LS-CHL EM mode - reflashed after issues - fixed

[tobers]

I hope this helps people with a frozen LS-CHL unit. The basic problem is Buffalo's poor support navigation drop downs which don't make it obvious that the firmware you need is found using a different archive. Buffalo should rectify this page http://www.buffalotech.com/support/downloads/linkstation-live-ls-chl to provide earlier versions for this unit as well as v1.71 and everyone would find things much easier. It would save hours of wasted effort.

So...

I found my LS-CHL in EM mode. I think the cause was a power cut some weeks ago. My PC (windows 10) couldn't connect to it over the network. I ran NAS Navigator 2 and found it to be in Emergency Mode.

The unit had an IP address on my home network, which I could ping successfully.

The blue light on the box was on and steady/solid (it was not flashing) indicating it was in EM mode.

I restarted it several times, no change. It would boot up, the blue light would flash for a bit and then go solid. Still in EM mode.

I looked at many online posts including the guide here: http://buffalo.nas-central.org/wiki/EM_Mode

I downloaded LSUpdater from here: http://www.buffalotech.com/support/downloads/linkstation-live-ls-chl. The update version is FW1.71.

LSUpdater reported that a "Linkstation that needs updating cannot be found". This happened repeatedly. I enable debug, ticked and unticked many boxes in different orders to no avail. I opened ports, turned off firewalls, turned them on again etc (after reading potential solutions on the forums).

I was getting increasingly angry that something so basic should be so complex. It really doesn't need to be. Hours were spent by this point.

Following a fluke, I found this page which allows you to download old versions of firmware, and entered search term "LS-CHL": http://www.buffalo-technology.com/en/support/downloads/?subaction=download-archive&no_cache=1

I downloaded the "Blue Interface Windows v1.12 firmware for LS-CHL only." dated 2012-09-27.

I unpacked the contents of the zip file into another directory on my PC, and ran LSUpdater.exe. It immediately found the fauly Linkstation, and reloaded the firmware (it appears it was on 1.12), and then rebooted it.

I can now see the drive correctly from my PC. All the contents are as per before the crash.

Happy days (eventually). So easy to avoid this hassle though.