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D-Link Shareport for Mac


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Is anyone here a beta tester for D-Link and their SharePort software?

 

It appears that their web monkey has created a link for a version of SharePort that runs on Mac, but the link is a dead link.

 

Shareport is a software method to virtualize a USB device attached to a D-Link router's USB port, which can then be shared among connected users. This allows one to share printers, USB storage devices and multi-function devices such as print/scanners.

 

Works nicely on Windows XP and Vista, would be nicer if there were a Mac client as well.

 

Here is the URL:

 

D-Link 825 Support Page

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Sorry not a beta tester, but I'm getting the same thing and would REALLY like mac support. I have two Macs and 3 PCs and one of the reasons I bought the DIR-655 was the shareport utility. I never thought that there wouldn't be a simple mac version of this. Thats ridiculous. I'd also like to know if anybody has heard anything about a mac version.

 

 

Is anyone here a beta tester for D-Link and their SharePort software?

 

It appears that their web monkey has created a link for a version of SharePort that runs on Mac, but the link is a dead link.

 

Shareport is a software method to virtualize a USB device attached to a D-Link router's USB port, which can then be shared among connected users. This allows one to share printers, USB storage devices and multi-function devices such as print/scanners.

 

Works nicely on Windows XP and Vista, would be nicer if there were a Mac client as well.

 

Here is the URL:

 

D-Link 825 Support Page

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I just bought the dir 628 - after the salesman upsold me from their basic wireless N router, pointing out that I could share a hard drive or printer over my network.

"I have a mix of macs and PC's on my network," I said "Will it work?"

"Oh certainly, sir."

Fail.

Now I either disconnect, re-pack everything, go back to the store and demand my money back -without a "restocking" fee - or I hope that this Mac utility comes true.

Advice anyone? Does d-link have any history with Macs?

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  • 3 weeks later...
Have you guys tryed to write to there support and ask for the beta.. i have not seen d-link say no to users testing the beta becouse then they can clear out the bugs..

 

I wrote and asked about Mac support - pointing to the dead link on their pages and mentioning the misleading sales pitch. Here's their reply:

 

show details Jan 26
cleardot.gif
Reply

cleardot.gif

The shareport utility will only work on Windows based PC's. I do not have confirmation that a Mac version will be available. This request has been passed on to product management by many others and hope a Mac version will be released eventually. Please do not anticipate that it will be released within the next few weeks.

 

Best Regards

 

D-Link Customer Service

I didn't ask them if they had a beta program and if I could participate. I'll try, but this doesn't look promising....

 

Typist

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  • 2 weeks later...

This really sucks... I wish I could return my router, if not I'll trash it and never buy D-link again, nor recommend it to my clients.

If they have it in Beta, they should let us help troubleshoot it at our own risk, I'll take the risk. But we want to see that something is being done about it!

 

I already ditch Linksys, Belkin and Netgear forever...

 

 

 

I wrote and asked about Mac support - pointing to the dead link on their pages and mentioning the misleading sales pitch. Here's their reply:

 

show details Jan 26
cleardot.gif
Reply

cleardot.gif

The shareport utility will only work on Windows based PC's. I do not have confirmation that a Mac version will be available. This request has been passed on to product management by many others and hope a Mac version will be released eventually. Please do not anticipate that it will be released within the next few weeks.

 

Best Regards

 

D-Link Customer Service

I didn't ask them if they had a beta program and if I could participate. I'll try, but this doesn't look promising....

 

Typist

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  • 1 month later...

The airport extreme is by far the best router available

 

5 minute setup

usb port share for printer or hard drive

works with both windows and mac

dual band wireless N

 

cost is a little bit high 199 canadian (179 US)

 

or you could look at the airport express which only has one Ethernet port but does share usb devices over a network. for only 99 US (109 CAN)

 

Airport extreme

US: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB763LL/...;mco=NDE4NDQ3OA

CAN: http://store.apple.com/ca/product/MB763AM/...;mco=NDE4NDQ3OA

 

Airport Express

US: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB321LL/...;mco=NDE4NDMzNg

CAN: http://store.apple.com/ca/product/MB321AM/...;mco=NDE4NTMzNg

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  • 2 weeks later...

