8.0 Music Player Unusable

[bareyb]

This has been an ongoing repeating gripe for years covered by dozens or more threads and hundreds or thousands of posts. The consensus is that Tesla won't pay the license fee to Apple to implement iOS.

I don't think Elon is too fond of Apple... As I understand it they've been trying to poach his best engineers by offering to double their pay and give them a $250k signing bonuses... I'd think that would make Elon less than enthusiastic about doing business with them in that way. He'd basically be helping to fund his competition.

 

[Jagwease]

Can I at least have my podcast not start from the beginning every time?

Can I have my recently played back so I don't have to do the whole tango again?

Can I not have the stupid "Where's Waldo" search of what my options are when I ask for a certain song/artist?

Is it to much to ask to have my car have some meaningful interface with my iPhone? I had more control on my 6 year old Toyota.

 

[hingisfan]

I'm surprised so many ppl use USB music or xm. I find the free slacker great, I love being surprised by old gems that I had forgotten about, and the newer music is good too. Love that I can simply skip a track if its a song I don't like, or even ban that song if I really hate it. Creating a custom artist channel plays that artist at least once every 4 or 5 songs, and does a good job playing similar music. I guess everyone has their own tastes, but I think slacker is pretty darn good, I used to have xm and slacker is miles better IMO. And free!

 

[TexasEV]

I'm surprised so many ppl use USB music or xm. I find the free slacker great, I love being surprised by old gems that I had forgotten about, and the newer music is good too. Love that I can simply skip a track if its a song I don't like, or even ban that song if I really hate it. Creating a custom artist channel plays that artist at least once every 4 or 5 songs, and does a good job playing similar music. I guess everyone has their own tastes, but I think slacker is pretty darn good, I used to have xm and slacker is miles better IMO. And free!

Some people who have large (or even small) CD collections like to listen to them. The way to do that is with USB. Glad you find Slacker great, I like it too, but I also like my music on USB especially being able to listen to an album in its entirety. Only now you can no longer do that by going to "artist" and then choose the album, you have to find the album in an alphabetical list of all your albums.

 

[artsci]

I'm in Oregon for a few days and just before I left the 8.0 download was made available. As I was in a rush to get the airport I didn't download it. I have an SSD usb media drive with nearly 1TB of music. That's how I do 90 percent of my listening. If I download 8.0, listening to the music I prefer will be a nightmare.

Having read most of this thread and there's no way I'm going to download 8.0 until the very serious media player issues are addressed in a new version. It's very upsetting to learn that a software upgrade creates more problems than it solves. This is not progress.

Shame on Tesla for allowing such a retrograde release to ever reach our cars. I assume they didn't beta test it or ignored problems that the beta testers pointed out. If the purpose of this upgrade was largely to address AP issues, fine. But why mess up functionality of other features?

I've defended Tesla many times, but not for this screw up. One has to wonder if anyone in senior management was paying attention.

 

[mspohr]

Well, you can't really fault a company for "leading the target". But it is also possible they're going overboard in unifying the M3 with MS/MX. The 3 buyers are likely to be younger and hipper than us S/X codgers, while we will be older and have more insurance. Maybe
the UIs should be purposefully differentiated to better suit those differing demographics.

Maybe we need an "old geezer mode" for the UI.
It could feature large fonts, simplified functions and large buttons.
Only music would be Frank Sinatra channel played at full volume for the hearing impaired.
They might want to bring back the 8 track tape cartridge.
Extra loud warning when you leave the turn signal on for more than a minute.
Warnings when you're driving below the speed limit with more than 5 cars behind you (will need rear radar for that).

 

[RogerHScott]

Warnings when you're driving below the speed limit with more than 5 cars behind you (will need rear radar for that).

Well, we know the radar could now detect at least two cars behind you.

 

[TexasEV]

Maybe we need an "old geezer mode" for the UI.
It could feature large fonts, simplified functions and large buttons.
Only music would be Frank Sinatra channel played at full volume for the hearing impaired.
They might want to bring back the 8 track tape cartridge.
Extra loud warning when you leave the turn signal on for more than a minute.
Warnings when you're driving below the speed limit with more than 5 cars behind you (will need rear radar for that).

There's actually a little truth to that. I think the new UI is much harder for older eyes, which makes using the 17" screen while driving less safe (for those of us with pre-AP cars who still actually drive). The poor contrast of gray on white, the flat design with lack on button icons for visual clues, and the thin fonts all mean it takes a longer glance at the screen. Not to mention how busy the media player display is now.

 

[RogerHScott]

There's actually a little truth to that. I think the new UI is much harder for older eyes, which makes using the 17" screen while driving less safe (for those of us with pre-AP cars who still actually drive). The poor contrast of gray on white, the flat design with lack on button icons for visual clues, and the thin fonts all mean it takes a longer glance at the screen. Not to mention how busy the media player display is now.

I wasn't ready to admit any of that. Thanks for jumping on the grenade!

 

[aesculus]

Old Geezer SW rule: Never install anything unless it's on it's 3rd release or later.

