What microSDHC cards work with Clip+?

SanDisk MP3 players Sansa® Clip | Sansa® Clip+
1

My trusted and loved Sansa Clip from several years ago was simply worn out about a month ago, and I decided to go for the Clip+, 8 GB, as my replacement, especially considering the microSDHC expansion slot.

I bought a 16 GB card in the same store that sold me the Clip+. The brand is not very known (“Zap Glider”), but is distributed in the Nordic countries (I’m based in Norway) through the Swedish shop Teknikmagasinet. I suspect it’s a white label from one of the main manufacturers. It’s a Class 4 card.

The card comes with an adapter for PC, and I have loaded the card with a selection of mp3-files through a card reader slot in my PC. So far so good, the files are transferred and readable from the device.

However, Clip+ does not seem to recognize the card completely (that’s the weird part). The “refreshing media” message stays on and the bar does not seem to move, or moves just a little bit.

After a long time either the battery dies out, or I am able to play one or two songs on the card only. That’s the really weird part, because it would be easier to understand if it just did not work at all, but as I said, on occasion, I am able to play one or two (literally one or two) songs, and these are the only songs (of about 8 GB loaded on to the 16 GB card) that the Clip+ finds.

So, some questions (1 and 2 are the most important ones to me):

  1. Is the Zap Glider compatible with the Clip+? (if not I will have to ask the guys at the shop why they sell me Clip+ with an incompatible card).

  2. If it is compatible, what could be the problem here, since the card reads just fine on any PC with a reader, but not the Clip+?

  3. If the answer to 1) is “no”, then how come I am on occasion still able to play one or two songs but not more (and it seems to be random which songs)? (this doesn’t really help in anyway, just curious)

Thankful for any help/feedback on this.

P.S. The 8GB internal memory works fine, but the Clip+ seems to have a lower max volume than the Clip

2

How many files do you have on the player?

If you copy the files onto the internal memory, do they play correctly? If not, the files or their metadata (e.g. ID3 tags) may be damaged or in a format the Clip+ doesn’t like.

If you have access to a Windows PC, download a copy of H2testw: ftp://ftp.heise.de/pub/ct/ctsi/h2testw_1.4.zip and run it against the empty card connected to the computer to make sure it’s working properly. Counterfeit memory cards and USB sticks often have far less actual storage capacity than the label and the hacked storage controller advertise, leading to silent data loss and all sorts of weird behaviour in devices.

To unlock the high volume option, set the player’s region to something other than Europe.

3

You also could try reformatting the card and see if that helps.

4

Answering the subject line question:

I am using a SanDisk 16GB micro SDHC card in my Clip+, no problems whatsoever in about a year of service so far.

5

Many have recommended using SDFormatter (or Panasonic) to format an external card.  You can download it here.

Since you purchased both the card and clip+ from the same store, you can take both to the store and show them that there is an issue with the clip+ reading the card.  It’s possible that, if after you test and/or format the card, that it may be the card slot that’s causing the issue.