Issues using services and then trying to play a video file

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Streaming
1

I posted this in the wrong forum , so here goes again…

if I use any services (netflix / BBC IPlayer etc) and then later on , go and try an play ANY video file from my media servers , I get the ‘orange circle of death’ (Loading file).

I then have to power the unit off and on again for the video files to be played again.

As long as I avoid any services , the player has no issues at all.

 WDTV Live with latest firmware installed.

2

This is curious. Did you encounter the same behavior on an older firmware revision?

Regards,

3

This is a well known ‘feature’ of the latest firmware. The apps badly leak memory so giving u the never ending revolving circle of wait when u then try and play a video. I think it cannot allocate buffers and the error handling fails rather than displaying a nice clean low memory error. Your solution (hard reboot) is the only fix I have used it seen. So join all of us waiting for a fix!

4

@Trancer , No , it only happened in the latest firmware.

5

Ps: when u say “power unit off” u mean a long press power off or Setup/System/Device Restart? Not pulling power cable out! - something to avoid if possible.

To end the never ending arrow, use blue home button as stop button does not seem to work in these situations.

6

I had the same problem I have been rebooting my system, reset everything and whenever I was connecting to inetrnet via wifi, the problem occurs, I could not play videos or films. The orange circle appears and I could not have it worked unless  I reboot my system. Then I realized that everything was working properly when I was not connected to internet. So from now on I am connecting to internet once in while in order to get movie descriptions, or Netflix or ect.  and when this is done well I am cancelling my network address… to have my media player working properly.

It is too bad that we have to use such media player partially.

Regards,

7

I am sure some apps (certainly iPlayer and Youtube) leak like a sieve but if u find just being connected to Internet and doing film Meta data fetches also causes u problems then please report this as I have not heard people mentioning this before.

I suspect if u connect, but just don’t run apps, your movie playing will be OK - well as good as it gets given the known MP4 bug!! If u still get problems after doing meta data fetches then report on here, with a brand new shiny posting for WD’s attention.

I would hope they already know about this and are testing the fix… but it has been almost 3 months since last release and I wonder if there will ever be a fix before they drop support altogether. Sigh.

8

I’m starting to wonder if it’s just that the player isn’t releasing memory allocated to load the apps under services when they are exited.

9

Wullail wrote:

I’m starting to wonder if it’s just that the player isn’t releasing memory allocated to load the apps under services when they are exited.

 

Yes, that’s what most of us around the forum have meant  with the use of the phrase “memory leak”.   That whatever code is supposed to cause the system memory to be freed up when you exit an app is broken.  It’s particularly bad with the YouTube Leanback app, but people are saying it happens to some extent with all of the apps (that’s circumstantial though–whereas the problems with the Leanback app seem universal and pretty much anyone can prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt with a single use by logging in, linking to a YouTube account–ESPECIALLY the version where you start the playback on your desktop, then playing some longer videos).

Here’s a entry in the “WD Ideas” area that tech support actually seems to see. Go there if this bug really bothers you and give a Thumbs up using the Blue Arrow on the left side to let WD know you agree this needs to be addressed (you can also add comments on the bottom).

http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-TV-Ideas/Fix-the-memory-leaks-which-started-in-Firmware-2-02-32/idi-p/812435