cdj 900s freeze when using external hard drive

Is all of the content on your drive exported from rekordbox or did you dump files to it directly?

the files that freeze up are all exported from rekordbox.

the files that do work, have been dragged and dropped from one hard drive to the one im using

@Darren > Could you try exporting the rekordbox tracks to another, cleanly formatted, USB stick and try playing them so we can see what happens?

i could, but to be honest i shouldn't have to be wasting time troubleshooting something that cost me £2000.  at the moment i feel as though i've wasted my money.  the problem is this : the new cdj's are clearly aimed at clubs, and those dj's who perhaps play for an hour off a usb stick.  The reality is that there are more dj's who have bought into this product, whom play a whole night, and have an eclectic music library.  I have over 16000 tracks on my hard drive (or should i say had - will explain after my rant), and clearly pioneer haven't taken dj's like me into consideration.  my reason for buying the 900s is so i could work directly from a hard drive, which at the moment doesn't seem possible as rekordbox clearly cannot handle a lot of tracks, which is why im guessing everything keeps freezing up.  after wasting hours of my time trying to figure it all out, i have opted to completely erase my hard drive, and put some tracks back on it (not exported via rekordbox may i point out).  all tracks play fine with no crashing, but the problem i now have, is that the cdjs are still listing tracks which were previously on the hard drive.  i assume the info is stored in the cdj, which i have no idea how to erase?!  the other pain, is that none of the tracks i have will list if i use the "search" option.

i'm beginning to think i've wasted my money, and wish i had stuck with my 800 mk2's.  I also have the issue that the jog wheel on one deck is much looser than the other.  i've had these decks 3 weeks now, used them 4 times, and already not happy.

@Darren > Unfortunately some technical issues do crop up  - to me, it appears that the first port of call could be with your USB device, not the players. Failing that, the next step in the sequence would appear to be rekordbox itself.

I'm afraid thats as much as I can tell you without some feedback.

I don't think it's the USB device as it plays all files fine which haven't been scanned and exported thru rekordbox. I'm not going to try and separate all tracks into playlists and export that way to see if that solves my problem. It's just very time consuming, and I just want everything to work :(

I still have the issue at the moment of the decks storing info that has since been erased of my external hard drive?

@Darren > The decks don't store any information from external media...?

Problem with the database and ghost tracks is you removed the songs but not the rekordbox database.  Try formatting the drive instead.

Ok this is what's happening now.
I completely erased and reformatted the hard drive - and yes it's fat32 format.
I have scanned all my tracks thru rekordbox, and exported them, this time as different playlists so there are smaller files and folders.
Now then, everything freezes up when I'm either using the search option, or when I list everything in bpm order and play tracks in the order listed. BUT, if I stay withing a playlist, they don't freeze at all.

It's not specific tracks that freeze. Any that have frozen, I have turned the deck off and back on, then go e straight for the track that locked up, played it, and it worked ok.
Is it just because I have so many tracks on my hard drive and the decks just don't respond quick enough and get confused??
I now have around 26000 tracks on my hard drive.

And forgive my typing errors - I'm now on my phone lol

just to point out as well, i have tried the hard drive on just one deck (without them linked or anything).

had a track playing and used the search function to find something else, and it just suddenly froze.  its definately definately definately the hard drive, because as ive mentioned previously, all tracks NOT scanned thru rekordbox work perfectly well (on the same hard drive).

my final test is to, again, defragment my hard drive to see if that makes a difference.

i really could do with some help as i really am frustrated, and wasted many many hours on this.

while its fresh in my head, can someone let me know the exact settings my cdjs should be for using an external hard drive (just so i can rule that out)

What is the make and model of your hard drive?

ive tried a maxtor 1tb hard drive, freecom 400gb hard drive, and i've just bought a new 1tb hard drive.  ive put all my tracks on my new hard drive, but haven't tested it properly yet. 

i have just had it running thru one deck.  after ejecting the drive, and plugging it back in to test it again, more than half of my playlists have disappeared.  also, lots of tracks are coming up with an error code, whereas on the other drives, there was no problem, and the tracks would play.

im kinda banging my head on a brick wall here i think.  is it a firmware issue with the cdj's, or is this something that just doesn't work at all?  after reading other posts i see there are plenty of issues similar to mine.  is this why the cdj 2000s got discontinued - pioneer trying to run before they can walk??

right then, by the looks of it, i've solved the problem.  SO.....if anyone else is having the same issue as what i have experienced, my findings are this.

when exporting tracks from rekordbox, two folders are created - a contents folder, and a pioneer folder.

on my hard drive, the pioneer folder was "hidden".  after changing this so the folder was visible, my hard drive now works with the cdjs with no issues.  I cannot be 100% sure this was the cause of my problem, however so far things are all working ok.

That shouldn't be the problem as the folder is only "hidden" to your operating system; the files are still visible to the computer and the CDJ.