Frequently Asked Questions - Troubleshooting

We are seeing an alarming number of users that do not have all of the Firefox extensions installed. A correct installation should have 4 Zinc extensions. Incomplete installations could be the result of aborting the installation process, or having anti-virus software interfere with the installation.

To check whether you have all of the extensions installed:

Within Zinc Press F11 (toggles full screen mode) to run within a window

In the toolbar menu select Tools -> Add-ons

Switch to the Extensions tab, you should see:

Note that this window is from the Zinc Windows application. If you have 4 but they are not at the Rev level 0.8.10.xxxxx you are not running the Beta-5 version of the extensions and should click the Find Updates button.

If you have less than 4 Zv Logo extensions you need to re-install from http://www.zinc.tv/get-zinc

You may need to temporarily turn off your virus protection during the installation if you continue to see less than 4 extensions after the install.

To reproduce the problem with Debug Logging on

1) In Zinc, press the F11 key to go into windowed mode

2) Go to the URL about:config and hit enter.

3) Select “I’ll be careful, I promise”

4) Type “debug” into the Filter field, and hit enter

5) Select extensions.zviewer@zeevee.com.debug (blue highlighted line) and right click to get the pulldown menu select Toggle to change the preference to true.

6) Use the back arrow to return to Zinc

7) Exit out of Zinc completely. Make sure all Firefox windows are closed.

8) Restart Zinc

9) Reproduce the problem

10) Exit out of Zinc again

11) There will be a file zv.log on your desktop

12) Send the Zinc support team the file as an email attachment to support at zinc dot tv.

13) Restart Zinc go to About:config and reset your extension to turn debug off for better performance.

Zinc can be installed as a windows application (called “Zinc standalone”) or as a firefox extension. Zinc standalone is based on Mozilla Firefox so many of the menus and options will be familiar to a Firefox user. However, Zinc standalone is not the same as Firefox and does not use the same locations on your computer to store information. You can install both Zinc Standalone and the Zinc extension on your computer. Here is a table of the differences between Zinc standalone and the Zinc extension:

Differences:

	Zinc Standalone	Firefox w/ Zinc Extension
Consists of	Zinc extensions + Firefox (zv.exe)	Zinc Extensions (zinc_bundle.xpi)
Size	(7mb Extensions + 14 Mb Firefox) = 21 Mb	7 Mb
Default browser	Does not prompt to make Zinc your default browser.	prompt
Launch	Icon on Desktop, Start menu Icon	Extension button on browser toolbar
Favorites and history cache (unique per profile)	%AppData%\Roaming\ZeeVee\ZeeVee\Profiles\8m9zx76w.default\zvMedia.sqlite	%AppData%\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\f92gs9i6.default\zvMedia.sqlite
Items that are same (beta-5)	Favorites, Queue, History per account	Favorites, Queue, History per account
Items that are unique	Account list at login, Zinc Version Number, settings -> data, Zviewer extension settings in about:config	Account list at login, Zinc Version Number, settings -> data, Zviewer extension settings in about:config
Feeds automatically loaded	http:, rss:, zinc:	rss:, zinc:
Install locations	Program Files	Extensions folder in your current profile

To understand more about Firefox Profiles see http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Profiles

If you just upgraded to Beta-5, and all you hear is the “bing” sound and then nothing happens when you try to play a video! You should contact support and we may be able to diagnose the issue. This could be due to a problem writing your history to the local favorites file. See the Troubleshooting: Deleting your local favorites and history cache.

At Beta-5 your favorites and history are securely stored in the cloud so that you can access them from any Zinc enabled device. Our servers are offloading your local machine the burden of searching for new episodes which improves video playing performance. The first time you access favorites within a session the show information is downloaded to you local storage (cache) for quicker access. If you have many shows in your favorites this process could take up to a minute during which you will see the Please Wait and spinning circles. Our performance team is looking at ways to optimize this operation. Subsequent access to the favorites will be much faster as only those shows where new videos have been published will be downloaded.

However on rare occasions we have witnessed cases where the migration from an earlier revision of the local database has resulted in corrupted local storage. You can remove the local storage file and Zinc will automatically recreate the file.

See the Troubleshooting: Deleting your local favorites and history cache.

To understand which is the right file to remove see Understanding the differences between Zinc's Standalone windows application and Firefox with the zinc extension.

The local favorites and history cache stores on your machine a copy of the favorites and history. If this file gets corrupted it can be deleted and Zinc will automatically recreate it on the next time it starts.

This file zvMedia.sqlite is a hidden file, and won’t be found through normal searching of your C: drive.

To find the file you need to turn on Advanced Search, and then select the checkbox to include hidden files.

Note: This type of search can take a long time (minutes) to complete.
If you have both the Zinc Windows application and the Zinc Firefox extensions installed you will find 2 copies of this file. For each Firefox profile (user) a new instance of this file is created. Make sure you delete the right one. To understand which is the right file to remove see Understanding the differences between Zinc's Standalone windows application and Firefox with the zinc extension.

You should also find a zvMedia.sqlite.backup file that was created prior to initially uploading your data to the cloud. If deleting the local cache does not restore you to a working system with all of your favorites and history information, please send the backup file to our support team as an attachment to support at zinc dot tv.

Zinc requires hardware OpenGL acceleration for the PC and Mac applications. If Zinc has warned you that hardware acceleration is turned off there could be a couple of causes that are easy to correct. First check to see if the display properties are turned off:

Then check to see if your power settings have turned off the acceleration in an attempt to increase battery life when unplugged. Try plugging the laptop back into its charger, and restart Zinc. To check your power saver settings:

To be certain you have the latest drivers, you should start at the Support section of your computer manufacturer's website, such as Dell.

If you can't download the latest driver that way, then you need to determine what the manufacturer is for your video card.

To determine the manufacturer of your graphics card

You can use the dxdiag program to determine your computer's hardware, operating system, and graphics card:

1. Go to Start > Run.
2. Type dxdiag in the field labeled "Open:".
3. Click the OK button.
4. Click Yes in the dialog box that comes up.
5. Click the Display tab, and you'll find the manufacturer of your graphics card listed under the "Device" section.
6. Check the version number and date of your Driver

If your driver is more than a year old we strongly recommend upgrading to the latest version.

Links to driver download for some of the most popular manufacturers

Here are links to the driver download pages for several popular graphics card manufacturers:

• Nvidia -
  http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp
• AMD (formerly ATI) -
  http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html
• Intel - http://support.intel.com/support/graphics

This is likely to be an issue with older video drivers. Many older drivers claimed to support OpenGL but at the older rev did not work correctly. Upgrade your video driver to the latest rev if it is older than 6 months. Click here to find out how to understand your current rev. and update the driver.

Yes, Zinc is installed per Firefox profile.