Disney Mix Stick Trouble

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We got our DD a Disney Mix Stick for Christmas, and it stopped working in January. It won’t play anything and won’t charge up. Depending on different situations of trying to charge it, the lights indicating charging act differently.

For one, it has an orangish-yellow light which is not described at all in the pamphlet that goes with the Mix Stick. When putting the Mix Stick on the Jam Stand, which we got to go with the Mix Stick, sometimes in the charging situation it lights up the yellowish color in blinking on and off, going solid, then on and off, then totally off. Other times it does nothing. Sometimes in the middle of the on and off cycles it goes solid green for second or two, then back to blinking the standard orange-yellow, which is only “standard” because it’s the main color it does now, and isn’t supposed to do.

If I connect the Mix Stick to my USB ports on my desktop computer it flashes that orange-yellow color, the blinking on and off of it, then usually goes solid and stays that way, sometimes it just stops totally. In any case, it’s not recognized by my computer. I mean, sometimes it’s not showing up as anything on the computer but the light is blinking or solid, so is getting power from the USB port. Most of the time I get a “hardware found” message and then an “Unknown Device” message and blah, blah, blah.

I installed the Win98 drivers in desperation and there is a firmaware utility updater, but that can’t find the Mix Stick connected, even when it is connected as an “Unknown Device”. If the Mix Stick is connected while the “on” button position is in use, nothing lights up or acts connected to the computer. It only seems to recognize something if it’s “off” which is the charge position.

On my DH’s laptop it rarely recongized the device at all, sometimes an “unknown device” message pops up, but never does it light the Mix Stick charge light the ‘standard’ orange-yellow which I get on my desktop, even with the USB ports there turned on at all time in their settings.

So once I turned my computer off and USB powered things continue getting power … so I when I did it this time, the Mix Stick started to blink red and green, as it SUPPOSED to do when charging up. So I left my computer off that afternoon for over four hours. When I started up the computer later, the Mix Stick condition was just the same as before, unrecognized as a Mix Stick and not recognized as anything but Unknown Device and not as anything findable by the Firmware Updater and never as a removable drive or anything, and had no power at all when “turned to the ON position”.

So after I fooled around with that all for over a week, hubby called the support number and got return authorization for repair, and they’ll either repair it or send us a new one, so they say. I hope they do. It turns out it was a seasonable item. We got it at Target and they put all that stuff on clearance right after Christmas. It was an item that was hard to get, we saw it and waited too long to get it, and DH had to call around to find a store with any at all, and had to drive many miles to get it. Just for it to work for about a month, but not quite, and then just seemingly die.

It went out via FedEx yesterday and I’ll report back on the findings, later, when we know more.

I’ve searched online for other people writing about troubles with their Disney Mix Sticks, but I’ve not turned up even one person or site talking about real trouble, like ours or anything else. I’m bored right now, so this is a topic to get me going, and so I’m writing this. If you have a Mix Stick in your household and have had trouble with it, please feel free to comment below, vent if you wish, and if you have helpful info please share it. 🙂

I’ve searched for:

Disney Mix Stick broken

Disney Mix Stick trouble

Disney Mix Stick troubleshooting

Disney Mix Stick won’t charge

and multiple combinations of the above ideas and others. I just turned up review after review of the initial market introduction of the Disney Mix Sticks.

Ours, btw, is the Forever a Princess model, the PRN one.




92 responses to “Disney Mix Stick Trouble”

  1. Doug Avatar
    Doug

    I’ve tried what Linda suggested and IT STILL DOESN”T WORK. This is a real piece of junk! No help from any of the Disney sites or via the phone. I have decided that spending money on any more Disney electronics is just throwing money away!

  2. margot miller Avatar
    margot miller

    linda,
    I can not figure it out it is really bugging me I am really mad it only worked for about 2 hours then it wouldn’t turn on
    thanks,
    margot

  3. Michael Avatar

    Add my name to this list of people having bad experiences with this product. Worked for a few months, then simply stopped working for no apparent reason. DO NOT BUY ONE, they are pure junk.

