What happened to Orb?

I think readynas would no more support orb..because some stability issue..

Try Subsonic or Plex. Both are infinitely superior to Orb on the ReadyNAS. Even Skifta for that matter if you want an "official" add-on for media serving.

Orb is fine for mid-range and upwards desktop PC media serving, but i guess the average ReadyNAS just doesn't have the raw grunt Orb needs to run flawlessly. Which is more a reflection on Orb, than it is on Netgear, as the aforementioned apps do the same thing as Orb with little problem.

horim80 wrote:
I think readynas would no more support orb..because some stability issue..

It that case a "Sorry guys, but it doesn't meet our stability standard, so we have to drop it" would have been nice. When I reported this problem, it was still advertised as a feature on the ReadyNAS, but the indian Tech Support told me Orb was not supported: Confusion all around. Now instead of fixing it, they simply dropped it. My NAS is just a couple of months old and it's no longer what I bought and what I paid for, so an explanation is the least they could offer.

There are still a lot of questions left. Orb is working on the incompatibility problem, see the link in my first post. But that doesn't solve Orb's stability problem.

gibxxi wrote:
Try Subsonic or Plex. Both are infinitely superior to Orb on the ReadyNAS. Even Skifta for that matter if you want an "official" add-on for media serving.

Thanks for the tip: I'll check those out.

gibxxi wrote:
Orb is fine for mid-range and upwards desktop PC media serving, but i guess the average ReadyNAS just doesn't have the raw grunt Orb needs to run flawlessly. Which is more a reflection on Orb, than it is on Netgear, as the aforementioned apps do the same thing as Orb with little problem.

That's why I feel screwed: I bought the ReadyNAS Pro 6, to make sure it had the processing power to transcode media streams (and because it's Windows domain compatible).

MindBender wrote:
...but FrontView layout doesn't allow scrolling from iOS Safari, forcing user to fire up their PC when things went wrong again....

I have nothing to add to the discussion about Orb, but I would like to correct this. You can scroll the frames in iOS Safari by dragging with two fingers. This works with the ones in Frontview, any text box on any site, and other similar webpage elements. It's just the way that iOS Safari works and isn't specific to Frontview, although you rarely see it outside of textboxes on other sites.

rccoleman wrote:
You can scroll the frames in iOS Safari by dragging with two fingers. This works with the ones in Frontview, any text box on any site, and other similar webpage elements.

Tried it, works .... almost. Using two fingers allows me to scroll a specific frame, but Safari is easily confused: Sometimes it's being mistaken for a single finger scroll. And that aside, it still doesn't allow me to scroll to the lowest part of the add-ons frame, where the 'apply'-button for Orb is. This is probably a Safari bug/feature, but that's another thread. At least we've learned something today.

I have pretty-good news regarding Orb... From an email reply I just received:

"We have developed a dedicated / optimized Orb Live iOS app for Orb Add-on and submitted the new App for App store.

Considering that the new App has to go through App store review process, it's difficult to let you know release date. We are waiting for the approval from Apple Stores to release it to the public.

This Orb Live app will be made available free of cost for the first 60 days so as to facilitate our existing customers of Orb Live using Orb Add-on to download at no additional cost. Post the initial 60 days, the App will be priced at US$ 9.99.

Please check this forum thread periodically to know the status of the release of Orb Live for ReadyNAS as we would be updating this once the approval has been given: http://forums.orb.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=34825"

When it becomes available, I will post here and in the other threads....

Don_Pasquale wrote:
I have pretty-good news regarding Orb... From an email reply I just received: "We have developed a dedicated / optimized Orb Live iOS app for Orb Add-on and submitted the new App for App store.

I think it's safe to consider that vapor-ware now, 3 months later.

NetGear introduced the Orb add-on July 2010, but it broke down already 9 months later, while ReadyNAS machines were still advertised with it, and people still buying the now useless $10 iOS application.

There may be all kinds of good reasons for NetGear to drop Orb support, but doing it silently is a bloody shame.

