Ok, so stage 1 in investigating my WDTVLive freezing issue - I checked this morning, the WDTV Live had been on all night, not in standby, and the freezing issue was in effect and no files will play. While it’s in this state, lets get some data to see if anything affects this.
Note: my standard setup is as follows:
- WDTV Live 2.02.32
- USB 2.0 2.5 external drive, formatted to HFS
- TV on HDMI port
- WiFi networking (mainly to admin files on the drive without disconnecting it)
- 3 Hour energy save is turned OFF (we still get bug)
- Media Library ON
- Get Content Info AUTO
In the buggy state:
When you attempt to play a file, it results in a black screen with the orange turning arrow indefinitely. You can BACK to the menu and try a different file, with the same result. Other than media playback, the WDTVLive box functions normally in this state.
In this state:
- What files will play on the WDTVLive?
None.
Video - No mp4, m4v, mkv video files will play.
Pictures - no JPG images will display (eg in photo view, or files view)
Audio - no audio will play.
In the test state, the WDTVLive had been on all night, not in standby. It was barely warm, kept on it’s side away from walls in a coolish room and therefore well ventilated.
Turned Wifi off by turning off the router, verified the WTVLive had no network connection. Files still won’t play.
Accessed the WDTVLive share over WiFi from my Mac, and accessed the drive. The files could be played by my computer, so the WDTVLive can still access, load and stream the files on it’s local drive to the network.
Ejected the drive, unpluggged and replugged. Waited until it was available, then tried to play a file - still won’t play.
Repeated this and tried it in the front USB port instead. Still won’t play.
Put an mp4 and mkv file on a USB flash drive, also HFS formatted, inserted into the front USB slot. Neither file would play. Reformated this to FAT32 and tried again. Still won’t play.
–
So, in summary, once this buggy state has been triggered (we don’t know what triggers it at this stage), the WDTVLive will not play *any* media content, but otherwise performs normally.
This doesn’t seem to be a function of the drive, the USB ports, the disk format, the networking setup, excess heat, or sleeping hardware.
The *only* thing that cures the issue is ejecting the drive, and then a device reboot, or cold boot.(Just turning the WDTVLive off, waiting and turning it on again will not fix the issue, the drive must be ejected before rebooting first).
Nothing else I have tried will get media content to play once in this buggy state.
It’s as if a dedicated hardware chip for content playback has gone offline, and nothing you can do short of a reboot will get it to function again.
Is there anyway to get access to some system log from the WDTVLive that might shed some light on the error condition or state?
So the next thing will be to try to narrow down what things cause or trigger the error condition, which is what I will take a look at next.
Any tips, advice, suggestions etc welcome, thanks.