  4. Karen Avatar
    Karen

    Our Mix Stick has worked fine (knocking on wood) but I have another problem.

    When I bought it for my daughter, I also bought her a pre-recorded Disney Mix card. When I plug the device into my USB drives (XP & VISTA), I can see two removable drives, E: & F:. F: has the pre-recorded tunes. Not long after we got it, I loaded some other tunes onto the MIX STICK. You can listen to them but for the life of me, I can’t see them on any list!. They are not listed on the F: pre-recorded and the E: drive says that it is not formatted – do I wish to format…I’ve always said no.

    I know that these “extra” songs are probably stored on Mix Stick’s memory but why CAN’T I see this memory?! I’d like to load some more to it…I know that there must be room!

  5. Julie Avatar
    Julie

    We are having the same problem. Went to www.disneyelectronics.com, they sent us to digiblue for help, TOTAL WASTE OF TIME!!! They will do nothing to help you if it is past the 90 days. I guess they make them last the 90 and then tuff luck for you. No one will help to fix the problem. Ours was only a few days past the 90 days. Don’t buy the Disney Mix Stick. It doesn’t last lone. They take your money and run. I would have expected better from Disney! Spend the extra money and get something from someone else. I won’t make this mistake again!

  6. Maisy Avatar

    I am the owner of this blog.

    I wrote this blog post over two years ago now. My daughter’s Mix Stick was purchased in December 2005 … for Christmas, and was replaced in March 2006 under warranty.

    The Mix Stick we have was made before DigitalBlue took over, it’s the one made by Memorex.

    It has worked to play music loaded on the actual stick, but will not play any SD card I’ve put into it, not having bought anything pre-loaded for Mix Sticks, just using cards I already had for other reasons and had re-formatted to use in the Mix Stick. I hadn’t tried an SD card in it before the warranty was done and over with, but that part doesn’t bother us, it does load a decent enough amount of music on it’s internal memory to suffice for our daughter.

    As for how it does work, it can be troublesome when it needs charged, and that seems to just be because my daughter lets it wear out entirely before telling me it needs charged.

    I put it on the desktop or laptop (usb) to charge and if it blinks red and green it charges fine right away. If it doesn’t do that, ’cause it’s too low or dead, it will blink red and orange. It takes different amounts of time, short or long, for it to charge from the red/orange status. I have found it doesn’t seem to charge fully if left alone. I just let it go for awhile, then take it off the computer usb and turn the switch on then off on the Mix Stick. Then I plug it into the usb again and see if it will charge with red/green flashing light status. If it does, good. If not, still red/orange, then I let it go a bit and try again.

    Most of the time it will eventually charge if not sooner than later. Sometimes it may take longer than overnight before I can get it to go to “red/green” status.

    My daughter doesn’t use her Mix Stick a lot anymore. She used to mostly use it with the Jam Stand (listen aloud) we bought for her with it originally. That Jam Stand died sometime last year. She charged it with the Jam Stand usually back then, but has only had the availability of the computer for charging it since the Jam Stand quit working.

    It’s an alright thing, works alright for it’s 512mb internal rechargeable self that has no lcd display to know what song is playing or to tell you the power is low and should be recharged. An alright thing for youngsters, if you know how to keep it charged for them as their parent, but fully expect to get them something else when they are older.

    To recap then, our original Mix Stick (made by Memorex)bought in 12/05 didn’t work right, so we returned it 2/06 and they sent us a new one 3/06 and that one has worked OK, though the SD slot doesn’t recognize any SD cards I’ve tried, but the computer recognizes the SD as a removeable drive … fwiw. It charged usually fine with the Jam Stand, but then the Jam Stand died last year (sometime in 2007) and the Mix Stick works OK otherwise, but has trouble charging at times. It’s not used a whole lot since the Jam Stand died, but it is used, and is nearly 2 years old, heavily used for more than a year.

