Amazon, Best Buy,...). I’m certainly going to make a start on this (I’m retired, remember). At least it will avoid other people with an interest in streaming devices to fall into the same trap.2 -
I fully agree with the plea Turntables made. There is complete silence from the Bluesound side since this problem occurred, and the solutions offered where nothing else than “ to bad, not our problem that your apple airport timecapsule is not working after the update provided, and buy another device”. The dutch distributor was not aware of the problem, and got and gave the same response . So much for customer care. So for me it’s over with any audio product from Lenbrook Industries, and I will not recommend it to anyone and set this as an example.
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I am not happy with the response from Blusound support. While I do appreciate their concern for security, please keep in mind that the Node2i is typically attached to a personal network and not exposed to attacks from untrusted networks such as the Internet. If some bad actor was able to compromise my personal network then I would have bigger worries than a bad actor encrypting my hard drive where my music resides. An offline backup of the music library can protect against a ransom attack.
Now Bluesound has disabled the functionality that was the primary reason I purchased this device so I am not satisfied with the company response. I am also not happy that updates are provided without any disclosure of potential impacts to customers. This is not acceptable.1 -
Please Tony, don´t use all your efforts to fix the issue for Apple Time Capsules only.
There is a lot of another storages in the market, help us..
Me here, I´m using a TP-Link Archer C7 with CIFS version 1.0
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Someone please correct me if I'm wrong about this. This has not been explicitly stated, but if I read between the lines, I imagine some of us with older NAS or older routers (older hardware that has not received updates in several years) will need to purchase new hardware to resolve this issue, unless BlueSound issues an update to resolve it. I feel it is not acceptable to release a change like this without understanding AND warning users of such an impact.
For what it's worth, I'm using a TP-Link Archer C50v2 router with a USB stick installed in it. And an NAD M33.
Note: I started a helpdesk ticket with BluOS support this morning because I'm unable to find any router settings that correspond to Tony's comments re: NTLMv1 authentication ... the response I received to that ticket has not been helpful. They do not seem to have the latest info provided by Tony W, and they claim it would be impossible to rollback NAD M33 to a previous working firmware version (not sure if that also means there is no method to *install* a previous firmware version).
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Same problem here, after upgrade Node (new model) mounting a network share failes (to usb portable HDD into Asus RT-AC68 wireless router), BluOS won't connect the drive ("Mounting share failed").
Don't like this at all, no information provided why it failed, connecting prior to upgrade was no problem. This was probably my most used function on the node.
the solution/update statement provided in this topic doesn't give me any clue how to solve this, I would like to downgrade the node. I will file a Support request for this.
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Thanks Tony for the hint regarding QNAP NAS. I installed the latest QNAP and Bluesound firmware. Bluesound's access to the NAS share works fine :-)
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I had the same issue after the Node firmware upgrade - the mounting share failed message when trying to connect to a drive connected to my router (supplied by my ISP). There were no options in the router config for changing the security protocol for the USB drive, but I deselected the "allow anonymous login" option and the share mounted. Hopefully this may help someone with the same problem, as it took me ages to stumble across it. It is frustrating that there isn't an option to roll back the firmware upgrade.
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@Robin R: Sorry for the late answer, I was very busy...
My QNAP NAS has a static IP-Address, for example 192.168.20.20 (depends on your network/subnet)
On QNAP my music share (for example MyMusicFiles) allows read-only access to "Guest"-Users
In BluOS Controller, the network share is configured via IP, for example \\192.168.20.20\MyMusicFilesI hope this helps.
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Before the recent update i was a happy user, my node 2i worked perfect, as did many other devices.
I was not worried, things happen and an update for this update-error was on its way. I was wrong so it seems, and after contact with support there was no solution. The questions asked are still in the open, so will there be a fix or not ? When it comes to the fact that there will be no solution other than putting the problem somewhere else (i use apple time capsule ) i suggest that Bluesound refund the money i paid for the node . So my question is to communicate what the users with these problems caused by the latest update can or can not expect .
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Nearly 4 weeks later...
...no reliable information, no strategy, nothing from Bluesound!NTLMv1 can be used with Windows 10 and all NAS systems I know so far as all vendors still allow to use this protocol version. Okay not all of them, Bluesound can't handle this for their devices, as they are not able to allow static IP addresses and other complicate things.
My family could not listen to music for some weeks, so I did a workaround - something I thought should be the job of Bluesound...
I bought a Rasperry Pi and use it as a NAS now, but the Raspi is not a permanent solution because of it is not 100% reliable (unstable power management, micro SD card, etc.)1 -
I would like to support the customer requests mentioned above. I am very disappointed about Bluesound's reaction or as it would better be named no-reaction to get this 'share mounting problem' solved. I could be so easy to implement an option or even more easier to make the firmware-version before the current one via download available again. In my eyes, without a solution like this Bluesound is going to make a bad product out of an excellent concept (including hardware).
