WD Freezes with spinning wheel Options

[WDUser]

Yup, we've had numerous reports of late of these players freezing completely and requiring a full reboot (cold boot by removing power cord and reinserting) and possibly even a hard reset before they work again after encountering a "bad" file. Unfortunately we haven't managed to figure out yet what exactly is "bad" when it comes to those files. I don't know if anyone's bothered to send samples to WD, but unless someone does so, how can they develop a fix (or at least try to do so)?

[Techflaws]

The LIVE does handle PGS (which are in fact SUPs) subs. The spinning wheel appears which EACH file as soon as a messed up MKV has been played back. After a power cycle you'll be able to playback those regular files again.

[WaynesNside]

If your MKVs have no sound run them through the Popcorn MKV converter program. It's free and anytime I have an issued with a MKV sound or video I use it and it fixes the file for me.

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/PopCorn_MKV_AudioConverter

[wasim274]

The LIVE does handle PGS (which are in fact SUPs) subs. The spinning wheel appears which EACH file as soon as a messed up MKV has been played back. After a power cycle you'll be able to playback those regular files again.

Not sure whether you are replying to my issue but thanks anyway. Does LIVE handle PGS in MKV files? If it does it may solve a lot of problems for me. For example, I'm finding that when I've converted the PGS files to .srt there are sometimes sound synch problems. How do I get LIVE to run the PGS (SUPs) in mkv file?

[wizzfizz]

THIS!

I have exact same problem and its been shitting me for weeks. The only reason I got this player was because I was sick of all the fiddling around to get the ps3 streaming working correctly.

Now this standalone media player that I bought can't even play media! What junk!

I might just put it on eBay and buy a Popcorn hour or something.

[Rev Drew]

??

great first post.

sell it, we aren't WD and honestly we could care less if you run over it with your mom's car or keep it.
if you explain YOUR problem, we may even try to help you too.

"THIS!" doesn't tell us squat about the issue you think you may have.
since you're to lazy to spell it out, I don't feel the need to try to be polite with my response.

[highway]

I am having this same problem. . .

I tried playing a movie on my WD Live and I saw the spinning wheel. I tried several other movies / drives / etc. to no avail.

I returned my device to best buy for a new one -- I had store credit, so I got the WD Live Plus. As soon as I bring it home and fire it up, the same spinning wheel happened.

I thought it was a HDMI cable, so I swapped those, and when I tried playing from a flash drive, the movie worked. I stopped it, tried other drives, and nothing.

I found this thread, and saw that the issue is something with the wd_tv folder, so I deleted that, it didn't work, so now I am trying it again with the same drive I primarily use and new media to play.

-----

So I deleted the wd_tv folder, and have been unplugging the power after use -- I don't trust the thing to not overheat -- and this time it went along and worked as it should, playing XviD/.AVI files. . .

I am going to load some new .MKV/HD/SD encodes on, and see how those work -- hopefully a few of those files were just picky. If this thing is cranky about ALL .MKV files, I am going to have a serious issue!

[highway]

This device is such a piece of shit. It worked OK for a day, then I load some new stuff to watch, and it's back to the spinning wheel all over again. I'm on the latest firmware, and don't know what else to do. I will probably sit on this for a few weeks to see if anything changes, but will most likely exchange it for a better product.

[Rev Drew]

try different drives, preferably an external USB drive with it's own power supply, USB powered drives are shit and you will get all kinds of problems with them.

before you start to fill a drive, format it first, RTFM as to what format depending on what type of computer you use..

obviously since you have had 2 different player with the same problem the odds are it's something else..

[WaynesNside]

Guys my wd works just fine, try this.

I have an external drive connected to my wd and it's networked to my comp through my router.

I test out all of my mkv's first before I move them to my hard drive to make sure they work then copy/paste them over. I keep the file on my computer though, then once it's on the wd I test it again. If for any reason it doesn't work I delete it.

I then go back to the file on my comp and run it through the popcorn converter, once done I move it to the drive with the wd again and it almost always works.

I only move one file at a time, if one it's bad you won't know which one it is.

Maybe that will help out.

