Tag: How-To Fix

How to view Failed Backup Logs on a Synology NAS

WARNING: This how-to is brief and technical. If you are unfamiliar with the terms SSH, VI/VIM, and CLI then this tutorial may be difficult for you.

I have always hated that Synology does not have better logging for their backup jobs. Errors include “the backup failed.”  Thanks, logs!

It turns out that Synology has these logs, but they are not accessible from the control panel. The logs are in the /var/log/messages file on the server.

  1. On your NAS -> Control Panel -> Terminal -> Turn on SSH.
  2. SSH into the NAS using your SSH client of choice. Login with username: root and password of your standard admin password. If you login as “admin” you will not have edit rights.
  3. Type ‘cd /var/log’ to get to the logs folder
  4. Type ‘vi messages’ to open the main log file.  You can type ‘ls’ or ‘dir’ to see the other log files within the folder. DIR will show you the last edit timestamps, to know what logs are relevant.
    If you don’t know how to use vi (aka vim) search for a how-to using your favorite search engine.

 

How to Fix Windows 7/8 “Play To” feature when it stops working.

“Play To” is a feature of Windows 7 and 8 that will push content from a local computer to a compatible rendering device. In my case, I push video files from my local computer to my Xbox 360 in just a few clicks. It works great… when it’s working.

Thankfully when the “Play To” fails to open the application on the computer to push to a device, there’s an easy fix.
Simply open Task Manager and look for “Windows Digital Media Controller Application” in processes and kill it.

Then go back to the “Play To” menu and try again and it will work.

Fix Surface RT Limited Wifi Connection

NOTE: Changing the BAND settings below will cause 5Ghz wifi to no  longer work on your Surface. You must keep BAND at 6 for 5Ghz wifi connectivity.

10/31/2016 UPDATE:

This setting is now found in the following location:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4d36e972-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}\0000]
 "Band"=dword:00000004
 "[2.4Ghz or 5Ghz]AutoUse40MHz"=dword:00000000

Tip came from: https://kb.iu.edu/d/bdms and modified slightly by me.

This helpful tip came from a long Microsoft community thread. Until Microsoft gets a fix for this, the best result is to disable Wireless N mode on the Surface, which is the cause of the connection problems.

1) Open regedit.
2) Go to the following tree location:
“HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\”
3) Find “AutoUse40Mhz” and set it to “0” (“1” is default)
4) Change the entry below this named “Band” to “4” (“6” is default)

Reboot and Surface will connect using only the 802.11 b/g band, instead of the N band.

This has been working well on my Surface RT so far. Hopefully Microsoft gets a permanent fix for this. :\