Streaming and now new Live Media Player not able to boot on Samsung TV

Hi, Folks. I hope I’ve put this post in the right area.

Anyway, I’ve had a WDTV Live Streaming unit for a while now and it has worked fantastically with my Samsung TV (series 7) up until the other day. After turning it on, the player would attempt to boot up, get to the splash screen where it says ‘loading’ (or connecting to network…can’t remember) and then crashes and starts the whole cycle again and just continues in that everlasting loop, never reaching the actual ‘home page’, until I just have to unplug the power to stop it.

I thought that maybe the unit had given up the ghost, so I went out and brought a brand new WD TV Live Media Player, but that did exactly the same thing! I thought it had to be the TV, and I rang Samsung who did a remote diagnostic on the TV. The outcome of that was they said the HDMI port wasn’t picking up any signal and referred me to a local service company who were going to come around and fix it. However, as it is out of warranty now (by two months…although I’m still covered by the Consumers Act here in NZ), I don’t want them to do any work on it as I don’t want to pay for it (I paid a few thousand for the flippen TV just over a year ago, so I’m not paying any more!). So I’m hoping some smart person here can help me do some more troubleshooting on it.

Here’s why: I was convinced it was the TV, but then I plugged a unit into my other TV – a Samsung, also – and the TV couldn’t even find a signal.

Any idea of what I could try next? I was wondering if I could connect it directly to my PC to test it out on a third monitor that wasn’t a Samsung TV! But my monitor doesn’t have an HDMI port. Only my computer tower does, but I’m not sure that has anything to do with displaying the content of the unit on my PC monitor?? What would that HDMI port be for? Anyway, a bit of a novice here, so if you could speak in layman’s terms, that’d be great.

I hope I’ve been clear, but please ask me anything and I’ll try to answer.

Thanks again,

Michaela

did you try a different HDMI cable ?

is it possible to try the “New” WDTV at the store where you bought it ?

it it possible to try the WDTV on a friend and family members TV [pref not Samsung]?

taking HMDI out of the equation [just to see if the wdtv will work at all]
… did you try connecting the WDTV via Composite ?

(the Red,White,Yellow cable that came with the new wdtv)

Hi, Joey.

Yes, tried a different HDMI cable. I had thought about taking it back to the store and getting them to hook it up, so thanks for the backup there. Yeah, my daughter has a non-Samsung TV, so I’ll try that tomorrow (good idea). Yes, I tried the composite (although I think it was marked as component on my TV, but it was definitely the red, white and yellow ports). I’ll get back to you tomorrow, Joey, once I get to try it out on my daughter’s TV.

Thanks for the fast reply.

:grinning:

Me

Hi, again, Joey.

So, an update. Yesterday I took the unit to the retailer I purchased it from. I asked them to hook it up to one of their TVs and show it working for me. They didn’t want to do that. Exact words were, “I’ve got nothing to connect it to”, while I looked around at the thirty TVs around the shop…lol. He was happy to take it for me and let their tech guy sort it. He reckons it probably just needs a firmware update to fix it. But I’m not sure.

I then took it to my daughter’s house and hooked it up there to a Veon TV. No signal detected. So now I’m thinking it has to be the unit rather than the TV’s HDMI port?? What do you think?

Is there any way I can update the firmware using USB by connecting the unit to my pc? And if so, is there an online guide for that? What would you suggest for my next step?

Me
p.s. Happy New Year! (in NZ, it’s the 1st already :grinning:)