There is a utility for Mac OS 10.4/10.2 and it's version 1.0.1, they didn't release a 1.0 or below. But there is a catch to the software, you need to upgrade your routers firmware to the available beta one that in red says for testing only, and you cannot downgrade once installed. I downloaded the version 1.21 w/o securespot for my DIR-655 wireless router and the USB light lights up on the port when connected and on the router display lights as well. The utility runs on my computer but it cannot seem to find anything. I re-read the instructions again, but it seems that as of now the Mac Shareport utility only supports firmware 1.30 and not below. So pretty much it's a Windows only application.

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  • 2 weeks later...

You know what, I'm seriously considering throwing in the gargbage my DGL-4500 and buying the new AirPort Extreme. I'm tired of waiting for D-Link. I should have listened to my friends before buying this useless router.

The promise of SharePort for MAC was false, or they just don't have a priority for it.

Darn! Now I know what to recommend to my clients. I'll rather pay Apple a little more for something that works, thatn save a few bucks and have to beg for it to work.

 

 

The airport extreme is by far the best router available

 

5 minute setup

usb port share for printer or hard drive

works with both windows and mac

dual band wireless N

 

cost is a little bit high 199 canadian (179 US)

 

or you could look at the airport express which only has one Ethernet port but does share usb devices over a network. for only 99 US (109 CAN)

 

Airport extreme

US: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB763LL/...;mco=NDE4NDQ3OA

CAN: http://store.apple.com/ca/product/MB763AM/...;mco=NDE4NDQ3OA

 

Airport Express

US: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB321LL/...;mco=NDE4NDMzNg

CAN: http://store.apple.com/ca/product/MB321AM/...;mco=NDE4NTMzNg

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Is anyone here a beta tester for D-Link and their SharePort software?
Intel Mac

I just upgraded my DIR-825 firmware to 1.10ß as described by D-Link and loaded the new OSX version of Shareport to an Intel Mac running 10.4.11. Both the HFS+ and FAT32 partitions on my Maxtor OT4+ external drive were available and working.

 

PPC Mac

Installing the same Shareport software on a PPC iMac running OS X 10.4.11 failed. Checking directories, it loaded the Shareport.app in the Applications folder and the help files into Library/Preference/D-Link/etc., but won't put the SXUPTP.kext in the system/library/extensions folder, and truncates the installation.

 

I tried loading a copy of the SXUPTP.kext from my Intel MacBook into the extensions folder manually, but that gave me an error message on start up that it had been installed incorrectly.

 

I deleted both the Shareport.app file and the SXUPTP.kext file.

 

I found a download for a Belkin hub and inside the zip there's another Silex_kext.pkg file of a different size. This one installed without a hitch(it's a different version of the SXUPTP.kext that wouldn't install above). I reinstalled the Shareport.app, but when I opened it, nothing looked much different - the Shareport Utility main page is still not seeing the drive and the tools don't work, but.......

 

A right click on the Shareport icon in the dock gave a pull up menu that said "Maxtor One-Touch" and offered a "connect" option. Connect worked and the drive was available. Ejecting the drive in Finder before disconnecting in Shareport was required, again using the right click trick on the dock icon. Disconnecting in Shareport before Finder crashed the computer and required a reboot. A couple of times it even made the hard drive disappear and it had to be restarted as well. Connecting and reconnecting is a problem. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't. The disconnect is especially buggy. It randomly crashes an otherwise super stable Mac that gives me ZERO problems.

 

While it would have been nice to have the GUI and USB access working for both Macs, I can only get mine to work reliably on the Intel version. Realistically, only the D-Link Help files work on the PPC Mac. I hard reconnected my external hard drive to my iMac desktop with the firewire and have gone back to using the HD-desktop-router-laptop connection to access files. It's been very reliable. Maybe D-Link will get the Shareport and SXUPTP problems sorted out in time, but maybe getting the Shareport feature to work on the newer Macs is enough.

 

In perfect hindsight, if I needed a reliable network hard drive and printer that worked with a variety of Macs, I'd pay a little extra and buy the slower, shorter-range router with the apple on the back.

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I got a link to the shareport application for Mac from D-Link

 

You can download the MAC Shareport Utility from the following link:

ftp://ftp.dlink.com/Gateway/dir655/Apps/d...utility_101.zip

 

Best Regards,

D-Link Customer Service

 

I installed it successfully on my old Powerbook G4 (OS X 10.4.11) but the installer crashes when I try to install on my new Macbook (OS X 10.5.6).