  7. Carrie Avatar

    Yes, the mix sticks are, in a word, JUNK. I just bought a sansa clip to replace this worthless Tinkerbell mix stick for my 7 y/o. Sometimes the thing worked fine, other times, nothing. It goes dead without warning, then it takes about 8hrs to recharge it, doesn’t hold a charge, etc. Much of the same troubles as posted above by others. I am trying to rip the mix clips to windows media to burn them to the new player. Is this possible? Any how-to’s are appreciated!

  8. Marissa Avatar

    hey at least you know your mix stick doesnt work, i cant even get the damn program to install correctly!!

  9. Nicola Collins Avatar
    Nicola Collins

    Hi, Just back from a week in New York and purchased the Disney mix Stick for my 11 year old as a surprise – the real surprise was that it doesn’t work – and after reading all the previous comments I feel completely conned by Disney. It won’t be worth my while to send it back for a refund from here in Ireland so I’m going to put it down to stupidity on my part for buying what I wrongly assumed was a gift from a reputable company. What I also find very hard to believe is that Disney are unaware of the major flaw with this product that they are continuing to sell to unsuspecting consumers.

  10. Mike Avatar
    Mike

    I’ve had the same charging problems and problems turning the unit on. The product is a little finicky, and the instructions don’t help that much. Here are some tips:

    – When charging, make sure your computer doesn’t go into standby mode. I think on my laptop, the power management disables the USB ports when the computer is inactive for a while.
    – Make sure you know which way is on and off on the power switch. It seems trivial, but there is no label on the stick, so unless you commit it to memory, you won’t know if it’s on or off.
    – After turning it on, push the center button (play button) and wait for the orange light to turn on. After a short delay, it should turn green and start playing. You may need to press the play/pause button again once or twice to make it play.

    I have a technical background, so I will tinker with these things to ‘figure’ them out, but this is a Disney product made for kids and parents expecting it to work simply right out of the box. Disney should rethink how they support this product…

  11. Steve Avatar
    Steve

    I have talked to the technical support team after reformating the first drive letter (E) in my case with (F) being the music, it plays the songs and all works fine.

  12. erica Avatar
    erica

    yeah i have a forever a princess one as well. we got it a couple years ago and it started acting up about a month ago. never had any problems with it, and then it stopped wanting to show up on my desktop and i’ve have to take it out and put it back in a few times for it to show as on the computer. i dont know if its charging but i’ve left it charging in hopes that it would work again. when i first got it, it could hold about 3CD’s worth of music, then it just stoped holding so much, a few weeks ago it wouldnt hold more then two songs, it would play them find, but wouldnt hold anything more. i charged it and charged it hoping it would work better, but it didnt help. i took it to the person in my school that works on computers, he cleaned and cleared it out to ‘like brandnew’ i put all my music i wanted on it and it held the music fine. but it still wont play. i charged it overnight and such, put the headphones on turn the thing on, and all it will do is blink the yellowish orage color non stop.

  13. Scott Avatar
    Scott

    We’ve had one for nearly 2 years and it has always worked great. As with any product, if you sell a million you’ll have a few thousand bad ones. Good luck to those of you with issues!

  14. trish Avatar
    trish

    NO SOUND, very frustrating, do not buy this product

  15. Bran Avatar
    Bran

    Got one a few days ago at Tuesday Mornoing store for 14.00 .. Seems to be some confusion on here it seems as to the yellow light.
    It’s red when it’s dead, yellow when it’s low or starting up.
    Yellow is standby( think the windows hourglass).
    Green running.

    I have talked online to several people who turn it on and get upset there is no light lit. They think it’s not working.
    Hit the play button and it comes on.
    One other tip.
    Take out the fake memory card in the memory card slot. If it gets pushed in it will override the memory built in and do nothing.
    The stick will be attempting to read piece of plastic, not the sticks memory.

  16. Rachel Avatar
    Rachel

    Just tried to charge my sons Disney MP3 player- NOTHING! I will try to return to Target tomorrow and buy another player for him to use. I wish I’d seen these reviews before purchasing.

