WD TV LIVE does not play file until restart

Since I updated the firmware of my WD TV LIVE, I am experiencing a strange behaviour. Occasionally, when I try to play a file, the device cannot play it. The device does not really hangs, that is, by using BACK button I can go back to the list of files, but there is no way to play ANY of them. The problem is independent on the file. It occurs on ANY file, included those I already played in the past. If I restart (not necessarily reset) the device, the problem disappear until it occurs again. It could be in the same day or after a week. No way to know when.

This is the deal with ALL wdtv media players …

If you try to play a file that is not supported , corrupt or badly muxed

then all your “good” supported files will not play after that … until you reboot, or do a device ‘reset’ in the Setup > System > Device Reset

So what you need to do is isolate which file is giving the “not supported” error,  and fix it … or delete it and get another version.

This has *rarely* happened to me … but it happened a few days ago when friends were over

I clicked on AVI i recently downloaded … “Not Supported” error message appeared …

After that … my entire 4TB collection of movies refused to Play.

I got concerned about my 4TB … until i realised (remembered … it’s been a while) what had happened … rebooted the WDTV, did not Play the bad AVI file, tried playing my other movies … No problems.

Managed to the fix the bad AVI by remuxing it to MKV using MKVMerge … which played fine after that.

Problem solved.

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Thank you for the clear explanation. I just wonder why wdtv media behaves in that way. Is it something that they might fix in future by firmware? Really annoying.

it’s been happening since 2008 (WDTV Gen 1) … probably a limitation of error handling in the Sigma Designs decoding chip.

Not much you can do about it, accept double check that your media file are supported before playing them.

I always use mediainfo to examine files these days … but in saying that, i’ve (personally) only had this issue a dozen or so times over the last 5 years (of course, when checking the file … i discovered it was’nt supported)

mediainfo : https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo

Recent thing to “watch out for” is  HIgh10p (10 bit) and HEVC (h.265 / x.265) … both profile format / encoding [codecs] are *not* supported by *any* current WDTV Player

Just thought of an analogy …

Remember the old days of VHS and Beta Video Cassettes ?

You just got you VCR serviced and cleaned … then you went and rented a Movie from the Video Library

Popped it in, pressed “Play”  and all you got was a … fuzzy picture, rolling picture etc

Ejected the cassette … and put one (or a few) of your own “good / bought” ones in … and it did the same thing ?

So, you had to clean your VCR (again) … and then your good tapes played ok again

Pretty much the same situation as the WDTV … but thankfully, a simple Device Reset solves the problem

and of course with the VCR, you would’nt put the dodgy rental cassette back in to try it again (because it will dirty the video heads again and you’re back to the same problem)

ahh, the good 'ol days :wink:  (i don’t miss them)  :smileyvery-happy:

Its not just “bad” files that cause this.  I have had my player for nearly 3 years and it worked perfectly until about 2 months ago.  Whenever i switch it on and try to play any file (including files that have played perfectly fine for the last 3 years) it will not play anything until I restart the device.

This is very frustrating as it take several minutes to restart every time you turn it on.  There must be another fix for this and it cannot just be corrupt files as I cannot see how they could now be corrupt seeing as the player is plug into the same external drive it since I purchased the player.

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Sounds like bug #3.

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What does it mean “powercycle” mentioned in solution to bug #3?

“powercycle” means to completely power down your WDTV and reboot.

(switch off the WDTV … via the Remote Control, press and hold Power button for at least 5 seconds (this is a ‘complete shutdown’) … wait a few seconds, then power back on.

of course, “powercycle” could mean this as well  :stuck_out_tongue:

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Does this “powercycle” (like the picture btw) solve the problem completely after doing it once or do you have to make sure you hold the power button down for 5 seconds everytime you turn the unit off to make sure that it closes down properly and will restart next time you turn it on without needed to restart?