CaryKen

My personal music source is a 64GB USB flash memory device filled with mp3 files. I manage the tags and properties of my files with MediaMonkey software, so I can hand-alter all settings.

Most of the time I don't really care about song order. I use Shuffle mode extensively. But sometimes I want to listen to an album in proper track order... For instance, some of my favorite humor recordings are the old Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio broadcasts and subsequent follow up CDs.

I have been unable to get the Infotainment system to list and play the songs in track order. I browse via artist, album, or genre to the album I want. It lists the tracks in its own order that does not correspond to the track number, the track title property, or the file name.

It is not a different order each time I navigate to the album, but it changes each time I re-transfer the files to the memory stick and replug it into the car.

I have gone so far as to alter the file properties to "01-name", "02-name" and so on. I did this for each file name and track title. I tried putting leading zeros on the track numbers. Nothing. The car ignores ordering and lists the tracks in its own order, so I can't listen sequentially. Very annoying!

Anybody have similar/different experiences or have another suggestion to experiment with?

-CM-

This is a total guess, but maybe you should eliminate MediaMonkey from the equation by putting the files on the USB with Media Player or something, just to see what happens.

HalfMoon

Yeah, maybe MediaMonkey is only tagging with a certain ID3 tag version?

I used it for a couple days and didn't really like the results. Moved to TagScanner (http://www.xdlab.ru/en/) instead and it stuck with me.

I'd be interested to see if you get any differences by re-tagging with TagScanner since my car is being built in the 2/10 week and I really want to make sure I can listen to my "albums" in sequential order. TagScanner supports "ID3 1.0/1.1/2.2/2.3/2.4 tags, APE v1 and v2 tags, Vorbis Comments, WMA tags and MP4(iTunes) metadata"

CaryKen

Clarification for CM. I only use MediaMonkey to edit the tags on my PC. Then I just do a simple Windows file copy to the USB stick. I don't do a transfer using the software.

HalfMoon, I tried TagScanner and all the file tags looked to be correct. I decided to try shortening the file names in TagScanner just in case there was a problem with long names (and to force a rewrite of the file properties). Then I copied one album's worth to a new USB stick.

Went out to the car, removed the old USB (call it USB 1), inserted the new USB (USB 2). Gave it time to reindex. Sure enough, the album came up with all the songs listed in the proper track order. Cool!

BUT!!!! ...

All the old albums, artists, and track listings from USB stick 1 were still shown in the Browse menus! Selecting any of them gave me a play error and it went back to playing the currently selected track from USB 2. So I am thinking that my problems with the track order might have been caused by overwriting onto the same album/artist structure and the menu system was confused as to what it should be listing.

So the new big question is how to clear the old menu index from the Device browse cache? You would think it would automatically do this when it reads and indexes a new device. But it doesn't. I tried inserting the stick into all three of the available ports in the car. No change to the symptoms. The old entries always showed in the browse menus.

Hmmmmm...

themonk

Sorry can't help you OP but I would like to add a query while we're on the subject of USB...does anyone else have songs repeated twice in a row even though they are listed only once?

CaryKen

This is usually a case of browsing to an artist, genre, or album where you have only one song listed under that category. Since there is nothing else to move to and still satisfy the browse category, it repeats the one song in the list. Try browsing to "Song" category, which lists everything on your device. If it still repeats at that point, something is definitely wrong!

themonk

thanks......good luck with your concern.

cyberay

The system will browse the recycle folder on the stick the same as any other folder. Be sure deleted music files are permanently deleted. Right click the device, disk cleanup, empty recycle folder.

CaryKen

Not the situation. I removed the big stick with my large collection of music. Inserted an entirely different (much lower capacity) stick that never had all those songs on it. It's not a case of reading deleted files. It's a case of not refreshing the indexed menu.

Limey25

I have nothing to share with regards to the technical issue posed but I wanted to congratulate you Ken on your fine choice of audio.

HHGTTG is a personal favourite of mine for the car and thought all 5 series were superb. I love the Krikkit song from 'book' 3. Was one of the first radio dramatisations I ever heard growing up as parents were huge Douglas Adams fans and we had both the radio show on cassette and the tv show on Betamax

cyberay

No, I understand your problem. I was responding to the duplicate titles, something that happened to me until I realized that the system will read the recycle folder. I briefly noted the cache problem you're having but once I cycled the system off and on it read the later stick. I'm not sure why that's not working for you.

Ray

CaryKen

Ray,

You are right, I am wrong. I owe you an apology and a thank you!

My PC showed no recycle folder associated with the USB. No deleted file listings. But just to be on the safe side, I formatted the drive and recopied the test files to it. The indexing system found only the new songs, with no extraneous listings.

So somewhere on the USB there is indeed a directory entry with the names of the old deleted files. And these were getting mixed in with the new, desired "real" music files to form the browse index in the car.

Very frustrating for doing updates to my large capacity USB. Unless I can find a way to locate and destroy the deleted files index, I will have to reformat and recopy all contents every time I need to do an update! Grrr...

Thanks again for steering me in the right direction.

Watch out, fellow USB users... The car's directory indexing function is more robust than you think!

cyberay

That is indeed strange. Did you try to read the USB on a different computer? I'm thinking that the one you used is not allowing hidden files? Believe me, I'm not a computer guru, just a hacker when I have to be.

I understand your frustration, I experienced it about a week ago when I was setting up my own music files for the Stingray. Realize, I'm such a dinosaur that my other vehicles all have CD drives that I actually use for music. I prefer them because of the different preferences for playback that are available vs. the USB drives. Well anyway, I was determined to arrange my mp3s in folders on the USB. The folders would be set up to contain music reflective of my mood. I was hoping that the audio system would somehow allow me to choose the folder and only have that music played. No such luck. It was also at that time that I realized that the system wasn't keeping titles in cache, but that it was reading the deleted files folder. I guess I'm expecting the car to be too much like my desktop. Oh well, I still like it a lot.

Ray

CaryKen

Okay, I'm going to close off my own thread with the final resolution. I could not find anything on the flash drive that seemed to carry a list of deleted files. I couldn't find a way to force the car to reindex the directory structure on the flash drive... Swapping drives didn't do it: The system just picked up from where it had left off when the original drive was reinserted.

I called the Infotainment help line and the rep told me he couldn't think of any way to force a refresh other than reformatting the drive and copying all the files back onto it. That's a long process for me, with over 8,000 files. But oh well.

I formatted, reloaded the files, and stuck the drive in the car. Nothing. "No device found." Took it back to the PC and realized I had let Windows use its default format of exFAT. This is supposed to be Microsoft's preferred allocation format for flash drives. Unfortunately the car doesn't recognize it. So I reformatted again as NTFS, reloaded all the files yet another time, and took it back to the car.

Everything is now properly reindexed and all files are in correct order. What a pain!

Lesson: Watch out for making repeated content changes to the files on your flash drive. Format it as FAT32 or NTFS (not exFAT) and put everything on. I believe the system uses track number as the primary ordering tool per album. So if you have a two- or three-disc set and choose to give all the discs the same album tag for easy access, make sure to continue the track numbers sequentially... Don't let them repeat from 1 for the second disc.

And Limey... all this started from a desire to listen to all five editions of H2G2 in proper order! When I first heard the original radio series on National Public Radio in the early 80's, I was transfixed. On a trip to London I bought the ridiculously pricey boxed set of CD's of the series (it was the first release on the BBC Radio Collection) and I have collected the books and audio versions since then. I've never been satisfied with the TV/movie versions. That weird and wonderful word imagery always suffers when forced into reality with CGI and makeup. But that's all secondary to the main point of this thread.