About… 2-3 weeks ago I u/g’d the Drobo Dashboard app on my Mac. All went smoothly, but after restart I have only had access to Status, Capacity, and Shares; apps, tools, and setting are greyed out and not accessible. I can do a ‘hard restart’ of the drobo array, but either a restart of those or the laptop still does not enable the greyed out tabs…
Any help? Any clue?
Thanks in advance…
You DID a HARD RESET of the Drobo?? Do you mean you did a PIN-HOLE reset!!!
Warning…:
Performing a PIN-HOLE reset on a Drobo unit, will reset all the Drobo Settings to default. It ALSO will reformatted the Disk Pack (all drives) in the Drobo and wipe out all existing data. PIN-HOLE or RESET using Dashboard in Drobo is like doing a fresh new Drobo Setup… by formatting all existing data.
If your Drobo is a Drobo FS, Drobo 5N or B800fs… You will need to login to the Dashboard as the Admin of the Drobo unit in order to access the Settings… Select the Drobo icon on the Dashboard, double click the icon… it will bring you to the Status Page of that Drobo… You should notice there is a “login” blue link … if your Drobo unit is a 5N, FS or B800fs.
Thanks for the attention, and you’re correct, I misspoke. When I said “hard reset” I did NOT mean a pin-hole reset; I meant just using the back rocker switch to turn off and back on the drives. Sorry for the confusion I caused.
That said: I’m still mystified by this problem. I have u/g’d Drobo Dashboard, the Drobo Firmware, and some apps (Plex) several times and had no problems. This past time, the DroboDashboard app. upgraded and afterwords I can only access Status, Capacity, and Shares on my 5N; Apps, Tools, and Settings are greyed out/ disabled. I’ve uninstalled/reinstalled Dashboard, restarted my computer, and restarted (including unplugging) my 5N appliance. Still: nothing makes Status, Capacity and Shares active.
This 5N appliance (w/5, 3T drives) is a dedicated media server. I’m serving a lot of Plex media, and also using it as a repository for backups. I’m still able to view media from the Plex app. on the Roku - so the app. is there and working. Its just that I can’t access the Drobo Apps or Settings via Dashboard.
Again: thanks in advance for ANY help/suggestions you can provide…
Don -
Thanks for your insight, assistance, support and patience. I feel like such a rod. You were correct, after all: I needed to sign it at the Admin level and everything came back to life.
It seems you’ve managed to solve both my home and work problems.
Again: my apologies for being - apparently - so stupid; I’ve worked in IT for almost 20 years, I should know better than this. And thanks again for being decent and humane (and not insulting or flaming). I’ve got all my Drobo problems fixed now and I have you to thank.
Hi Rick,
no worries, aren’t we all always learning day to day. 
Hey me too, running Plex Server on my Drobo. And having access to the Plex Server on my iMac, iOS devices and a Samsung TV.
By the way, not sure about your Plex setup. Here’s another tips to share with fellow Plex Server DroboApp users.
Although Drobo Dashboard has Plex DroboApp listed under the “DroboApps” section. But it is not always up-to-date with the package from Plex.tv. It can be a few version behind.
Personally, I manually install or update to the version direct from Plex.tv website.
The “downside” of manually using the version from Plex.tv, is that Drobo Dashboard “DroboApps” section will not “recognize” this version number from Plex.tv. Dashboard will then simply listed that there is an updated for Plex. Of cos’ this is not true, and if you do click the update button in Dashboard… it will then roll-back to the Drobo Dashboard Plex version.
Yes, and thanks for the continuing concern; it was actually that manual update stuff that I was trying to get to the apps and settings stuff to begin with. So: once I reestablished the admin login, yes, I had a Plex update I needed to install (place the downloaded .tgx file in DroboApps file, restart. So I think I’m back in business; but thanks again for getting me past that login problem; I should’ve known that, I’m smarter than that (I guess: I had to create the Admin sign-in when I did initial setup, but I don’t recall having to have done it in intermediate installs of DashBoard). Anyway: its fixed, thanks again, you’re a good egg.