Twonky disappeared after fw upgrade

[dolbyman]

try to download it with a different browser...apparently your current browser mangles the files

and for 4.3.3 you need the 64bit version

[Johnno72]

Removed from support is one thing, removed from my QNAP without notice or my permission is something else.

I agree, I have used Twonky a handful of times and have found it ok, I mean my TV immediately found the NAS and files and everything on initial setup which really impressed me. For QNAP to do this is disgusting. You might be able to return the NAS to place of purchase, contact your bank and request a chargeback, the grounds for this could be the change in product performance and is no longer fit for purpose, the purpose that you purchased it for and have been using it for.

The simple removal from systems is nothing but a monetary move from either the Twonky owners or QNAP or both in collusion with each other for monetary gain. Same as all these popups appearing upon new firmware stating buy this, buy that... I don't want that garbage QNAP, leave it in the App Center where I know to find things, STOP all these popup garbage. QNAP, you are heading down the Windows Vista path with behaviours like this, step back and take a long hard look at the devs. and their work.

Very poor Customer support and focus!(and I was a huge QNAP proponent for many years)

This has tainted QNAP a little for me now also. QNAP are very lucky that the hardware in itself so far is standing its ground without issues. It would be very beneficial that QNAP restores Twonky to the App Center for free (as before)

[AdamKH]

I am incredibly frustrated with this effective de-support by migration to 64bit O/S. I have 3 main QNAP devices (TS-453, TS-431 & TS-212) with 2 TS-410 as mirror storage. I have used Twonky for years for my Music DLNA streaming and it has a simple user interface, is quick, provides all the functionality I need. My Music Libraries are large. Two of those libraries are large (classical and Modern Music) with in excess of 30,000 tracks.
I have not upgraded to the 64 bit yet and learning of the desupport I tried alternates:

Firstly I tried Music Station but it builds thumbnails which both hog cpu generating thumbnails and disk space. Additionally having thumbnails is not necessary as all my Album Art is embedded in ID3 tags. Plus it means that all my off-site storage now has to have thumbnails.

Then I tried MinimServer. That loaded fine but I cannot find out how to configure the MinimServer other that the simple directory location. I do not know hiw to install the MinimServer configuration GUI and I need that to control the Album, Composer etc views.

I then tried Plex (which I use on the TS-453A for movies even though it does not handle well SRT files embedded in MKV packages & cannot cope with X265). This killed my TS-431 as I could not get access to the NAS while it was indexing and the indexing was still running after 24 hours. I installed Plex on the TS212 but this again after 24 hours was still indexing.

I have not yet looked for alternatives on the TS453A.

The problem I have is that there is a package available for down load on the Twonky forum for the x86 64bit but nothing for the 64bit Arm-x31 and nothing for the TS212 Marvell chip.

Does this mean that I am now locked out of upgrading to the QNAP 64bit operating system. If so that makes me uncomfortable. I purchased both the 453A and the 431 because I did not like the functionality of streaming on my Synology DS416 which is now solely used for cloud syn as the QNAP cloud sync is primitive.

[kherr4377]

Removed from support is one thing, removed from my QNAP without notice or my permission is something else.

I agree, I have used Twonky a handful of times and have found it ok, I mean my TV immediately found the NAS and files and everything on initial setup which really impressed me. For QNAP to do this is disgusting. You might be able to return the NAS to place of purchase, contact your bank and request a chargeback, the grounds for this could be the change in product performance and is no longer fit for purpose, the purpose that you purchased it for and have been using it for.

The simple removal from systems is nothing but a monetary move from either the Twonky owners or QNAP or both in collusion with each other for monetary gain. Same as all these popups appearing upon new firmware stating buy this, buy that... I don't want that garbage QNAP, leave it in the App Center where I know to find things, STOP all these popup garbage. QNAP, you are heading down the Windows Vista path with behaviours like this, step back and take a long hard look at the devs. and their work.

Very poor Customer support and focus!(and I was a huge QNAP proponent for many years)

This has tainted QNAP a little for me now also. QNAP are very lucky that the hardware in itself so far is standing its ground without issues. It would be very beneficial that QNAP restores Twonky to the App Center for free (as before)

You obviously have NEVER had cable tv ... where you subscribe to a package and down the road a channel is dropped/moved to a high tier .... have you. READ the TOS is says specifications are subject to change :

LEARN it
KNOW it
LIVE it

Life continues on despite setbacks ... the WOLD economy is based on a continuing spiraling of rising costs .... at some point some things gotta go

if you can afford $1000+ (lowball est) for your NAS (box + drives) you can't afford $20 for a lifetime Twonky lic. ..... why should I have to pay for it when i have absoluetly NO interest in it ????? I planned ahead and have my system designed to only rely on file serving for my media (no DNLA/apps of ANY kind). The wave of the FUTURE (actually here though )...

[Johnno72]

You obviously have NEVER had cable tv ... where you subscribe to a package and down the road a channel is dropped/moved to a high tier .... have you. READ the TOS is says specifications are subject to change :
LEARN it
KNOW it
LIVE it

Life continues on despite setbacks ... the WOLD economy is based on a continuing spiraling of rising costs .... at some point some things gotta go

if you can afford $1000+ (lowball est) for your NAS (box + drives) you can't afford $20 for a lifetime Twonky lic. ..... why should I have to pay for it when i have absoluetly NO interest in it ????? I planned ahead and have my system designed to only rely on file serving for my media (no DNLA/apps of ANY kind). The wave of the FUTURE (actually here though )...

No I never had cable as I never had the need for that garbage and refused to pay for that garbage, especially here in Australia where every one of these items is normally 50% more expensive than other countries, kherr, you could stand to lose some of that narcissism when you reply to people, it only makes you look like the d%^k you are.

