Ok, I wasn't specific enough in my previous post, sorry about that.

My current theory is that the subtitles are not the real problem - it just happens to be the first thing one notices ("hey, why aren't there any subs?"). What I believe does happen, is that something goes wrong with the player during the processing of certain files, and as a result the UI function and subtitle display function locks up.

If you want, I can put one particularly troublesome file into Dropbox and send you the link as a private message. Or I can analyze the file and post the results (just tell me which tool to use for it, cos I'm not sure).

For the record, my playon works wonderfully with most files (I know you get a lot of flack on these forums, but I've really gotten a lot of enjoyment out of my little playon). Almost all my movie files have subtitles, and they usually work very well. I must say, though, that I'm not too keen on running any more experiments with various files, as they result in me having to pull the plug on the box and I suspect that's not healthy for the 3TB hard drive I have installed (and these disks don't come cheap anymore).

Thank you Mikael. The problem is solved by entering a fixed ip inside the POHD. I already gave the POHD a fixed ip inside the DHCP/router, but it didn't solve the problem of rebooting. The shortcuts work flawlessly now.

NFS also works, but you have to scroll through a few menu's first. Is it possible to create NFS-shortcuts in the home-menu?

@Mulholland: You confirm this is not a general problem and it seems to be your source (files) that causes these problems. If you want us to test your files you can upload to https://wetransfer.com/ and add "europe (at) acryan . com" as receiving email. We can then look and see what is causing this. Please also include correct steps to reproduce the problem and any information that we might require.

@Mostie: Sounds good that it seems to work now! If you want to add a shortcut, simply select the folder you want to access to by pressing 'Menu' and then 'Add to shortcuts'.

Br,

I usually run with subtitles on. Most of my subtitles are SRT but I do have SUB/IDX too.
My experience is the PLAYONHD does not always notice the SUB/IDX files and pretends there are no subtitles available when you press the subtitle button. If you add SRT subtitles to the folder and start again the subtitles display and the subtitle menu shows SRT and SUB/IDX available and shows each of them correctly if selected manually.
The second part I observe subtitles failing during playback. In this case it is usually that the POHD has crashed and you either cant get control of it or it takes many minutes for the unit to respond to a button-press on the remote. I have bittorrents turned off and media scaning turned off. I have Samba on and generally play media from a USB drive. The usual way to deal with this is to pull the power plug and re-boot from cold. This type of lock up happened in previous firmware but in this release it seems very common.
The issue is not bad subtitle files, the problem occurs at random, not at any particular location in the playback and other media players work flawlessly if I transfer the whole folder to them.

I second this. With 5440 I always had speeds around 3-4 MB/s (copying files over a wired connection using Samba). After upgrading to 7317 speeds went down to around 1-1.5 MB/s. I just downgraded again to 5440 and speeds are back to 3-4MB/s.

We share the same experience, then. So far, I've only noticed the problem with older files (I've been collecting stuff for a long time) encoded with xvid. Is this the same for you, or have you also encountered problems with other encoding formats?

@Mikael: Files are being transferred as I write this. It's a pretty weird documentary, but just ignore the content if you don't like it and see if it plays correctly on your hardware

Most of my stuff is H.264/DTS/SRT @720p in MKV about 10% have IDX/SUB. I always keep an external SRT if I have one because if I use the media player function of my TV it does not 'see' subtitle files unless they are external.

When will we get an update that fixes the problem that you cant choose play all. now you can only choose repeat all. ????? a mediaplayer that cant play all files in an album is stupid. FIX IT !!!

Ahh, just to make sure we're talking about the same issue: I substitute spaces with dots (meaning I have "Horizon.2012.Truth.about.exercise" instead of "Horizon 2012 Truth about exercise"), and from what I understand this can sometimes make it so that the player cannot display the subtitles. That's annoying, but as you say one can work around it.

But so far, the only files that actually cause my playon to lock up and become unresponsive are older xvid encodes. I prefer subs, but can live without them. The box locking up is very problematic, as I can no longer pause playback or rewind if I need to hear a sentence one more time, and as noted earlier I'm very squeamish about pulling out the power cord (maybe in reality it's not all that harmful to the hard drive, but I still very much dislike doing it. Just a pet peevee of mine).

So, although I started talking about subs, my main mission now is to try to narrow down which files causes the playon to lock up so that AC Ryan can hopefully fix this problem. I have many, many older files and would like to know if there is a pattern as to which files are "safe" to play and which are not.

@Mulholland:

I've tested the file you sent together with the subs. I did reproduce the 'lock up' that you were talking about. I then removed the subs and the the file works fine even with fast-forwarding and rewinding.

I tried to repair this subtitle with 'subtitle workshop' (freeware - google) and it says the file is damaged and not able to repair it. We can't do anything about this. Our hardware mediaplayers are in general more sensitive to damaged subtitles than for instance software based players to a PC.

I would just get another subtitle source for this video file.

Br,