 

Let me know if you have more luck!

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  • 3 weeks later...

I have a mixture of the last two mentioned install issues.

 

I am running OS X 10.5 on a last gen white Macbook (Intel processor) and if I try to install using the Cosetup.app it bounces in the dock a couple times then closes without any errors. Never starts the install. If I attempt the install manually be running the "SharePortUtility_10_4.mpkg" install it fails with the following error right after starting the install process (install screen with the progress bar) "the following install step failed: run preinstall script for SharePort Utilty".

 

HOWEVER, the application IS in the Applications folder and does seem to launch fine. I have not yet tried a reboot and I am not currently at home so I have no idea if it will communicate with the router properly or not, but the app is there and it opens fine and I can click around in the options without a problem.

 

Will post an update when I have one (if I remember :D)

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### SOLVED ####

 

Turns out that I did have the same issue as 'gclev3' and his steps worked to solve my issue. Here are some extra details.

 

The SharePortUtility_10_X.pkg are just wrappers for the other packages in dir655_macos_shareport_utility_101/SharePortUtility/SharePortUtility/contained_packages. The package that was actually throwing the error was "Silex_kext.pkg" and if you run that package directly you get a similar error message to the one mentioned in my original post but it says "the following install step failed: run preinstall script for Silex Kext Installer".

 

Running the Silex_kext.pkg that is part of the Belkin install that gclev3 linked to worked and after a reboot (and a message from OS X stating that it was doing something with some cache files needed for boot... which was a little scary) SharePort Utility worked first try! Previous to getting the Silex Kext installed SharePort would fail to connect every device I tried to connect including a USB drive, iPod Shuffle, and an HP All-In-One (MFP). It would see the devices but would give some kind of connection failed message. Now it all works great!

 

THANKS gclev3!!!!

 

Ps, another indicator that there was a problem with Silex Kext was that the 'About' screen for SharePort showed "SXUPTP Driver : x.x.x" but now it shows "SXUPTP Driver : 1.3.0"

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  • 2 weeks later...

I was testing Mac Shareport with the latest DIR655 Router firmware (1.32NA beta) and Shareport Utility 1.10 beta. With that said I installed the Shareport Utility 1.10 using the 10_4 PKG and nothing else. Then rebooted the computer. I had no problem mounting or unmounted my OT4 harddrive. I set it up with two partitions. One HFS+ and the other was FAT32 and then I tried NTFS. Shareport works with any of these. Mounting and unmounted is not a problem any more with the latest router firmware. I did have firmware 1.30 and tried Shareport Utility 1.01 and 1.10 with no luck. The key seems to be the new beta firmware 1.32NA beta.

 

NOW THE BAD NEWS......

I used 4.5GB file to test copying transfer rates. Test (1) transfer from OT4 harddrive to desktop PC (windowsXP sp3 TBase100 LAN) speeds were 20min for a file that size. Good USB2 speeds. Test (2) transfer from OT4 harddrive to desktop Mac (OSx 10.5.7 wireless N) I tried five times and failed five times. I would be going a long fine then file transfer would just stop. At that point your in trouble. You can't quit Shareport or the copying in progress. Your frozen. The finder won't relaunch, you just get the spinning beach ball of death. I waited for hours to see if the transfer would start moving again, no luck. The only thing you can do is hold the power button down for a HARD SHUT DOWN. Start your MAC again AND RESTART THE ROUTER to get Shareport to work again. If you have a PC and a PC partition on the drive. (PC won't mount HFS+ unless you have Macdrive7) You can make Shareport work again by mounting and unmounted the drive twice on the PC. (First time doesn't work) This seems to work as good as restarting the router. Test (3) changed computers to MacBook laptop (OSX 10.5.6 Wireless N) Same problem, copy so far anywhere from 200 megs to 2 gigs then your dead. TEST (4) same Macbook this time wired to TBase1000 LAN. same problem.

 

CONCLUTIONS....

Shareport for the PC works great. Shareport for the Mac has come a long way in the last couple of months, but still not stable enough to be usable.