I have contacted my solicitor regarding this product being removed after it was provided and they all agree that QNAP has broken the Consumer Laws and they are now on the radar for this behaviour. As the solicitors said, QNAP could have left everything as is with the current user base, from this date onwards it will not be free so others will need to pay for it, we are the lucky ones to get it installed and operating under the conditions of original purchase.

[dolbyman]

the 212 should work with with the x19 version

not sure if the x31 actually was upgraded to 64bit ... as the trail version works for 14 ..you can always try...

also the paid license runs on 3 devices ...so most people should have no issues ..even with several qnap systems

[neeneko]

I have contacted my solicitor regarding this product being removed after it was provided and they all agree that QNAP has broken the Consumer Laws and they are now on the radar for this behaviour. As the solicitors said, QNAP could have left everything as is with the current user base, from this date onwards it will not be free so others will need to pay for it, we are the lucky ones to get it installed and operating under the conditions of original purchase.

Without knowing the details of their license agreement...

Looks like one can always downgrade to an earlier firmware version. QNAP probably had an agreement to distribute Twonky with their firmware and when that expired they could no longer bundle it, so newer versions no longer include it. When a user upgrades they get what that version contains. If a user wants functionality that only comes with earlier version, they have to continue to run the earlier version.

I would be very surprised if this violated consumer protection laws since it is fairly normal for software that bundles 3rd party content to add or remove things between versions as deals expire or are renegotiated.

[Protholl]

You identify the core problem. "It is fairly normal for software that bundles 3rd party content to add ore remove things". This should not be normal. Imagine if your bluray player manufacture got tired of paying for the royalties for the codecs for bluray.. and decided to stop paying for it. Now imagine if you will (Twilight zone reference) that your bluray player downloaded a firmware update with a 30+ page EULA that pretty much all of us without a law degree from a prestigious university ignores.. then after reboot.. you could only play a DVD?

Do you understand why Nintendo stopped supporting DVDs on the WII and the WII U? They didn't want to pay for the codec rights to make a DVD player possible.

This kind of complacency is the root of all problems with software.. not to mention the proliferation of DRM.

I posted in another forum another example. You go to the dealer for an oil change for your vehicle. After you get in the car.. you notice a firmware update shown on your sweet entertainment system and you have to use the scroll function to go past a EULA that makes the book war and peace look like a Cliff notes. You scroll all the way down so you can start your car. You start driving down the road before you figure out that the cruise control system.. or the lane avoidance system.. no longer functions because your manufacturer didn't decide to renew their licensing agreement with the software company that created it.

Would you be so complacent for this alternate example? Would you say "fairly normal". I'd bet my crap-tastic weekly paycheck that you'd lose your mind and get ** off enough to post wherever. In your initial shopping experience.. you entered an agreement with the dealership and the manufacturer for a set of features that you were willing to pay for with your hard-earned paycheck dollars when you purchased your vehicle. You didn't ever expect that anything would be removed/altered from the brochure you read when you drove away from the lot.

Please go to your local home-center.. purchase a shiny-sharp knife and start cutting at the box you are willing to live inside of with your software-centric example. There is a big.. shiny.. awesome world outside it. And sometimes it ** A$$.

Peace out.

[OneCD]

Peace out.

OK, we get it - you're unhappy. So, complain to QNAP. If you're really unhappy, complain to your lawyer. But please stop complaining to the community. Please?

[Protholl]

Complaining to QNAP is akin to mashing your forehead against a wall. They don't have a working phone number that anybody responds to. No U.S. lawyer will engage against a company like QNAP as they are based in Taiwan. My main issue is how complacent this forum is as they are stripped of their rights as a consumer. You are part of the problem and you are not part of the solution. Please stop being a lemming. You are obviously happy being a lemming or you'd have some kind of thought that would make you stop following the rest of the lemmings. Please? =P

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemmings_%28video_game%29

I'm only commenting on a thread that was the source of frustration for 5+ other QNAP users who shared my concerns. Stay complacent Amigos.

[OneCD]

Hmm, something tells me your time here is going to be very short.

Behave yourself and your posts will remain. Continue trolling like this and no-one will see them again. Is that clear?

[BernardJones]

Came to this board just to find this an answer to this issue.

This is kinda weird how Qnap handled this. No email, nothing. Thanks Qnap.

[dolbyman]

they announced it last year

before twonky reinstated to non licenced qpkg versions..they sent a newsletter out with twonky docker solutions...

so while they didnt have a flashy banner on the homepage ..it was known

[ensignvorik]

it's $20 at the end of the day. If you're paying $100s for a NAS another $20 isn't going to break the bank.

[grantorinosport]

I just wanted to throw out there that after installing the latest 4.3.3 build 0174 firmware, Twonky still works just fine.

I noticed the loss of Twonky in the 0154 build when I first upgraded to 4.3.3, however I manually installed it (as I found instructions here for) and of course it worked. The notes in the build 0174 make the statement "Twonky is no longer supported" which had me a little worried. Not included with a free license seems different than not supported (which I read as non functional). I am happy to report it does work, the release notes are just a little misleading (to me anyway, but I'm not a software programmer). Not a huge deal.

While I wish QNAP would still have the Twonky package included for free, I am at least pleased it still works. I prefer Twonky over DLNA because it seems to work well with my downstream devices, and more importantly it allows the navigating of music that seems to fit my large and varied collection. The ability to view by (genre/artist/album) is great when you are going between a large collection of classical music, big band and rock. Perhaps DLNA can do it, but I have yet to see it work that way.

Twonky works well with my Yamaha RX-V675 and my new apple TV.