Sansa Clip Zip Frozen on Boot (Flower) Screen

Hi,

I bought Sansa Clip Zip a day back. I used it for 1 hour and now it is frozen at boot (flower screen). Following are the events :

  • I unpacked the item, boot it and selected “Rest Of World”. It started all OK.

  • Since it did not have any songs, I inserted a pre-loaded 32 GB Micro SD card with MP3 and FLAC songs

  • First media refresh took just about 2-3 min

  • I played few MP3 songs and they played OK

  • Then I tried playing FLAC files and that when this funning thing started happening. When I selected 1 FLAC file or Play All option, the player just kept navigating through all the files without playing the selected song. I assumed it was trying to load the files in cache and hence left it to continue for 1 hour (knowing that FLAC files are large and complex data)

  • Nothing happened after 1 hour. I tried playing it again. Again the same story

  • So I shutdown the player and took off micro SD card and reboot the player. It rebooted OK.

  • Now I inserted the SD card again. But this time the refresh was not getting complete. It stayed on around 30-40% for long time

  • Again I reboot the player (left the SD card inside). However, this time the flower appeared twice and did not move and further and was frozen on the flower screen. I tried it multiple times, but no change. I left the player ON over night with the frozen flower to check if something happens. It was on the frozen flower screen in the morning as well.

I have checked multiple forums and tried all that have been proposed including Sandisk’s forum for reset etc.

Can someone help me please to resolve this issue? I have been waiting for Sansa Clip Zip for so long after reading all the music quality reviews etc. And now this is an issue.

Thanks for your help in advance.

Cheers

Vijay.

You need to see if it is recognized by the computer, remove the card, press and hold the center button while connecting to the computer. If this works, format the player, remove and see if it powers up. Then reconnect and put some files or albums in to the music directory by dragging in windows. Use only mp3 files and test. If all that works, the try some flac files. If none of this works, like you can’t get it to connect, you will need to contact Sansa for a return.

In a case like this you must isolate the problem. My guess it has something to do with the flac files but who knows?. Maybe there is some sort of bit rate problem.

You didn’t say anything about your FLAC files but note, the newer ‘high-def’ ones in 24-bit that you can download these days are not supported and the player will skip over them as you describe. These might also cause the hang-up in the database refresh. Only 16-bit FLAC files will work.

Dave, Thanks for your suggestions. But the player is not connecting to computer ( I tried various cables as well).

I bought this player as as manufacturer refurbished item from a eBay reseller 2 days back. Not sure if Sansa will entertain replacement. I’ll give it a try. Thanks.

Tapeworm, Thanks for your response. I have ripped them from CDs. But as you said rightly, it seemed that the player was skipping through when I tried playing them. Now the player is not even connecting to computer and hence cannot even reformat or load the firmware again. 

I seem to read about issues with FLAC files not infrequently here . . . .

@vrkaras wrote:

Dave, Thanks for your suggestions. But the player is not connecting to computer ( I tried various cables as well).

 

I bought this player as as manufacturer refurbished item from a eBay reseller 2 days back. Not sure if Sansa will entertain replacement. I’ll give it a try. Thanks.

No, SanDisk does not honor their warranties on ‘re-furbed’ units as they do not do the re-furbing, despite what the eBay description might imply. I would contact the seller about a return, another one, or refund.

I might also contact SanDisk regardless, which nonetheless could offer help–it sometimes has.

Old thread, I know.  But I’m having the same problem.  Tried all the tricks here.  Nothing works.

So I cracked the case and noticed that the battery is all puffed up.

Can I assume the battery is bad?

And if so, should I try replacing the battery to fix this thing?

Gotta have a Rockbox compatible player back! :slight_smile:

Yep, battery bad.

Yep, replace the battery if you want to continue using the player–there are various guides here or at the anythingbutipod.com Clip forums.

Thanks.  Will do.

I’m having mostly the same problem, though I wasn’t trying to play a FLAC file. I tried most of the suggestions, but to no avail. However, I bought my unit new, yet I don’t know who at SanDisk to contact regarding repare/replace. Can anyone give me that info?

https://www.sandisk.com/about/contact