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.
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