Solved: Samsung Smart TV USB Flash Drive Not Working

Samsung Smart TV USB not working

“I have a Samsung USB 128GB flash drive stored with some MP4 videos and MP3 music. When I connect the USB stick on my Samsung Smart TV, the USB is detected but I can neither play MP4 from USB, nor play music on the TV. I unplug and re-plug the USB to TV only to find it cannot be recognized even. I connect the Samsung USB to my Windows computer to see if the USB alive. The good thing is it can be recognized by Windows OS and all data are intact. But what’s wrong with my Samsung Smart TV? Any help would be appreciated.”

Feel familiar with described situation? You may also not strange to No Content Found in Samsung TV now and then. Why would that happen and how do you get out of those troubles?

Why is my Samsung TV not reading my USB?

No matter Samsung TV won't recognize USB flash dirve or Samsung smart TV USB not working, the following reasons could be the main obstacles. See if you’re in one of them.

• Connect USB device to Samsung TV with a USB extension cable. The Samsung TV may not be able to recognize your USB drive or read files on the device if it is connected in that way. USB flash drive should be connected to Samsung TV via its USB port directly.

• There are multiple USB drives connected to Samsung TV. In that case, the TV may not be able to recognize some or all the drives.

• Too many files and folders on USB drive, so some files cannot be opened. The maximum number of files and folders saved on USB storage should be less than 4000 (Full HD TVs) and 8000 (QLED and SUHD TVs). If the number exceeds, delete some files and try again.

• Incorrect file system of USB storage. In general, QLED and SUHD TVs support FAT, exFAT, and NTFS file systems, while Full HD TVs support NTFS (read-only), FAT32 and FAT16. Therefore, you need to perform Samsung TV USB drive formatting.

• The list of files is corrupted or a file in the list is not played. Under that situation, you need to format the USB flash drive completely and place another file to try again.

After acquiring possible reasons for USB not working on Samsung Smart TV, you may know how to solve some troubles by yourself. The following paragraphs provide two back up plans if you find a problem unsettled. Let’s get to know them one by one.

How to solve USB drive not working on Samsung Smart TV?

To solve the problem, you can start from two aspects, USB flash drive and Samsung TV itself. It is suggested to try USB formatting in the first place. If there is nothing wrong with it, try the second method.

Format Samsung TV USB flash drive properly

To make flash drive usable on Samsung Smart TV, you can format it completely. AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is a free Samsung USB format tool that allows you to format both Samsung TV USB flash drive and other brands USB drive you used for the TV to desired file system, such as exFAT, FAT32, NTFS, Ext2, and Ext3. Free download to have a try.

1. Connect the USB drive to a Windows machine (Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/XP/Vista supportable). Install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant on that computer.

2. Right click the flash drive and select Format Partition.

3. At this page, specify Partition Label, choose File System accordingly and select Cluster Size if you want to.

4. Confirm the result and then click Apply > Proceed to execute formatting.

Tip: All data will be lost on the USB drive, so it is suggested to backup files to a safe place. And then, restore the data to USB after formatting.

Factory reset Samsung TV

If you find it is not the problem of connected USB drive, you may need to consider reset Samsung TV to factory state. Please note that this behavior revert all settings to factory default, including picture and sound settings, channel menu settings, clock and timer settings, etc. so think twice before you leap.

1. Power On Samsung TV and press the Menu button on the TV remote control.

2. Select Support > Self Diagnosis and navigate to Reset and press Enter on your remote control.

3. The TV will ask for a Security PIN. The default code will be 0000. Then, click Yes to confirm the operation.

Tip: The Samsung TV may turn off and on several times.

Conclusion

When you find Samsung TV won’t play MP4 from USB drive, you may access the MP4 from Media instead of play it from USB directly. Anyway, to solve Samsung Smart TV USB not working, different situations needs different solutions. In addition, AOMEI Partition Assistant is all around partition manager that can fix files missing on SSD, SSD not showing up, Windows 10 not detect second hard drive issue, and many other disk problems.