I just bought one of these and it’s exactly what I want (although mkv support would be nice, and no, before someone says the Mini doesn’t support HD, not all mkv files are HD!) but I knew it didn’t support mkv before I bought it, so I can’t complain.
Anyway, that’s not what my problem is. I have a WD 1TB HDD plugged in to the Mini, but going through the menu is a nightmare. I’ll select ‘Movies’ and the unit becomes unresponsive for between 1 to 3 minutes. I’ll then start to scroll down the list of movies, I’ll maybe scroll down 2 or 3 of them then it sticks again, this time up to 4 minutes. I’l select a movie to play, it starts playing, but again the unit doesn’t respond to button presses on the remote. I thought it may be the sheer amount of files on the drive as I also use the HDD with XBMC on my PC, so for each film, there is cover art, fan art and a nfo file. So I got my little 20gb drive with 1 film and 1 music album and I still have problems with the unit sticking. One thing I noticed, but don’t know if it’s important, is that usually, activity lights on drives tend to flicker where as this is constantly on on both the HDD and the WD TV Mini. Please, does anyone have a solution as it’s a great wee machine, but the menu system is annoying the hell out of me and I’m about to just give up and send it back.
The Mini player does not create an index on your drive like the Live and Live + units so it will slow down to scan media. Did this problem happen immediately, or did it happen after some use? Please also try resetting the unit.
Are your files in individual folders? might be worth trying that out.
mine does the same with a 750GB WD Essential SE plugged to it. I have a lot of files in there so it takes a while to load the list up and another while to scroll. if you let it ‘think’, it’ll sometimes move along. other times it’ll just give up and turn itself off. i was kinda hoping this is a firmware issue and not a hardware capability problem
It’s going back to the seller! I recieved two possible solutions from the support guys at WD not including the one above, but unfortunately, everything I tried, failed to make a difference. I even tried it with a 20gb drive and a 4gb pen drive and had the same issue with all of them, even though I only had arounfd10 files on them, it would still stick for anywhere between 30 seconds to 3 to 4 minutes! I’m planning on just having it replaced with another one, as I’m hoping it’s just a dodgy unit, but I’m worried that it is hardware and will do the same again! I’m not a huge amount out of pocket, but I’m starting to think the next model up would have been a better buy. I think they create an index file and don’t have to scan the HDD everytime you do something.
Just to clarify on the problems, they are-
Not responding well to pressing the power button. This takes quite a few attempts before either the unit or the HDD come to life.
Sticking whilst going through menus (approx 2-3 minutes), then quite often sticking again for a slightly longer period.
Taking approximately 3 minutes after starting a movie, before the unit responds to any button presses.
I can leave the unit to become responsive in the menu screen, then all I have to do is go back or forward a folder and it sticks all over again.
Things I’ve tried-
Hard reset
Software reset
Upgrading Firmware
Using a smaller drive (20gb externat HDD and a 4gb pen drive)
different HDD file systems (FAT32 and NTFS)
Less files (I even tried just having 1 movie and 1 music album)
Anyway, hopefully it is just a problem with that individual unit and that the replacement works.
I took it out one last time, just to make sure it wasn’t just me being stupid. To start with it was fine, then it started sticking. I then noticed that there didn’t seem to be any consistency with where and for how long it stuck. For a while nothing happened when I was pressing buttons, then just as I was lowering my hand, it worked, moved my hand and it stopped. At first I thought it may be wonky aiming LEDs, but generally they have quite a wide beam, so I knocked that idea on the head. Then I decided to try out a little trick I learned when messing about with IR LEDs. Using my camera phone, I looked for the LEDs to blink when I pressed the buttons. I got a very eratic result! I had decided early on it may be the remote, but the fact that it had new batteries and generally worked, sort of made me move away from that idea. Anyway, it looks like there’s a loose connection going on somewhere in my remote, because if it doesn’t work, give it a little shake and it works. I couldn’t be bothered to send it back, so soldering iron in hand, I opened it up and discovered it’s the ceramic resonator that’s bust, looks like I should have just sent it back!! I have a few old remotes kicking about, so hopefully one of those has a resonator that I can use as a replacment. Does anyone know if the resonator has a different frequency, whether that will be a problem?
Yeah, there will be problems… It’d be the same issue if your watch had a different freq. crystal oscillator in it. It’d keep CONSISTENT time, but it’d be WRONG (a second on the watch would be consistent from second to second, but would be longer or shorter than a standard second.)
Before you go nuts, just try calling WDC Tech Support and see what they can do for you. Sometimes they’ll replace hardware, even if it’s officially out of warranty (but the remote is the same across ALL the WDs). So, let them tell you NO before you get the sledge hammer out…