 

UPDATE: GOOD NEWS!!!!! grin.gif

I was looking to find an updated sxuptp.kext from Silex Technology to see if that would help. I downloaded the SX Virtual Link Utility for USB device connection for Mac OSX Ver. 3.1.0 The cosetup installer works perfectly. The SX Virtual Link application sees my DLINK DIR655 USB harddrive. I mounted the drive and started copying some files from my Mac desktop and my Macbook. I have had no transfer errors. The same file that took 20 minutes on a wired LAN on my PC took a 35 minutes on my wireless N Mac. This is working good! Heres the link to the download.

 

Silex Technology Downloads

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  • 5 weeks later...

You mention below, that your virtual application sees the hard drive and that you mount it. My application sees it, but how did you mount it? I looked to see if it was in a folder on the network, but don't see it. So how did you find it to mount it? I tried double clicking on the application. You've left out a crucial instruction, please clarify how you were able to select and mount it. Thank you.

 

I was testing Mac Shareport with the latest DIR655 Router firmware (1.32NA beta) and Shareport Utility 1.10 beta. With that said I installed the Shareport Utility 1.10 using the 10_4 PKG and nothing else. Then rebooted the computer. I had no problem mounting or unmounted my OT4 harddrive. I set it up with two partitions. One HFS+ and the other was FAT32 and then I tried NTFS. Shareport works with any of these. Mounting and unmounted is not a problem any more with the latest router firmware. I did have firmware 1.30 and tried Shareport Utility 1.01 and 1.10 with no luck. The key seems to be the new beta firmware 1.32NA beta.

 

NOW THE BAD NEWS......

I used 4.5GB file to test copying transfer rates. Test (1) transfer from OT4 harddrive to desktop PC (windowsXP sp3 TBase100 LAN) speeds were 20min for a file that size. Good USB2 speeds. Test (2) transfer from OT4 harddrive to desktop Mac (OSx 10.5.7 wireless N) I tried five times and failed five times. I would be going a long fine then file transfer would just stop. At that point your in trouble. You can't quit Shareport or the copying in progress. Your frozen. The finder won't relaunch, you just get the spinning beach ball of death. I waited for hours to see if the transfer would start moving again, no luck. The only thing you can do is hold the power button down for a HARD SHUT DOWN. Start your MAC again AND RESTART THE ROUTER to get Shareport to work again. If you have a PC and a PC partition on the drive. (PC won't mount HFS+ unless you have Macdrive7) You can make Shareport work again by mounting and unmounted the drive twice on the PC. (First time doesn't work) This seems to work as good as restarting the router. Test (3) changed computers to MacBook laptop (OSX 10.5.6 Wireless N) Same problem, copy so far anywhere from 200 megs to 2 gigs then your dead. TEST (4) same Macbook this time wired to TBase1000 LAN. same problem.

 

CONCLUTIONS....

Shareport for the PC works great. Shareport for the Mac has come a long way in the last couple of months, but still not stable enough to be usable.

 

UPDATE: GOOD NEWS!!!!! grin.gif

I was looking to find an updated sxuptp.kext from Silex Technology to see if that would help. I downloaded the SX Virtual Link Utility for USB device connection for Mac OSX Ver. 3.1.0 The cosetup installer works perfectly. The SX Virtual Link application sees my DLINK DIR655 USB harddrive. I mounted the drive and started copying some files from my Mac desktop and my Macbook. I have had no transfer errors. The same file that took 20 minutes on a wired LAN on my PC took a 35 minutes on my wireless N Mac. This is working good! Heres the link to the download.

 

Silex Technology Downloads

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  • 2 months later...
  • 4 months later...

Guys

 

I have managed to install and run the Shareport utility on my G4, but it cannot see any of the attached USB devices. It just says 'no USB devices can be found'.

 

My PC which is also connected and running the Sharepoint utility can. It can access all the attached USB devices without any problems.

 

The router is a D-Link 655 with attached printer and two HD's.

 

Anyone help.....please!! It's driving me insane.

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  • 1 month later...

Is there anyone who can help with my "sx virtual link" problem!?

 

I have a MacBook with Mac OS X v. 10.5.8... I just got a dir-655, i downloaded the latest update "Firmware Version: 1.32NA" and also downloaded "SX Virtual Link 3.3.0" everything seems to run fine! I see the device available but when I'm trying to connect with my USB-harddrive or HP Printer or a small USB memory stick... connection to "device" failed.

 

What can be the problem???

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