Clip Zip Stuck on a Green Screen

I think it’s time to call SanDisk Tech Support. You may need a replacement unit under the warranty.

al you have to do is get the new firmware at the scandisk site.

get your firmware at their web site scandisk.

Just get your firmware at the scandisk site.

Is there an echo in here? :confounded:

And on a year-and-a-half old thread? :neutral_face:

I thought I’d note, don’t give up on this if you have this problem. I figured my player was dead, since it had gone green screen all the time, and the computer couldn’t see it when it was plugged in. I was going to call customer service to see if anything more could be done, but then noticed, out of the blue, the player, which had been connected to the computer all night with a green screen, had turned off the screen. I turned it on, and it showed the USB plug graphic indicating it was plugged in, with the battery charging animation. However, there were no words on the screen. I used other buttons to navigate, and it navigated among screens and menus, but with no words anywhere.

If you get to this state, your Sandisk Sansa window should be up on the computer, too. If so, don’t unplug the player! Go get the firmware MANUAL updater from Sandisk, download, extract, and move it to the root directory of the player. Then when it’s done transferring, unplug, wait for it to turn off, and turn it back on again according to the manual update instructions. This worked for me. The player seems to be working again.

…that’s the important stuff. But I should mention there were two further steps in this saga before I got there. The plugged in screen showed up, I looked around on the player, then tried to use the Firmware Update link on the Sandisk Sansa window that comes up automatically when the player is plugged in. This did not work - it gave me a file not found error. I downloaded and ran the Firmware Updater Installer, but running it did absolutely nothing. Finally, I decided to try a normal reset. I unplugged the player, and pressed the power switch to turn it off. It went green screen again. And stayed. I decided to give it another chance with similar circumstances to revive as it had before, and a few hours later, again without warning, it did. At that point I was ready with the manual update .bin file and the instructions on the website. And it seems to have worked. So… DON’T unplug the player if you’ve got it to be noticed by the computer again after a green screen failure!

My process:

  1. make sure player is charged

  2. connect to PC and format the player’s internal memory

  3. perform a manual update

  4. unplug and give nature a chance to take its course

My update was the result of installing Rockbox, but I don’ think it’s necessary if you don’t want to.

I still have this problem and I dont know what to do. I cant reinstall the firmware because the player doenst get recognized by my pc. reset didnt do anything, neither did msc mode. nothing but a green screen all the time.

You tried holding down the center button while connecting the player to the pc?

Yes. That’s what MSC mode is, isn’t it?

ANother thing I’ve tried now is leaving it on and letting the battery drain. but when i power it back on it’s still the same green screen.

If you plug it into a cell phone charger and turn it on, I guess you also get the green screen?Did you try giving it a long charge with a cell phone charger? If you can’t boot it completely to format the player, and can’t get it to connect, then there isn’t much else you could try.

If there was a card in the player, did you remove it, then try to turn it on, or to connect?

Tried charging with the mobile charger, didnt work. No card in the player.

I guess it’s time to give up. It’s a shame, I really liked this player…I think I’m like a month or two out of warranty, too. sigh.

You tried holding down the power button for over 30 seconds then tried to restart it? 

One last thing i thought of is to leave it on until the battery is exhausted, and it turns off on its own. Then you could try again to connect it to the pc while holding down the center button. If it connects, then format the player using your pc. give it a long charge, then disconnect it, and format the player again using the players menu. If it didn’t connect, then give it a long charge with a cell phone charger, then try to connnect it to the pc while holding the center button. If it still doesn’t connect, then hold down the power button for at least 30 seconds, then try to start it up. If it starts up, then format the player using the player’s menu. 

I can’t think of anything else to try, and if all those things don’t work, your player probably has a hardware problem.

Hi,

I had the Green Screen and managed to bring my Clip Zip back to life.

Having read all the forums and ideas/solutions, nothing worked with the various methods of resetting.or when connected to a PC.

So after hours of trying all the ideas from fellow users, I found the below to work, for me.

Plugged in my Clip Zip to a PC via USB (came up with green screen, of course)

Left it connected for about 2 hours, then the Zip came out of the green screen and showed connected. 

PC picked up the device and showed in explorer.

Removed my SD card ( still connected to PC )

Used the manual firmware update.instructions.

Once copied to device, removed cable.

Firmware started update, then switched off. 

Switch device on and no green screen!!

Then went through setting up device again, (Language, date/time etc…)

Changed USB setting to Auto detect.

Plugged back into PC

All my music/playlists were still on there.

Happy days!! :smiley:

Hope this helps for anyone else. 

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… but if computer doesn’t detect the device how can the firmware be reloaded on it?!?

Thanks, Bandy.
I was having similart problem and then saw that you just left it connected.  Left mine connected over night and viola, this morning the green screen is gone.  Loading the firmware update now…

Ken

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Amazing how these little critters sometimes come back to life after a brief rest!   :slight_smile:

I had the same issue and solved it the same way, but found a shortcut in that if I plugged my clip zip into my laptop when it was not on, it went directly into the menu. Not sure why the usb port did something to the clip zip when off, but it did. I then reset to factory defaults and reformatted all and it was ready to connect to the laptop when on.

Me to, my clip zip is had green screen problem, and i have to conected to my laptop almost 2 days and night, and the green is still not gone.
Hope it will be fixed like you guys,