Files won't play Options

[hrvoje42]

Yesterday it worked normally. Today I put USB with the file in the player and the file won't play. Sometimes is looks just like it's going to play the file, but the screen stays black, and sometimes it just shows that blue circle that means loading and that stays forever, nothing changes. I've tried with different file types (mkv, avi), different USBs, I formatted one USB from FAT32 to NTFS, i reset the device to factory defaults (a few times) and nothing works, the files still won't play. The device is about a year old and it has the latest firmware (which is also about a year old, but there's nothing newer). Does anybody know what the problem (and the solution) might be)?

[WDUser]

Hmm, wonder why the sudden rash of Gen. 1/2 users complaining about the same thing? Read this post and this one, both of which I just typed a while ago.

[hrvoje42]

Thanx for that, but as I see, there's still no solution to this problem yet... If nothing, I'll carry my WD to service, it should still be under guarantee, it's 2 years I think (if I can find my guarantee paper).

btw, where is the hard reset button? Is it that small hole on the left side, right of the USB jack?

And one other thing, which is the current version of firmware? On the forum it says 1.04.17, but on the downloads section, only 1.01.77 is available (released in December 2009)

[WDUser]

Yes, that is the hard reset switch/button. See manual for more.

1.04.17 is not meant for this model, look again. The latest official FW version for each model is always mentioned in red on the index page.

Also, before you ask, 1.01.79 is not available for download, but only pre-installed on later units sold in Europe.

You can check the warranty on WD's site and see if it's still valid.

[bumrocks]

A couple things I would recommend. First, leave the unit unplugged for 10+ minutes as WD suggests (most electrical devises only need about 30 seconds for such a reset but it appears that 10+ minutes is the key to success for this particular device...At least for me it was). Next, delete the .wd-tv folder in the root directory of your USB drive. Next, attempt to play a movie that you have played before with no issue. If it plays properly then problem is resolved. If you have a newer movie that seems to trigger this issue again then you have mkv header compression issue.

It is only recently that this issue has popped up for people because of a newer version of encoding software or something of that nature. Apparently, a newer version of an encoding program has an option to "Disable Header Compression" which is by default unchecked which is causing a rash of these encodes to come out. The users of this software are learning later that it is best for them to go back and check and enable this option.

In short...If you try to play a MKV with Compressed headers the WDTV will freeze at the loading screen and keep this information in its ram making it impossible to play any files whatsoever until a reboot by pulling the power plug, which is why I recommend doing the steps I mention above.

Fixing this issue is a whole nother subject...If it is a file with compressed headers then the easiest thing to do is to remux the file. It is painless and literally only takes minutes to a 4.4 GB file. I will not go into all that unless requested...

Hope I helped or possibly someone else in the future!

//bum

[hrvoje42]

It is only recently that this issue has popped up for people because of a newer version of encoding software or something of that nature. Apparently, a newer version of an encoding program has an option to "Disable Header Compression" which is by default unchecked which is causing a rash of these encodes to come out. The users of this software are learning later that it is best for them to go back and check and enable this option.

I took my WD TV to service and I got new one today, I got WD TV Live, which is (I guess) even better the the WD TV 2nd generation, which I had before. So I must say I like the way that WD deals with it's customers, they're definitely a good company.

But now that I read your post (especially the quoted part), I'm worried... does this mean that my new WD TV Live might also have the problem with those newly encoded files? I know when the problem first appeared, I did unplug WD TV, but I'm not sure for how long... It probably wasn't 10 minutes, but I think it was longer then 30 seconds...

And one more thing, if I understood you correctly, the problem is that new software for encoding has that option disabled by default, and it has to be enabled manually to make files have no problems? Or is the problem in the program itself, and can't be removed with simple checking/unchecking of some box?

[WDUser]

@hrvoje42: There's a tutorial on this site for remuxing and getting rid of header compression. You however will probably not need it, since newer Live FW adds support for header compression. (BTW, if you have Live specific issues now, do post in the appropriate section.)

Also, yes, there still seem to be certain files that really mess up the Live just like the older models. There are many posts re. this issue, and only when those files are deleted and after hard resets, unplugging for 30 mins. etc. does the player work again.