RT-AC68U - Cannot see USB drive on wired connection

[CapGainz]

Hi all, new here!

I have an RT-AC68U router that generally works great, but there's one issue I cannot figure out. I have a FAT32 flash drive plugged into the USB 3.0 port. I have DLNA and Samba enabled. All DLNA devices throughout our home can access the drive perfectly. All laptops using a wireless connection can see and access the drive fine from on the network from within Windows. But my wired desktop refuses to see the drive on the network. I can see the router listed in other sections of the network area within Windows. I can see all the other laptops on the network. All computers are Win7 Pro. If I take any of the laptops and switch from a wireless to wired connection, the USB drive will disappear just like it does with my desktop. As soon as I switch from wired back to wireless, it reappears and is fully accessible. I am currently running the latest stable merlin firmware version, but the issue was happening with the latest ASUS firmware, too. I have tried 3 different USB drives, and the same issue happens with all of them.

Other things I've tried attempting to solve the issue:

1. Have reset the router multiple times from within the admin interface.
2. Have reset the router multiple times using the button on the router.
3. Have turned DLNA and Samba servers off/on multiple times hoping to kick it into gear.
4. Have reformatted the drive.
5. Have tried specifying access to a specific folder on the drive instead of just root access.
6. Have tried using specific accounts and guest access for the Samba server.

I feel like there must be something obvious I'm overlooking in the settings, but I cannot figure it out. Does anyone know what might be preventing me from accessing the USB drive on a wired connection?

Thanks!

 

[chris2kari]

I have purchased two of these in recent weeks.
As far as I can tell the mini DLNA server is crap & will gradually corrupt any drive attached as welll as stop working.
My advice is to:

1) Safely unmount/Remove the attached drive & format it fresh.
2) Turn OFF the DLNA & reboot. Leave it off.
3) Re attach your media drive.
4) Replace the DLNA server before trying again*.

*I am in the process of researching & distilling down to human readable form how to get a different (working) DLNA server set up & running on this model router.

Cheers

 

[CapGainz]

Thanks for replying. I've done that, but I'll give it a try and see what happens. I feel like it's more related to Samba versus DLNA, but I'm at a loss for what else to try.