Yes, with so many (possibly all?) domestic hi-fi and video products these days the front panel or remote control power switch is not an ON/OFF switch but an ON/STANDBY switch. There is no proper on/off switch on our Blu ray player or TV at all. I find it irritating but probably just because being of a more advanced age I remember the days of proper on/off switches on everything. I guess most younger/middle aged people don’t give it a second thought.
Heard from naim: they claimed not to have received any other complaints and recommended a factory reset. That achieved nothing AND my music store now can’t be accessed. In other words, bad to worse.
If it’s still under guarantee I would ask your dealer to either get it repaired or replace it for you. If neither of these things are achievable by him within a reasonable time, which I would say is 14 days, then I would demand a full refund. If it is under guarantee then I would talk to your dealer rather than Naim. You haven’t purchased anything from Naim. If it’s now out of guarantee then you may still be able to get a replacement or refund if it’s not fit for purpose. By the sounds of it that seems to be the case.
I suggest that you specifically ask Naim for a link to the firmware and reinstall this through the web diagnostic page.
My reply to naim ran along these lines:
The factory reset did not solve the ripping issue. This is a disaster.
1. The unit will not rip CDs.
2. Following factory reset my existing music store cannot be accessed.
3. This is directly related to the firmware update and is affecting other Star owners.
It does sound like something went wrong with the update. As Mike suggests, I would ask Naim for assistance with a reinstall of the firmware. Failing that, take it to your dealer and ask them to sort things out for you.
2 Likes
I’ve never been able to quite grasp what seems be a widespread tolerance of products, mostly computer driven, that misbehave and fail to function correctly for one reason or another. It seems there is a kind of unwritten code that it then largely is incumbent on the owner to bugger about with them, trying this, that and the other to get them to work again. There are plenty of products in the modern world, computer driven and otherwise, that work flawlessly without any such issues.
When we had two Muso QBII’s one of them started to refuse to play certain tracks off albums - the other functioned normally. I rang Naim support and was told that it wasn’t something that they had encountered before and that they didn’t know what the cause was. Rather than being offered a solution, in terms of a replacement machine, repair or a refund via my dealer, which I felt was a perfectly reasonable expectation given the guarantee, I was basically told that I would need to determine the likely cause myself. “Do some experimentation and see if you can narrow down what the cause might be and then get back to us”. Terrific and a great help.
I wonder how people would react if their recently purchased car started to refuse to start sometimes, or wouldn’t steer correctly, and they were told by the manufacturer or dealer that they would need to experiment to try to determine the likely cause themselves before they could be offered any assistance.
In the past such situations were very clear cut. If it didn’t work as it should then it was faulty and the dealer you bought it from was legally obliged to rectify the situation one way or another to your complete satisfaction. Something appears to have changed somewhere and I’ve obviously missed it.
1 Like
The challenge with this networked equipment is that most of the time problems are due to the owner’s network or other aspects of setup. You can see this from the large number of posts reporting problems that are resolved by other members. Naim needs to rule out possible reasons before considering replacement.
Of course, once it’s determined that the item really is faulty, it should be fixed without fuss.
When we arrived In Ouistreham at 10pm last night the sat nav was convinced that we were still in Portsmouth and despite turning it off and on again the problem didn’t resolve until we arrived in Caen. If you took the ‘it’s gone wrong and therefore must be replaced’ we’d have been seeking a new car. I’m glad it sorted itself out though, as navigating Caen without satnav is a bit tricky.
1 Like
I do get the point that problems may not be due to equipment itself necessarily but rather networking or other such issues. This though puts the consumer, and in particular those that are not technically minded (which I’ll guess is a lot) in a very unsatisfactory position. In some cases this seems to be used by some retailers/manufacturers as something for them to hide behind and dodge their responsibilities. When such products are sold, they are sold in the full knowledge by the retailer/manufacturer that such issues may arise as an inherent part of the products functionality. As such it is my contention that it should be incumbent on retailers/manufacturers to ensure that if/when such issues arise that they are sorted out for the consumer. One could compare this with the LP12 which required proper professional set up before it would work properly. The customer was not expected to do this, either initially or at a later stage.
Retail law should be changed in my view so that it is made very clear to consumers at point of purchase that a product may not function as intended due to local network or other connectivity issues and that in such instances it will be the resposibility of the purchaser to sort these out rather than the retailer or manufacturer.
My previous Renault, a hybrid Arkana, displayed that fault with increasing frequency, necessitating a number of trips to the dealership, who, adopting the tried and tested approach of fixing a flat tyre by swapping each wheel in turn till you get four good ones, eventually replaced both radio modules, a job thankfully not requiring removal of the dashboard.
Didn’t stop me having another Renault though 
.
ATB, J
Thank you for all your replies. As suggested by Richard, I have written Naim a mail, asking for their assistance with a reinstall of the firmware. Let‘s see what happens. In the meantime I can still enjoy most of the Star‘s musical qualities. Wishing all of you a pleasant evening.
4 Likes
Thanks @Clemens , please keep us posted!
I wonder if Clemens and I are alone in experiencing this glitch? I’m hoping to hear from naim early in the coming week. The “advice” (more like a shot in the dark) I received yesterday was just a guess, and not helpful at that.
Heureka, Naim support provided the perfect (still somewhat puzzling) solution: I disconnected the HD used to store the Star’s rips, connected a different HD which I defined via the app to be the new storage address, inserted a CD - and it was ripped without a problem. Listening to the rip right now, enjoying it. Thank you, Naim support. Wishing you all a nice evening. Cheers! Clemens
1 Like
Hi, have you seen my latest post regarding the lost ripping functionality? In short: disconnect the present HD, connect a new one (HD or SD card) and set it as new storage adress via the Focal/Naium app. Worked nicely with my Star which has regained his full potential.
Thank you for this suggestion. It leaves me with a question though: what about all the music tracks you had ripped to the original hard drive? Perhaps I’m missing something?
1 Like
I’ve been contacted by a naim rep (presumably naim North America). naim acknowledeges an issue as it is hearing from an increasing number of Star owners, some of whom may find their way to this exchange. I’m scheduled to speak with someone tomorrow. They don’t seem to have a handle on what’s gone wrong, and I was asked to provide details about my unit, my storage device, etc.
Well the original rips are still on the „old“ HD. When installing a new storage for the ripped tracks, you can choose to keep music that is already on the HD or delete it.
The „new“ HD already contained aboit 400GB of music tracks which I kept. I defined it as tje new storage adress for my rips, inserted a CD, ripped it, a checked it to find that it did not contain any errors and sounded good.
As the „new“ HD has a size of just 500GB and is not large enough for my complete CD collection, I ire-installed the „old“ HD, but trying to rip a CD resulted in the „No tracks on CD“ error message. I will now ask my contact at Naim what to do next and hope they have a solution.
Something funny happend this afternoon: I made a copy of my ripped music collection on a second HD. Afterwards, out of curiosity, I changed the name of my main HD (the one that seems to block the ripping functionality when attached to the Star) from «naim 3456a» (or something similar created by the Star) to the enormously creative «1TB WD Elements». Attached it to the Star, set it up as new storage in the F/N app, keeping the stored music, and inserted a CD. What can I say: The Star asked me if I wanted to rip the CD and made me a perfect copy on the newly christened HD. What would Alice say?
3 Likes
Three days later, I just read your post. Hmm. I’m poised to follow your lead: change the name of my storage device on the desktop, plug it back into the Star, and try setting it up as a brand new HD. Sounds like that’s all you did and, hey presto. But before I risk making anything worse I thought it best to confirm. Thanks Clemens!