The way the autoscan function works has changed during the development of the SDK's and Firmwares. That's the reason why you are getting different results on different firmwares. If you cannot fix this issue with r5440 try another firmware and if you cannot fix it you can switch the unit and get a replacement. There might actually be something wrong with the player itself as you describe it.

br,

If it were just me i'd probably suspect the same but,

1, others are struggling with the same issues...and

2, with the initial firmware i havent had a single freeze, reboot, and certainly no loops.

It just works without error 100% of the time, so it cannot possibly be my hardware.

I'd actually be happy enough with the initial firmware release if the subtitle options were better, as it stands though you cannot even default them to "off".

I will not accept that hardware is faulty when it hasnt skipped a beat with the original software though...and having flashed back to the initial firmware without issue about 6 times only reaffirms this for me.

On a side note, another issue i came across before the boot looping started with this firmware(worked for about 20 mins before it went crazy on me) is that when watching some mkv files with embedded subtitle files, there are random cases of words being joined by "/n"....for example "he/nwas in the kitchen". This is the same as it was with the initial firmware too, this is somehting which i am suprised still exists all these firmwares later.

I feel compelled to let others know of my frustration with r5440 (and its predecessors r5311 and r4585). I attempted to go from r3966 to r5440 only to experience the endless reboot loop described by others. When I tried to revert to r3966, which had worked well for me for a long time, the problem persisted. I even went back to r1731 in desperation. Still looping, even though I followed the advice of others, and deleted the \.Theater folder prior to flashing every time. It didn't work for me.

What I have discovered is that there is a small window of time during the reboot loop when the Home screen is displayed and when the HD2 will respond to the Setup key. Doesn't work every time, but can generally get it within about 3 loops.

Once in Setup can Clear History, and turn Autoscan Off. The HD2 can then be restarted successfully. Thereafter can put Autoscan On (versions up to and including r3966 only) and it will work once again.

It is my experience that r4585 and more recent are entirely unusable due to the rebooting loop.

Hallo,

we are quite sure this (reboot loop issue) is related to the .THEATER folder and the scanning option. Please do note that the .THEATER folder is still there from previous scanning procedures in older firmwares. This means that if you upgrade to r5440 in safe-mode for example the system will be reset and autoscan is default off - however it will still automatically load the database if .THEATER is present on either the internal HDD and/or the USB Stick you flashed the unit with.

It is correct that the player tries to populate the database and the recently added movies/music in the main menu. Now while it's trying to display these results the player will reboot. We found for now that for example a specific filename in combination with the ID3 Tags will cause this. As example:
A file called '05-burial-endorphin.mp3' which is UTF-16 / UTF-8 tagged will cause the player to reboot. We also noticed that this happens with movie files. At this point we have forwarded this problem to our developers and we are investigating this issue to find the exact cause of this.

If you have deleted the .THEATER folder on the HDD and it still reboots i would suggest you check the RECYCLE.BIN folder as well. Please remove this folder from the HDD as well if it's present (therefore you need to turn 'show hidden files/folders' to on in windows).

Otherwise you will have to use an older firmware for now as we do not have another solution at this point.

NOTE: the reason why it works on older firmwares might be that we didn't include UTF-16 support yet so this might be an issue.

best regards & sorry for the inconveniences!

Hi Arne,

There is no 'log' mode available so it is difficult for we users to help you identify files which might be causing a problem, but it has occurred to me that if I was to examine the SQLite database after a crash the offender might be the last file added (if they are in natural order) or perhaps the likely next one.

Cheers and thanks for your interest.

Thank you for responding to the stability of the initial firmware release, and explaining why this might be.

Could you look into the subtitle problem i questioned 4 posts back though....where it keeps joining words with "/n"? This doesnt happen with all subs, but certain types which are embedded within mkv files i assume.

If the subtitlle issue gets fixed and the reboot loop gets sorted i will be very happy with the player as its otherwise a great bit of hardware.

Oh and the file moving causing the boot loop problem too.

I guess nobody else is using the SPDIF out to see this bug or whatever it is. Downgrading to r5311 fixed the problem so I know it isn't my HD2 or receiver, but the firmware.

I sent an e-mail to the bug tracker on this.

I also now have a reboot loop.

Player was working ok, so I left it overnight copying a few video files over from USB and turned the TV off.

Turned the TV on this morning but there was no video output, not a thing. The power button the device was unresponsive so I had to pull the jack plug out the back to kill the power.

Now the device is stuck in a reboot look. I see the splash screen, wait for the device to boot, the main menu appears briefly and then it reboots again.

Scanning was completely disabled prior to this issue and history cleared.

How do you suggest I go about resolving?

Hi,

there is a minor bug in the playback of surround files via SPDIF connection. On first boot when Audio SPDIF Option is set to 'passthrough' you will hear no sound (signal is not initialized).

Workaround: press 'Setup' and switch the SPDIF Audio Setting to 'LPCM'. Than press 'Return'. You will have now sound downmixed in stereo. Now go back into SETUP and switch the SPDIF Audio Option to 'passthrough' again. Press 'return' and from now on the signal is built up correctly again. This applies to the current session only which means that you have to switch between LPCM / Passthrough again after you reboot the unit. This issue has been reported and we are awaiting a fix.

best regards,

Hi,

can you switch off the player, remove the HDD from the EZ-Drive Slot and restart it? If it's still rebooting there's something wrong with the Software - in that case re-install it.
If you can start now it is most likely related to the same issue as described in my post above.
Connect it to the PC and really make sure there is no .THEATER folder neither on the internal HDD or on a USB Stick plugged into the player.
This is something alot of people forget - if you flash the firmware from a USB Stick with a .THEATER folder the player will read its contents on boot even though autoscan function is turned OFF!

best regards,