My sandisk sansa clip zip keeps shutting down or turning off after what seems to be certain songs are played and I have to reset it to be able to turn it on again. There is on song that even if it is the first played when the song finishes the player shuts down and has to be reset. I thought it was just that one song until it shut down after a different song. I purchased new off ebay in June of this year, do I just need to send it in for repair or? I downloaded the updater so should have latest firmware.
Sounds like there’s something about the song (format, ID3 tags, etc.) that the player doesn’t like. Maybe if you tell us a bit about the ones that cause this, someone can offer a suggestion.
The song it always shuts down on was a clip from youtube as others that cause no problems are, downloaded and converted to MP3 using Freemake converter as others causing no problem are. It doesn’t shut down until song has completely played then it shuts down and has to be reset.
I’ve got the same trouble : since a couple of month, my sansa clip zip 8go (buy in January 2013) turns off after a randon time (10 or > 60 min) or at the end of a song. The only way to make it work again is to do a reset (press power button more than 10s).
I have tried :
- different song (MP3, FLAC)
- with or without a micro sd card
- with firmware 01.01.20 and 01.01.21
My player is under warranty, should I return it to be fix ?
The Sandisk AAC decoder is kind of buggy, so probably it chokes on Youtube AAC files. If you want to use AAC, I’d recommend sticking to iTunes sourced ones, as those tend to be the most widely tested and best supported.
@saratoga wrote:
The Sandisk AAC decoder is kind of buggy, so probably it chokes on Youtube AAC files. If you want to use AAC, I’d recommend sticking to iTunes sourced ones, as those tend to be the most widely tested and best supported.
Good thought, except that the posters are talking about non-aac files. 
Are the ID3 files in the problematic files ok and in a format the Clip likes? Oftentimes, files with lots of tag info. (such as in the Comments field) can choke the Clip–stripping those fields can clear matters up. MP3Tag is a good freeware tag editor, available online, to do this and otherwise.
The Clip likes the ID3v2.3 ISO-8859-1 format setting for tags. You can open your files in MP3Tag and then save them again with MP3Tag set to ID3v2.3 ISO-8859-1. This simple step sometimes can do the trick.
I did a reset and downgrade to the firmware 01.01.20 and it seems to be ok : my clip zip turns off only one time this week instead of 2-3 times a day !
All my songs are tagged with Tag&Rename in ID3v2 tag format.
Great to hear! 
The same problem started happening to me but now it is so common it is impossible to use the player. It started powering off after pressing some button, not it does it all the time by itself.
Can I format it via PC to see what happens ? Though it has all the looks of being a unit problem.
Edit. I could format it via the player and the problem persist. How is the RMA situation ? How long does the player have RMA ?
@ilprincipino wrote:
How is the RMA situation ? How long does the player have RMA ?
Same as it was when you got your View replaced 3 years ago.
Yes, but in that case I had bought the View through a retailer in Argentina. This time I bought it in United States. Im going to go back though to United States on January 16th. How long does the player have RMA ? And where are there RMA offices ?
US = 1 year
EU = 2 years
In the states, you can contact SanDisk Tech Support by phone (there are no ‘offices’ where you can take it directly) at:
1-866-SANDISK (726-3475)
8 a.m. - 7 p.m. Pacific Standard Time
9 a.m. - 10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
CLOSED Saturdays and Sundays
OPEN on Dec. 26
