USB Stick/Drive Problem

[Poromies]

I tried unsuccessfully for several weeks to play home movies from USB on my late 2016 Bravia 55” smart (?)/Android TV. The same USB drive worked perfectly on a small Samsung in a spare bedroom. My USB devices were formatted as FAT32. Movie files were all less than 2Gb and were in formats listed by Sony as acceptable (mostly mp4).
I took my USB device to the retailer where I bought the TV (PC World, Milton Keynes, UK). They could not get my USB device to work with a single Sony TV in their store. Not one. They then tested the same USB device with Samsung and LG TVs which worked perfectly. The store’s Sony “expert” could not offer any advice other than resetting my TV to factory specs; this was meaningless as the Sony TVs in the store had the same problem. I called PC World “help” who, after I had waited for ages, claimed never to have heard of this problem and offered no solution or useful ideas.

I phoned Sony help who said USB devices must be formatted as ExFat.  That was it.  No other comment or help.
I created a new 16Gb USB “stick” formatted as ExFat. That worked!!!!! I then reformated a 2Tb external drive as ExFat. That did not work.  I reformated the 2Tb drive again using the reformat facility in the TV’s settings menu, which created a FAT32 drive, not ExFat as advised by the Sony Help line.  Anyway, after reformatting through the television the external drive worked, but the maximum file size it will accept is around 2Gb, not 4Gb as shown in this Sony video guide. I will next try a 1Tb external drive formatted as ExFat.
The picture and sound quality (through Sony sound bar) are superb, but the USB experience and lack of support has left me seriously underwhelmed by Sony.  A great deal of time-consuming messing around has been required to get my Sony to read USBs. It is pretty frustrating when other TV brands work immediately, and quite frankly unacceptable for a top brand like Sony.  The lack of help is also quite appalling, and the available manuals and YouTube videos appear to be incorrect with respect to drive and media format and size.

Can any Sony experts or fellow Bravia Android users comment or offer any advice on a simple way to play media from USB, and how to overcome file size limitations???????

[Pascale_F]

Hi Poromies,

Welcome to the community. 

I don't have the answer, but I have escalated this to see if it can be resolved. 

Thanks, 

Pascale_F

[Sean_Mc · Accepted solution]

Hi Poromies, 

I believe Support has now been in touch with you regarding this. 

Best wishes,

Sean Mc

[Poromies]

It is working now thanks and I can watch large file size movies with my external HDD formatted as ExFat.  I don't know why it was so difficult to make it work.  It took weeks of formatting and reformatting HDDs, and trial and error, but the results ultimately have been well worthwhile.  

[Bambibabes]

What is the official answer to what can be done with the USB connections on a XE9005 or most Sony TVs? I cannot get ANY of my usb sticks to work! I have managed to get a 500gb HDD to be able to record some tv on through turning YouView off and using normal Sony guide. I can’t get any other usb stick to show on it though. What capacity stick or larger HDD is acceptable, which format is needed (or Formats), which file types will Sony actually recognise & play on the usb drives. I would like to side load some Apps, but I can’t load any from my computer as the TV won’t recognise the USB! I have 3 USB ports, on a tv that won’t seem to play any files or even recognise most USB’s? Please can I have the official answer to this as I’m getting close to demanding a refund on my TV after so many problems with recording from the TV, not being able to use the record or schedule function when in YouView and not being able to use any TV players when just in normal TV Guide and to top it off I now can’t use a solution given to me on here, which was to side load some Apps from a USB stick, but my TV won’t recognise it!! Arghhhhh!!

[dutchice]

What type of computer, operating system and utility are you using to format your sticks?

[Bambibabes]

I used a Lenevo Laptop and formatted them all in the formating section, which all computers have. I think tried to format in FAT32 and NTFS. The TV is a KD55XE9005, so I'm sure it should be able to read my music, photos and movies from any of my USB sticks and read and record onto a HDD formatted in NTFS. Could I have a difinitive answer, to if the TV should be possible to do the above, if formatted correctly?

[dutchice]

Yes, of course the TV is able to access your USB devices for playback and recording (if registered to do so). But since the Operating System kernel between Android and Windows is from an architecture perspective so different, there often can be unexpected behaviour on both sides. However, there have been plenty of improvements on Android N compared to the previous versions; and Android P which is planned for introduction in 2019 is fundamentally engineered for critical performance improvements. So rest assured that a plethora of field experts are at work as we speak, just to offer you a better experience very soon.

Coming back to your question, the number one problem arises when users do not go through the correct USB storage device disconnection procedure (in Windows and Android) prior to physically disconnecting USB devices. It also could be that you often swap the USB storage devices from a certain electronic appliance (TV, AVR, HTS, PVR, etc.) to a different brand, type and model. All these scenarios could lead to corruptions in the Partition Table of the USB storage device because every appliance is programmed to execute operations in its own specific method. Formatting a USB storage device will not and can not always address corruptions in the device disk partitions. And to make matters even more complex, there are various different Partition Table standards (adopted by different parties) which are mostly incompatible with each other. So as trivial as it sounds for most users, acquiring read and write access to USB storage devices can sincerely go wrong at numerous levels.

For extensive information about using USB storage devices on Sony Android TV's read this article and for extensive troubleshooting steps read this other article.

If you would like assistance to resolve your 'failure in USB device recognition' problem, let me know and we can always try to help.

[Puxi78]

Hi,

I have some another problem with USB or disk. I am using my USB/disk om my TV and when I finished I dont have any shortcut for safe removal . Does anybody know how to do that?

Thnx 

[gratimhow]

I haven't been able to use USB stick or USB HDD on my KDLWD756 since purchase. The supposed solutions/explanantions are unacceptable I won't be buying Sony again.