Received a new Clip + this past Christmas and it’s been fine up until this morning when I turned it on. It played one song and then silence. Went to check it and it was completely dead. No display, power button didn’t turn it back on, then tried plugging it into the charger, nothing at all - totally dead. Should this go back to Best Buy or contact Sansa?
it may not be dead, but just playing possum. Try resetting it by pressing and holding the power button for (normally) 20-30 sec. or (in extreme cases) up to a minute or more. Release the button and then see if it will start up normally.
If not, then call SanDisk Tech Support or return it to Best Buy if you bought the extended warranty.
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Will do, thanks. Any idea why this sort of thing would happen with a new product? (well, 6 months old)
Good update: I first tried the holding power button down as Tapeworm suggested, still no response. My wife decided to take a look as she’s pretty good with computer-related stuff. She decided to remove the MicroSD card (preloaded Billboard music) and then try the power button again. Voila! She got a response out of it, the display came on and showed the battery had drained completely. I then plugged it into the charger, let it power up overnight, played it this morning with a full charge, worked like a champ. She thought I might have downloaded a corrupted file is what killed it initally. Anyway, all is good. Sometimes all it takes a woman’s touch 
Thanks for “possum” tip. It was just what I needed.
Thanks for this post Tapeworm, it worked just fine for me. I had already removed the cover but that did not help anything, so i searched and found your post to do the hard reset and that brought it back to life.
Not sure why it just went dead during the first song after i turn it on. It has worked good for years and never done that before. Wonder if this means i have problems coming up for this clip. Rainey
Great post. Saved my sandisk and brought it back to life!
Thanks Tapeworm. It worked. Saved me a lot of hassel. I thought I had lost all my audiobooks but just by holding down the button for a minute worked like a charm.
Thanks so much for the tip, Tapeworm! I just had the same thing happen to my 8-week-old Sansa Clip player–it abruptly went dead while I was syncing some Audible files.
Removing the microSD chip and holding down the power button for about 30 seconds enabled my computer to connect to it and charge it again.
This is the second Sansa player to experience similar issues this year (the first was an old Sansa View; this Clip was its replacement) so I was dismayed. Glad to see that it isn’t dead and gone, after all!
:smileyvery-happy:did what you said and it works now thnks!!!
Worked for me too…Top Advice !!! :smileyvery-happy:
I had same issue - completely dead; held power botton for perhaps 30 seconds and came on; batttery was dead. plgged back in to USB but did not recognize - so had to try the routine a few more times, but it finally was recognized and is charging now
Thanks!!!
This fixed mine too, after it had just gone dead while listening to music. Thanks!
Thanks to All!
mine died when i tried to transfer recored file to my external sd card. i thought i have to get a new one but i was lucky to did a search before i toss it away! i removed the sd card, and turned it on! yeh!!!
Thanks! cheers!
Our Sandisk only 4 months old and died. Already ordered a new one, but tried this on the one that died and it worked! Thanks.
Success Story in Fixing Frozen ClipZip with Rockbox
The Problem
I accidently d/c’d the clipzip while transferring files and the clipzip threw up an error on the screen. If I tried to power down it just restarted itself and went back to the same screen. It wouldn’t appear in my computer when connected and a soft reset / holding the power button down for 30 seconds did nothing. I couldn’t even boot into the original firmware which you do with a specific button combo which I can’t remember.
The Solution
I can’t be sure whether it was draining the battery or d/c’ing the mico SD card because I did both at the same time. I recommend people try d/c’ing the micro SD card first in future, then if no joy, drain the battery completely before recharging & turning back on. Looks like all my files are fine :)
Success Story in Fixing Frozen ClipZip with Rockbox
The Problem
I accidently d/c’d the clipzip while transferring files and the clipzip threw up an error on the screen. If I tried to power down it just restarted itself and went back to the same screen. It wouldn’t appear in my computer when connected and a soft reset / holding the power button down for 30 seconds did nothing. I couldn’t even boot into the original firmware which you do with a specific button combo which I can’t remember.
The Solution
I can’t be sure whether it was draining the battery or d/c’ing the mico SD card because I did both at the same time. I recommend people try d/c’ing the micro SD card first in future, then if no joy, drain the battery completely before recharging & turning back on. Looks like all my files are fine
Success Story in Fixing Frozen ClipZip with Rockbox
I appreciate this is a forum for the Clip+, but a google search for my clipzip brought this up, and the advice within helped me resolve my problem, so in the interest of helping future Google searchers I’ve included the below…
The Problem
I accidently d/c’d the clipzip while transferring files and the clipzip threw up an error on the screen. If I tried to power down it just restarted itself and went back to the same screen. It wouldn’t appear in my computer when connected and a soft reset / holding the power button down for 30 seconds did nothing. I couldn’t even boot into the original firmware which you do with a specific button combo which I can’t remember.
The Solution
I can’t be sure whether it was draining the battery or d/c’ing the mico SD card because I did both at the same time. I recommend people try d/c’ing the micro SD card first in future, then if no joy, drain the battery completely before recharging & turning back on (No need to fully recharge before turning back on). Looks like all my files are fine :)
Another update - The problem came back but I sorted it.
Posting on the rockbox forum someone suggested the filesystem may be corrupt and to start in bootloader USB mode by holding the select / middle button down when powering on, and then checking the filesystem for errors. I will assume most people know how to do this and so won’t cover it, but if people ask then it’s usually quite simple to explain (just varies on what operating system you use eg. Windows / Linux).
Well just holding the select button down somehow sorted it, I didn’t need to do anything else.
