Features, settings & updates

[Newuser4]

So Roku media player is garbage and it can't seem to stream my movie files anymore.there seems no other option on Roku to do this, can anyone recommend another product that streams movie files with no issue or one that accepts USB input?

[RokuJohnB · Accepted solution]

Hi @Newuser4,

Thank you for your first post here in the Roku Community!

We understand you're having trouble with the Roku media player because it can't find the movie file. No worries; help is here. Some Roku devices include a USB port to which you can connect an external USB drive to play locally stored photo, audio, and video files. You can connect more than one USB drive to your Roku device by connecting them to a USB hub. You can use the Roku device comparison chart to determine which current products include a USB port.

USB drives may be formatted with different file systems. Roku Media Player supports drives that are formatted with the FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, EXT2, EXT3, exFAT, and HFS+ file systems. You can also access different partitions on the USB drive.

How to search for content on your USB drive

Before you can search your USB drive, Roku Media Player must first build a database of your content. It does this automatically as you navigate each folder, or you can manually trigger a scan of all files using the steps described below.

1. Launch Roku Media Player.
2. Select the icon for All, Video, Audio, or Photo.
3. On the Select Media device screen, make sure the icon for your USB drive is highlighted in the center of your screen.
4. Press Star on your Roku remote to display information about your USB drive.
5. Select Scan.

A scan may take several minutes depending on the number of files on your USB drive, and canceling the operation early will cause results to be lost. When the scan finishes, the results are stored in the memory of your Roku device. If your Roku device has a micro SD slot and a micro SD card is installed when a scan completes, results will also be saved there, making them available each time you start Roku Media Player with the same USB drive.

After Roku Media Player finishes building the database, you can perform a media search using the steps below.

1. Select the icon for your USB drive.
2. Press the Star on your Roku remote.
3. Select Search to access the Search screen.
4. Begin entering the first few letters of your search and available results will begin to appear. As you complete the word or phrase, the results will narrow.
5. Select a result to search for media on your USB drive. Results will be displayed in the current folder view.

After the database of content has been created, you can select Audio as the media type to see new folders appear at the top level on the navigation screen. When you select <by Genre>, <by Artist>, or <by Album>, you can view your audio content organized by the respective tags embedded in each file.

For more information, you can check this support article on how to use Roku Media Player to play your videos, music, and photos.

Hope you'll find this info useful.

All the best,
John