I have found that if it’s a large card and the roku screensaver kicks in before formatting is complete, it fails. You can prevent the screensaver from kicking in by periodically tapping a button on the remote.
Thanks to @HamburgerHelper. I too never dreamed you'd NEED to insert the card while the Ultra was powered up. To make a short story long...
To rule out the card I inserted it into another Ultra that already had it's own SDcard. Oh and that Ultra WAS POWERED OFF. Plugged it in, shortly after the bouncing Roku, the format dialog popped up. Formatting done. Powered off, put the original SDcard back in. Original is still detected. Put the newly formatted card into another "powered off" Ultra...zippy. Granted, maybe they marry the card to a device. Factory reset the Ultra...zippy. Stumbled upon @HamburgerHelper's post. Ejected the undetected SDcard, pushed it back in...FINALLY the format dialog popped up.
Riddle me this... How does the Ultra detect the card after it's formatted upon subsequent power cycles? But it sure has issues detecting a new card inserted while off upon ANY subsequent power-up.
i got a message that I should install the above. I did and Roku3 is not recognizing it so I can format it. The card is properly installed. Any ideas? Thanks.
Is the card a 32 gbyte or less in size? Roku does not indicate (that I can recall) an upper limit on
the size of a card, but I would not use anything above a 32 gbyte BRAND NAME card. Next, I found it necessary to do a 'hot' install of the SD card to have it recognized by the Roku box. That means have the box up and
running without the card inserted, then install the SD card with the box running and powered on. Being in
a powered up state was the only way to get the card recognized with my Roku box. After that, the format
of the card should follow with an automatic menu driven operation . Hope that helps.
I had this problem with an Ultra 4 4670x. But all it took was to try again; second time it took.
I had trouble when I put a 32GB Samsung card into my 3. It detected it, asked if I wanted to format, but would freeze and not allow me to select yes or anything else. Unplugging and trying over and over same. Then I saw someone here say they inserted card *after* their Roku was connected and powered up. That was the fix for me. A bit tricky since it’s so small and the port is right under the HDMI. But I pushed it in with a flathead screwdriver and I could select the prompts to format. Done!
Thanks. I re-formatted in Win10 slow and card was recognized by Roku and device was able to format and use Micro SD card
yes, inserting the sd card after the roku booted up worked for me, too
These roku ultras have an issue where they feel like the micro sd card is installed with the perviously mentioned click but really isn't not all the way in. On mine I could clearly feel the click but it was still sticking out about 1/32" or almost a mm. This is not far enough in. Pull it out and try again, it should be very close to flush with or it will not read the card. Also the contact pads of the card face the hdmi. Mine were 16gb cards formatted fat32.
This is a spot on solution to a problem I had with a scan disk 32gb card . Thought it would format AFTER powering the player on but didn’t . Insertin the card with the power on first fixed the issue immediately . Roku PLEASE add this to your instruction faq for your loyal customers !