  17. Becky Avatar
    Becky

    Our Mix Stick is stuck in the locked position and we can’t get it off. Any suggestions?

  18. Kevin Avatar
    Kevin

    I had issues with my son’s mix stick. The Red(ish) light would come on, but it wouldn’t go green like it should, and after that, it wouldn’t turn back off until I connected and removed it from my computer.

    When I had it connected to the computer, it would just sit there and flash Red then green repeatedly.

    I noticed that it adds to removable drives under My Computer. One for it’s on board memory, and one for it’s SD card interface.

    I connected the stick to my computer, thinking that I could re-format the drive to freshin it up. The format failed with the message “Track 0 bad, disk unusable.”

    Crap I thought, figuring I would have to try and work with support to get a replacement. Out of desparation, I tried going to the F: drive from the Command prompt (which was the drive for my onboard memory) and low and behold, all of the media was there and accessible. Tried launching Disneys little music upload utility, and it started recognizing it.

    One thing I noticed to, look in Window’s Plug and play devices. Check the box to “Display Device Components”. I had played around with it quite abit, and it started mis-detecting my drive as a generic drive. I had to fiddle with removing, stoping and reloading drivers to get it back to it’s original “DB MIX STICK…”

    1. Maisy Avatar

      “When I had it connected to the computer, it would just sit there and flash Red then green repeatedly.”

      Flashing “Red and Green” means it’s charging correctly …

      To charge you turn the mix stick “off”. then connect it to a usb port of your computer. It should start flashing red and green within a short time. Sometimes it might not, and I have found that letting it do what it wants for awhile, flash red and orange, you can then disconnect it, turn it on and then off again, then reconnect and get it to charge with that correct “red and green” flashing indication.

      There might be different ways that individuals use to figure this stuff out, this is just one idea from my dealings with my daughters Mix Stick.

      Sometimes the Mix Stick will seemingly finish charging, but won’t “play” for my daughter. With this I initially was concerned, but learned I just need to have patience and put it back on the computer to charge again. After a cycle or two it will usually play.

      My daughter has used her mix stick since receiving it [early 2006] and it still works, but she now has a new player, one with real music-ability and charging it is straightforward, it’s a real player with more capabilities and visually appealing, since she’s a bit older now. A Sansa Fuze. Music, video, audiobooks, fm radio. 🙂

  19. Mel Avatar
    Mel

    I have been looking everywhere for a place to complain myself. Like others, the unit won’t charge, blinks colors that mean nothing or just won’t play. My son got this from Santa and within 1 week the power switch broke off in my hand. He was so upset he began to use a paperclip to move the switch up and down so he could still play with it. Guess what – that little piece of cheap plastic also broke so within 2 weeks the unit is completly worthless. Does anyone still happen to have the customer service number? I did send Disney an email but have heard nothing yet. Please help my heartbroken child!!

  20. Russ Avatar
    Russ

    Wow, not looking like a very good device. surprised they still sell them… after 3 years of many people having the same problems. I too have the orange yellow light. Can do all I need to with putting music on it and charging. My problem is it never goes green to work. I have tried about everything I can think of. The big problem now is that the paperwork says it only works with media player 10 not 9 nor 11, but non of the operating systems will allow you to run version 10. –Go Figure

    Lesson learned: Never through away paper work, you never know when it is going to be needed! Here is the customer support: 888-800-0502
    Quite frustrating unit…Would not recommend for any use but data (if that)

  21. Heidi Walls Avatar
    Heidi Walls

    My mixstick won’t play either. Pretty much a piece of junk.

  22. Denise Avatar
    Denise

    I have had problems with the High School musical Mix Stick that i got for my daughter for christmas. We FINALLY were able to charge it and add music, but the music clip of the Jonas Brothers i bought her for it won’t play. I have followed all the instructions and even downloaded a better manual from the net. But still no luck. What am I missing????

