Does the USB port actually do anything?

[CallMeAlan]

Been with Vodafone Broadband for two days now, with the big black router.  I put a USB stick with some sample pics and music in the hole and the web interface sees the stick, though it's not clickable and nothing else apparently sees it. My iMac, in Network, offers 'vodafone\032broadb' but double-clicking it gives a failed connection. Linux laptop nada.

But yesterday I switched on my smart TV and went to select source so I could use my PS4 and there in the list is Vodafone. Hello, DLNA, I thought.  Went into it and the TV offered Music, Pictures and two other folders, forgotten now what they were, but they're just empty, certainly not what's on the stick.

So, the big question is: does the USB hole actually DO anything at all?  I mean, would a NAS be a total waste of time and money given that the USB hole seems not to be connected to anything?  Of course, the Voda guide on the web is either old, for a previous router, or just plain wrong.

[TJ]

Hey @CallMeAlan, thanks for getting in touch. To use the USB sharing service, you'll need to turn on sharing in your router settings. Click the indicator next to "Share all" until the function is turned on.

Open a browser and go to \\vodafone.station then go to the required folder in the file system. Highlight a file and move or copy it to the required location. It's slightly different for a Mac too and these are only the instructions for using a computer, rather than a Smart TV for example. 

[CallMeAlan]

Certainly.  Apart from the fact that (and apparently I'm not alone here) \\vodafone.station merely leads to a Google search.  Adding http: and/or changing the \\ to //, does the same. One of them gives Italian hits.

It's a Mac BTW.

[CallMeAlan]

Rooting further through the forums I found the following.  Note it's as recent as a year ago:

Moderator (Retired)

‎28-08-2018 05:55 AM

Re: USB file sharing not working

Although there is a USB port on the router. It is currently not supported.

Al

[CallMeAlan]

Although there is a USB port on the router. It is currently not supported.

Al

[TJ]

Sorry for any confusion @CallMeAlan - I found the above information on our website device guides here. You could try contacting our Broadband Live Chat team, to see if they can shed any light on this. 

[CallMeAlan]

Your 'here' appears to refer to some grey router, presumably some old or previous model, while I have what I believe to be the latest, an A5-sized black job.

As for your live chat team, a click reveals:

Hello, my name is TOBi, Vodafone's digital assistant.

We'll stress the word 'digital' there. Hmm, I'm sure he or she will be enormously helpful.  I bet that after 29 ridiculous questions it will merley advise me to dial 191, where numerous further questions will just point me to a worthless FAQ web page.  There is no human being in residence.

Frankly, I've given up on this fruitless and endless route. 

[MarkHarrison]

The solution  for  MacOS users is to use MacOS Finder's Go menu, Connect to Server... then use address smb://192.168.1.1

I received the new Vodafone Wi-fi hub today and was also curious about plugging a USB drive into the back of the hub and accessing it over the local network.  I'm using a Mac.

Vodafone tech support suggested going to http://192.168.1.1 , logging in, switching to Expert Mode, clicking on the DNS / DDNS sidebar tab, setting DNS servers manually to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 and give it 24 hours.

I questioned whether that would really fix the problem so I did some further testing.  From the command line in Terminal, I could ping to vodafone.broadband successfully and realised that it was an alias to 192.168.1.1

so on my Mac, I then switched to the Finder, then from the Go menu at the top of the screen, Connect to Server... then enter smb://192.168.1.1  and the USB drive mounted remotely and appears to be available for read/write access.

I  attached a 5TB Western Digital MyPassport hard drive and it seems happy with that so far, though I have not tested it extensively yet.  ( I made sure that the USB drive is exFAT formatted, using Disk Utility on my Mac before plugging it into the back of the Vodafone Wifi hub).  So far so good.

[clint_flick]

Hi

Index of \\vodafone.broadband\SCSI_DISK_1_404b\

[parent directory]

Name Size Date Modified

EFI/		6/25/20, 4:08:32 PM
System Volume Information/		8/14/20, 11:53:32 AM
.packages.grub2-efi	125 B	6/25/20, 4:08:32 PM

That is a Linux USB on W10, so the mounting is not just plug and play.

[Cynric]

.@clint_flick Did you try Microsoft's Linux subsystem for W10?

[clint_flick]

Hi

Yes many times.

More than 1 of the linux options, Ubuntu and SuSE, but the Xming windows system is not quite integrated,

So currently I just triple boot, W10, LinuxMint or OpenSuSE Tumbleweed.

The WSL does seem inadequate in comparison.