MindBender wrote:

gibxxi wrote: Orb is fine for mid-range and upwards desktop PC media serving, but i guess the average ReadyNAS just doesn't have the raw grunt Orb needs to run flawlessly. Which is more a reflection on Orb, than it is on Netgear, as the aforementioned apps do the same thing as Orb with little problem. That's why I feel screwed: I bought the ReadyNAS Pro 6, to make sure it had the processing power to transcode media streams (and because it's Windows domain compatible).

Like I said above, Plex and Skifta work fine on the ReadyNAS. So the flaky Orb add-on is more a reflection on the people who developed the add-on (I'm guessing; The Orb people themselves) and the way it was implemented. The Orb add-on regularly crashed scanning even moderate size libraries. I don't get any problems with Plex or Skifta along these lines. And even Subsonic has ceased crashing on me since I did a factory reset with the latest stable x86 Firmware in place. I believe the support for this add-on was all from the Orb people, not Netgear. So it's withdrawl / failure to work would be an issue for them to answer for, and not Netgear, although I do sympathise with people who bought a ReadyNAS expressly for that purpose. In such instances, a statement to the effect that the add-on had been withdrawn probably wouldn't of been to much to ask for from Netgear, even if they weren't responsible for it's development. So I sympathise with you on that point.

But Like I said, there are better alternatives already available for this NAS. And if your not to worried by the "old-school" look of the ReadyNAS web GUI, the actual hardware itself is easily on a par with any other vendor's offerings, if not superior. I couldn't be happier with My Ultra 4, and most of the "issues" i've come across have been down to me.

gibxxi wrote:
Like I said above, Plex and Skifta work fine on the ReadyNAS. So the flaky Orb add-on is more a reflection on the people who developed the add-on (I'm guessing; The Orb people themselves) and the way it was implemented. The Orb add-on regularly crashed scanning even moderate size libraries.

I just discovered Orb is developed in India, that explains it all. If you are a software developer (like me) and you have experience with India, Indians and their software (of which I have a lot), you would keep at least 20 meters (that's 65 feet, in Mickey Mouse units) clearance from their work to avoid being killed, wounded, hurt or just being in plain agony. Let alone putting it on your server containing everything digital you own.

gibxxi wrote:
I don't get any problems with Plex or Skifta along these lines. And even Subsonic has ceased crashing on me since I did a factory reset with the latest stable x86 Firmware in place. I believe the support for this add-on was all from the Orb people, not Netgear

That explains the lack of support.

gibxxi wrote:

So it's withdrawl / failure to work would be an issue for them to answer for, and not Netgear, although I do sympathise with people who bought a ReadyNAS expressly for that purpose. In such instances, a statement to the effect that the add-on had been withdrawn probably wouldn't of been to much to ask for from Netgear, even if they weren't responsible for it's development. So I sympathise with you on that point.

Well, it was introduced with lots of noise, and a really nice feature it was. We all hoped the stability problems would be dealt with it time, but it never got that far: Support was pulled within 9 months. The iOS app was with €9,99 relatively expensive and it stopped working after 2 months already. They should have warned ReadyNAS users not to upgrade, because no downgrade was possible. And we're waiting for the promised ReadyNAS version already longer than the working version has ever worked. It's actually very strange they need a separate version: they're software structure is probably too warped up to implement a superset and a subset of their protocol.

gibxxi wrote:
But Like I said, there are better alternatives already available for this NAS. And if your not to worried by the "old-school" look of the ReadyNAS web GUI, the actual hardware itself is easily on a par with any other vendor's offerings, if not superior. I couldn't be happier with My Ultra 4, and most of the "issues" i've come across have been down to me.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding Skifta's functionality, but I have used Orb to watch my media library on my iOS devices: I don't see how Skifta can replace that functionality.
Plex wasn't out when I checked out Skifta, but you're completely right: Plex is awesome! It's completely replacing Orb and it offers exactly the same functionality in a much prettier interface. I'm assuming it's more stable than Orb too, because less or equally 'stable' would be a statistical aberration. So: Out with Orb, in with Plex! It's installing as I'm typing this.
All folks wanting to know more can check out this link:
http://www.readynas.com/?p=5523
And the add-on can be downloaded from this link:
http://www.plexapp.com/linux/linux-pms-download.php