  23. Teresa Avatar
    Teresa

    My son has had the Pirates of The Caribbean mix stick for a few years with no problems at all! Having great luck with his we recently purchased the Forever A Princess version for our daughter for a vacation NEXT WEEK. We’ve had the stick less than a week so far. The music we downloaded plays great, but filled up the memory quickly so we purchased a Hannah Montana Mix Clip. Won’t play. When the card is in and we push play the red light starts blinking and the unit eventually starts playing the songs on memory. It actually works GREAT with the little fake plastic card! At $15 a card, thats more than a little disappointing for a new unit! We’re grateful we haven’t had the other problems (yet!). Seems the “girl” versions of these seem to be having more problems than the others!?! I guess we’ll continue to use the unit as long as we can…maybe another couple weeks from the sounds of it! Purchased NEW IN PACKAGE on ebay, and I see that the warranty is through MEMCORP dated 2005…looks like I got an old version of the unit. Fantastic! 🙁 I threw out all the packaging since we’d had such great luck with the Pirates stick!

  24. Cindy Avatar
    Cindy

    We purchased a Disney Mix Stick v2 for our daughter in January 2009 as a birthday present. For the last two months she has been enjoying the mix clip that we gave her with it. We had no issues until last week.

    Last week we used Windows Media Player to add songs to the onboard memory and it has not worked ever since.

    Tonight I called the Digital Blue Customer Service folks and they said this is a common problem. If you go to their website (digiblue.com/customer-service/faqs/09.html) they have an FAQ about this topic.

    The basic problem is that Windows Media Player adds the full file structure to the device, yet the device cannot read it. To fix the problem you have to re-format the device (very easy, but takes a few minutes) and then when you go to synch the next time you have to tell Windows Media Player not to “create folder heirarchy on device”. This will solve the problem and your player should work fine.

    Our device is nearly done formatting. I’ll post another update if this doesn’t solve our problem. 🙂

  25. Cindy Avatar
    Cindy

    The re-format process went off smoothly and it was easy to synch the device without creating the folder heirarchy. Our device is loading songs now and our problem should be fixed.

  26. tiamonie richards Avatar

    If you are having a problem with turning on the mix stick you should get a needle or pin and stick it in the little hole that says reset.DO NOT try to stick it in the light that is suppose to blink red or green.You have to wait a while.

  27. serenity royal Avatar

    i try and charge my mixstick and it doesnt work.also i turn it on and the light is orange not green it was orange for a little whilebut then i just turned it on i am a little girl and i need to listen to music

  28. Richard Buchman Avatar

    My daughter just handed me her High School Disney stick for re-charging. I remember the pain I experienced the last time I did this. This thread shows that I was not alone.

    It seems that unplugging it, turning it on/off and replugging it in get me the green/red blinking which, I remember, means it’s charging.

    Any idea how long it takes to charge?

  29. Lisa Avatar
    Lisa

    I had the same problem that it was blinking orange, off and on, and would not charge. All I did was bring up Windows Media Player and then plugged it back in. That worked and now all is good. Hope that helps someone.

  30. Erin Avatar
    Erin

    Hi All,
    I too was having trouble getting my computer to recognize our mix stick. After HOURS of trying to figure it out, I found a blog which suggested resetting it. There is a very small hole under the volume conrol…. if you stick a needle or pin in there, the mix stick restarts. I tried it, and what do you know it worked and was immediately recognized by my computer. Good luck.

  31. Lily Avatar
    Lily

    My mom bought me a Mix Stick for Christmas, Pirates of the Caribbean and I just recently got around to setting it up.First I had issues with the fact that on the packaging it said it was compatible with Windows Vista only to read on the booklet that it was somehow NOT compatible. So then I got around to downloading the Windows Media 10 update only to realize that that version is only available for Windows XP and that Update 11 is for Vista. After updating I was sure that my many errors were over, yet then I had to erase all of Media Player’s files in order for it to allow me to add music. I waited all day after getting the MP3 player synced, but it has yet to have charged.

    I might call customer support this week if I can’t fix it since the help site doesn’t even exist anymore.