[highway]

Here we go, I think this is the OFFICIAL solution for now:

I think I can help on this. I've had this problem for 2 weeks and even sent mine back for an RMA only to find the same problem. Basically about 3 weeks ago, when I'd try to load a MKV file, it'd sit at the spinning circle. Trying to play older files that worked previously would also get the spinning wheel. If I did a hard reset, my older mkvs would play but a new mkv would start the problem.

The problem is that the newer versions of mkvmerge (either 4.0 on or 4.1 on) do some header compression. If the player plays an MKV created with the newer versions, it'll crap it out. So to fix, use MediaInfo to check the version of mkvmerge your file was made with. If it's with a 4.x version, use the MKV merge program to remux it:
- on each tracks/chapters & tags line, highlight it, choose the "extra options" tab and under compression choose "none".
- Then hit the "start muxing" button and it'll remux it.

There's some other files that will automate the process and all this info is posted on other WDTV boards, but I figure cross linking is frowned upon.

Scott

Copy and pasted from the above link -- I have used it on one movie so far -- and I have been able to stop/start/etc without issue. I will try this on some other videos and post back!

-----

Detailed tutorial: http://wdtvhd.com/index.php?showtopic=18896

Reason for edit: Edited external link and added link to tutorial

[harrybuckman]

the problem is corrupt files (most likely from not ejecting the drive properly). I own 3 wdtv lives and I have corrupted an external drive once. All the files ended up corrupted (but they will play on a pc). You could transfer the files to flash drives and they still would not play on any of the 3 wdtv's. It you take new copies of the exact same files and reformat you drive they will work (99%).

Cheers

[Baltizaar]

I am not sure if this has been said before - but I seem to be having success with a solution from another forum - all I did was turned off the "Share WDTV on your network" and it looks like it is working now.

Hope this helps

[MattL]

Has anyone come up with a solution for this? I got my WDTVLive about a month ago.... and have had the spinning wheel issue for a couple of weeks now. (i.e. I can play ONE movie - but then have to pull the plug in order to view another one)

I've tried all the suggestions I've found in the various forums (other than going for a custom firmware) and nothing has helped. I've spoke to WD tech support who advised rolling back to the previous firmware but that hasn't helped either.

For the two weeks that it worked it was great! I think I'm going to have to send it back if its not resolved soon - and it looks like people have been reporting this issue for over a year.

What have other people done? Are you living with this the issue, or moved on to a different box? In which case - which box would you reconmend?

Thanks!

[Rev Drew]

I have had a live for quite a while now and in fact have never experienced the issue of the spinning wheel.

I do use WDLXTV firmware as the stuff WD puts out is garbage in comparison in my opinion.

As has been mentioned several times, this 'may' cure your issue, then again it may not but is worth a try.

I think the header compression issue has been resolved with some of the newer firmware but for the 10 minutes it takes (start to finish) it's worth the effort.

http://wdtvhd.com/index.php?showtopic=18896

[thomastemp]

it's not the MKV file issue. My wdtv live developed the spinning wheel problem recently.

I've tried various official firmwares, 3rd party firmwares, play over network share, over usb drive, various file format (say MKV, .avi and .ts files), all get same problem.

So I thought it could be hardware issue and repleced my device. However, the brand new live has exactly same problem.

Very annoying.

[Rev Drew]

more than 1 unit, same issue with the same files tells me you need to have a closer look at your files or the drive(s) they are on.

[bumpyballs]

I am not sure if this has been said before - but I seem to be having success with a solution from another forum - all I did was turned off the "Share WDTV on your network" and it looks like it is working now.

Hope this helps

+1, this worked for me as well.

[CDW]

Anyone have any updates on this issues?

I have the same problem with Live Plus and Live Hubs. Pause and continue does not work and always has to resart. It has to be an ethernet problem. As long as I have network (hard wired) hooked up I have problems. The only way I can avoid these problems is to DL the movies using the network then uplug ethernet and restart. It works fine again until I hook up to the network. This is the same for Live Plus and Live Hub. It seems to me that this is a network issue....

[Tsioangyo]

I have the same problem with Live Plus and Live Hubs. Pause and continue does not work and always has to resart. It has to be an ethernet problem. As long as I have network (hard wired) hooked up I have problems. The only way I can avoid these problems is to DL the movies using the network then uplug ethernet and restart. It works fine again until I hook up to the network. This is the same for Live Plus and Live Hub. It seems to me that this is a network issue....

It's the same for me...