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.

[Chessray]

@Jayach  These are instructions for sharing files from the Mac to other machines. But that's not my use case. I want to access files that the router shares via Samba.

[Jayach]

@Chessray @Cynric 

I'm sure you are both right, my bad. (did say I'm not an Apple user)

[Cynric]

@Chessray  Would you like to paste the error please.

As you're on a Mac, would you look in syslog, messages and samba.log at the same time. Further error details may be at the end of the log files.

I think that the logs are in ~Library/Logs which may map to /var/log, that Samba log should be in /etc/samba.

I believe that you also have a GUI called "Console App" that may make finding the logs easier.

If I get any of this wrong that is because I am using FreeBSD as my basis, which is where Apple got their O/S from.

[northdown]

I managed to access a USB stick via 

smb://vodafone.broadband

[Cynric]

@northdown  From iOS, Windows, Android etc?