    I hope everything works out for all owners of the ever frustrating Disney MixStick.

  32. michael Avatar
    michael

    i am having the same problem now as well i got it for my daughter for christmas and all of a sudden its febuary and it doesnt work its doing the same blinking oarnge yellow light
    if you find anyway to fix it please let me know

  33. michael Avatar
    michael

    the new mix sticks have a reset button but the one i have does not have a display so i cant find a reset button

  34. Shanon Avatar
    Shanon

    I bought the mixstick for my daughter 2 years ago. We’ve NEVER had a problem with it. Keep in mind I purchased this for a 3 y/o, she is now 5. Her taste in music has changed so I told her I’d update the music on it for her. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that I cannot get my computer to recognize it now. It will charge, but I can not update the music. Her mix stick is one of the long ones without a display, there is no reset button and Vista found the drivers for it, but I cannot find the installation hardware or instructions. If anyone knows where to find replacements of these maybe it will resolve my situation. At this point I’m not willing to purchase another one of these or any other mp3 player for a 5 y/o. I got a really good deal on hers (I paid less than $20 for it because it was mismarked on a shelf) and I don’t think she’s responsible for a more expensive item. If anyone can help me that would be great!

  35. sierra Avatar
    sierra

    ok im a kid and i got mines in 2007 it didnt work from the beggining so i let it alone until i found it again and when i tried it woked fine for like 6 whole months so i bought jam stand thing then it stopped working i think its the jam stand

  36. OLi Avatar
    OLi

    I bought this for my little 4 yr old as a Christmas gift,thank god I only paid $6 for it from National Liquidators! Because if I would’ve paid more for it I would’ve been pissed if i had this situation happening to me!
    I loaded songs into it, but I can’t tell if its charged… any help?

    1. Maisy Avatar

      OLi If you read all the previous comments (again) you will note the different things said about how to get your unit charged and playing. If you “loaded songs onto it” you must have connected it to the computer, or put an SD card into it, I know not which. In the first case, you’d have been connected to the computer with the mix stick, so you should have noted the color of the light. In all cases, the unit will have a green light when it is on and can be played. Turn it on, hit the play button. Headphones will let you know if there is sound, or not, if they are in working order.

      My daughter doesn’t have the mix stick in use at all anymore, it’s been retired for a long, long time, her one replacement still going strong, Sansa Fuze. Much more useful too.

  37. Joshua Avatar
    Joshua

    Just get a mix max they actually last and they have a file so it works plus thay usally come with a pre loaded movie i got High school Musical

  38. Sabine Avatar
    Sabine

    Hello all!

    my daughter just received a disney mix stick as a present. when plugged into the computer it automatically detects the device and the green/red light comes on, so I assume it is charging. However, after many hours (and days, I keep trying and trying….) once off from the computer the stick will not turn on. Any suggestions? Oh, and there is no reset button on this one (guess it’s an old model).

    Thank you for your help!

    Sabine

  39. Brenda in IL Avatar
    Brenda in IL

    Add us to the Mix Stick UNHAPPY Posse! Purchased a Pirates one for the stepdaughter, and after a few months, it just died. I reset it over and over. It blinks, orange, green, red with no apparent pattern. Other than that, nothing else happens. The manufacturer, Digital Blue, has NOTHING on their website for help, support , troubleshooting this TERRIBLE product. I should have just bought her a real low-level mp3 player. My son has my daughter’s 4 yr old one, and it still works like a charm!
    DO NOT BUY THIS MIX JUNK, EVER!!!

  40. Julie Smith Avatar
    Julie Smith

    ive had mine since 2006 , i just recently found it agian went to turn it on it dont to anything , ive tried charging it but it just blinks yellow when i go to listen to it no sound it dont even show up on my windows media player , nor my labtop!. 🙁 i used to love this mp3 , but now im reading all the comments from everybody , im thinking its a technical glitch? possibly . But if anyone knows whats wrong with this please feel free to message me . Thanks .
    -Julie.

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