Hi Guys I need some help here (obviously).

If I save a video file (.avi, .mp4 or whatever) to my external SD I can't seem to play it. I have rock player on my phone. When I save them to the internal SD card they play no problem. Also if I do try to play them through rock player from the external SD my phone cancels the live wall paper. The external card is a 32gb kingson micro SD.

You help will be appreciated greatly.

Hello, have you tried another player other than Rock Player? Besides the logo in the corner, there are better players. I was watching a 720p movie (2GB avi) using the stock player with no problem, movie was stored on external 16gb msd.

Yes I only installed rock player to see if it would help. I've tried to play the videos from the external SD on other players including the stock one but to no avail. I have even tried viewing a video from the internal SD then moving it to the external SD to see if it would work but it then says cannot play this file (or something like that) and when I move it back it's as though the file is corrupt.

Could be a combo problem of phone and SD card. Are you able to try and playback videos from the SD card using another device?

Don't know I haven't tried that but I can store and play music no problem on the external SD.

Had a hunch you would be able to do that. The only thing I can think of is to isolate the problem. Check the SD card is capable of video playback off another device, also maybe worth checking to see if a friends sd card will play videos on your phone?

I'll have to give it a go sometime tomorrow as I'm at work at the min. Thanks for your help so far!!

What class is your external SD card ?

The higher the class, the faster rate that data can be transferred to/from the card. It might be that it's too low to stream the data at the rate required so it doesn't even try.

Could be a class issue as I am 4, the norm is 2 it seems though. You could just be unlucky that it is SD related, am sure it's not the norm or there would be more people complaining.

How do I find out what class it is?

There should be a number on the card, 2, 4, 6, 8 etc. either that or find the product number and google.

Right, I've taken the SD card out (properly, unmounted and all that) and it says....

Kingston
32GB
Micro SD HC and there's a little 4 in a circle next to it.
SDC4/32gb
N0043-012/A00LF
Taiwan

SDc4 means class 4, which is enough for the sgs.

I've tried my old SD from my nokia and it plays the videos from there no problem. I'll transfer them to my current SD to see what happens, I'll post back.

Next Step is to isolate where the fault lays. Testing device and card with other cards and devices.

Right this is doing my head in!!!! I've transfered 5 video files, all .mp4, 2 of them work but the other 3 don't. When I try to open the other 3 it just says cannot open sd card and the file I'm trying to open.

When I first transfered them none of them would play until I took the SD card out and put it back in. Do you think I need to wait longer before I unplug the USB lead??? I am waiting until it says that it's finished scanning media files.

How are you putting files to the external SD? I'm using mass storage, am I better to use Kies, now that I've finally got it to install!!!

Of You have some files working and some not, it could be likely that your sd card has some bad sectors. Run a diagnostics on the card to check integrity.

I must be doing your head in now!!!

How do I run a diagnostics???

Nah, it's cool. You need to connect to a pc and use disk management tools provided by windows. This will let you know if there are any errors.

What size are the files that dont work and are they larger than the ones that do?
Are they in a differrent format?
Do they all play on your PC?

I am able to play MP4 and AVI and the size of the file ranges from 700mb to 2.4gb. I had 2 films both 720p and both were in MP4 format. Film A was 2.5gb and playback was fine on stock player. However Film B was 2.1gb and the player kept lagging badly, forcing me to exit and close down the app. I think there are quite a few variants when it comes to video files, it could be the way the video was compressed or encoded?

What are the videos... recorded from a personal source (camcorder etc) or feature length videos?

The problem wiganblue has is that the videos work on his phone...from the internal storage only. If wiganblue tries to playback a video from the external it screws up.

Thanks for your help guys but I think it's the SD. I've tried a couple of others and they seem to be ok.

Glad You found the solution. Such a lovely screen and difficulties with playing videos.

32gb kingston class 4 works fine for me so far on all videos.
Perhaps your card was faulty.

32gb kingston class 4 works fine for me so far on all videos.
Perhaps your card was faulty.

He found the problem and a solution 6 weeks ago? :)


Thanks for your help guys but I think it's the SD. I've tried a couple of others and they seem to be ok.