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Since it appears that BluOS intends not to fix this issue, allow me to offer a workaround that I found.
I'm using a Linksys WRT3200 router with a USB attached 1GB external hard drive, and currently on BluOS firmware version 3.18.10 (the first update after the network share issue was identified). As a side note, the WRT router is an IT-class router packaged for home use, with the ability for user programming. Two calls into Linksys on this NTLMv1 issue received similar responses of befuddlement - Linksys indicated they didn't understand why this was an issue, never heard of it elsewhere, there is no firmware updates available, etc.
Regardless, the fix I found: The Linksys user control app provide the ability to manage external storage connected to the router. There is a tab to set folder access, which was previously set to have the external drive available to anyone on the local network. There is an option to set up restricted access to specific users. Create a user name and password for the appropriate music files on the external drive connected to the router.
Back in the BluOS app, when attempting to connect and mount an external share, select the share attached to the router, provide the (previously optional) user name and password defined above. The share then connected within BluOS. The indexing seemed to take longer than previously, but it did complete.
Your router may not have exactly the same configuration options. However, this path is in line with a previous suggestion brought up in this thread to "disable anonymous logins" for external storage, which is forcing a different user access authorization path. Good luck.
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Thank you Ian
We do apologise for the inconvenience but we are investigating a possible issue here and with our QA team. It looks like older NAS devices are not reconnecting. Devices like this may be using an older version of the SMB protocol.
See if there is an update for your Time Capsule (but likely not given its age). We do hope to publish an update as soon as possible. Feel free to bookmark this thread for updates.
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Same here, no chance for updating the media server (which is on my internet router) - doing a firmware downgrade as a workaround would be fine so it won't hurt that much until the bug will be fixed.
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Same issue. NAD M33, just updated BluOS to 3.18.7 and now unable to access shared drive (USB stick installed in TPLink router). Spent an hour trying to get it mounted with no success, only to later find this thread. I would be happy to downgrade firmware to prior version until issue is resolved. Thanks.
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Same issue. I have a Node2i which is no longer able to map an SMB network share (a hard drive attached to an Airport Extreme). The Airport Extreme is running the latest version of the firmware (7.9.1). So the issue is not limited to old NAS devices.
Can anybody please provide instructions to revert to previous firmware version?
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+1
Same issue here, unable to mount my file share.Using my RPi4 + Volumio and hoping the Bluesound Crew fix this ASAP.
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Same here, having a DLINK 323, no more connection possible.....mounting share failed.......
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I appreciate that Bluesound is aware of security issues. But then they should also have been aware that removing a protocol (without any information this will happen) will have an impact for many users.
Most network vendors are implementing a possibility to choose if NTLMv1 or v2 should be used. I think this is the best option for Bluesound now.Anyhow the update strategy should be rechecked to avoid such an unpleasant situation.
Update:
Meanwhile the support asked me to do chances on my router (DHCP Reservation, IGMP Snooping, etc.)...
Now I am getting a little bit nervous - because it shows the understanding of network protocols (all listed points have nothing to do with the NTLM issue, DHCP Reservation won't help to fix the non standard IP stack implementation of Bluesound, IGMP snooping is a mechanism for switches and not for routers and so on)...Now it's time for a statement if Bluesound...
- will NOT reimplement compatibility to the NTLMv1 protocol suite?
- will NOT provide a possibility to undo the firmware update?
- accepts that the devices are UNUSABLE now for many users?0 -
So the official answer is "get a new NAS"?
Can old firmware images be put on USB and manually loaded like an upgrade can?
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This post prevented me from doing the update! My good long-serving QNAP NAS is working fine, but I'm afraid I would run into the NTLM issue as well!
To do no more updates cannot be the solution! I'm expecting a firmware from Bluesound that fixes this bug.
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Hi Beedu
Your QNAP will work fine as QNAP has also abandoned NTLMv1
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Don't know the newest QNAP releases but remember that within their release notes (they do inform customers) you could read that NTLMv1 is not permitted by default, but still can be enabled by user configuration. Wouldn't that be an option for Bluesound?
Bluesound doesn't see QNAP as a role model in other situations, e.g. allowing to define static IP addresses for their devices (instead of using DHCP which is also a security issue)...
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Linksys EA9500 router, new M1 Mac Mini, SSD USB drive attached to router. This "update" also broke my file sharing.
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Is my understanding correct that there will be no solution for this problem (e.g. my DLINK 323)? I didn't hear anything further from Bluesound.
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I was told by customer support that for now they advise using a USB drive; and that the engineers are working on this as a "high-priority" issue and hope to provide a fix (when, who knows). They also claim they don't keep copies of old firmware which must be BS--I guess they just don't want to provide them (maybe for good reasons).
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