 

[tomas]

This is really no joke, nor a "geezer" item. It is an audiophile item. The fidelity of streamed music sucks. Many don't know because their ears have lost sensitivity from years of listening to mp3s. Lossless audio played thru tesla hifi system sounds 5x better than slacker. Plus, some of us want to hear a specific artist or album, not just what slacker throws at us.

Tesla has basically destroyed USB player with this release. Not a few nits - basically destroyed. I cannot believe it made it through testing. Everyone who is bothered by this should write [email protected] (I have)

 

[sorka]

I'm surprised so many ppl use USB music or xm. I find the free slacker great, I love being surprised by old gems that I had forgotten about, and the newer music is good too. Love that I can simply skip a track if its a song I don't like, or even ban that song if I really hate it. Creating a custom artist channel plays that artist at least once every 4 or 5 songs, and does a good job playing similar music. I guess everyone has their own tastes, but I think slacker is pretty darn good, I used to have xm and slacker is miles better IMO. And free!

I use Slacker too and it has it's place but it can't replace the music I own which sounds far superior the way I have it ripped vs Slackers high quality setting.

But even if that wasn't the case, my 3g is unavailable about a 3rd of the time when I'm in high signal strength AT&T areas like the middle of the Bay Area and it pretty much doesn't work at all in most the mountainous places I visit on the weekends.

 

[sorka]

I'm in Oregon for a few days and just before I left the 8.0 download was made available. As I was in a rush to get the airport I didn't download it. I have an SSD usb media drive with nearly 1TB of music. That's how I do 90 percent of my listening. If I download 8.0, listening to the music I prefer will be a nightmare.

Yup, if you'd downloaded 8.0, you'd have been screwed as far as you're local music collection goes. Talk about a near miss!

 

[EVCarGUy]

I'm surprised so many ppl use USB music or xm. I find the free slacker great,

Try living in a rural or semi mountainous area with poor to no cellular coverage. FM radio is poor. I won't pay fir XM. USB is it.

 

[dgpcolorado]

I confimed it. I had 740 WMA files (along with about the same in mp4 and FLAC). They all used to play - but the WMA wouldn't. I plugged in my stick, and tested 10 or so; none of the WMA would play. I converted them to FLAC, and all played fine.....
I don't think there are a bunch of people who use WMA, but those who do will need to convert.

I don't like hearing that! All of my files are WMA. Having to re-rip dozens of CDs would take hours and hours. Can anybody point me to conversion software that won't screw everything up?

Meanwhile I am REALLY glad that I chose not to install the 8.0 update. No significant upside, from what I read, and very significant downsides for the media player!

 

[Skipdd]

There's actually a little truth to that. I think the new UI is much harder for older eyes, which makes using the 17" screen while driving less safe (for those of us with pre-AP cars who still actually drive). The poor contrast of gray on white, the flat design with lack on button icons for visual clues, and the thin fonts all mean it takes a longer glance at the screen. Not to mention how busy the media player display is now.

+1

 

[MartinAustin]

Having read most of this thread and there's no way I'm going to download 8.0 until the very serious media player issues are addressed in a new version

You have the right idea

 

[supratachophobia]

Have you guys started compiling a list?

 

[supratachophobia]

Ok kids, I just emailed Tesla with the specific bugs that have been found in v8 with regards to USB audio. Please, if you are someone that uses USB audio, take the time to shoot [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected] an email, letting them know there is still some fine tuning to be done with this particular feature. You can mention some or all of the items below. Tesla addressing these issues will improve the Media app for everyone, but the surest way to get nothing done, is to, of course, say nothing. My experience over 3 years is that Tesla wants to help people love their cars more. But sometimes, they don't know *exactly* how to do that until you let them know. Thanks for everyone assistance in getting these items communicated to them for resolution.

The list as follows after 1 week:
1. Letter list/alpha shortcuts for song/album/artist lists are gone / This is **very** dangerous when trying to scroll while driving, but also if there are more than 100 items, the scrolling feature just plain does not work. Any attempt at repeated scrolling gestures are interpreted as a click into a folder. If you then try backing out of that folder, it takes you to the top of the previous folder/file list. Additionally, any "Back" actions should take you to where (how far down) in the folder list you were when you entered the subfolder
2. Album Playback - Album tracks are being played alphabetically instead of by track number
3. Search - "Search Anything" does not search anything, it searches everything except USB media. Please allow search (text entry AND voice) to include USB media.
4. Playback Resume - Be able to resume playing a track from where it was when the car turned off / currently, track will reset to beginning / especially annoying when listening to an audiobook or podcast
5. Shuffle "on" is not persistent overnight, or when playing between USB sources / it is also not persistent at other random times throughout the day when entering/exiting the vehicle
6. Folder/File List - Albums now intertwined alphabetically in with tracks under an artist when 7.1 had them at the top of the list (think Mac vs. PC on how folders and files are handled when displayed) / not necessarily a problem, this is the way that Linux file systems are read with an "LS" command, but if intentional, please document in release notes
7. Source Scanning - Mysterious problem with some scans taking an abnormal amount of time. Not sure if it's storage media access speed / number of tracks / total size of data, may need log file data to diagnose
8. Equalizer - Bass/Mid/Treble settings are not saved overnight sometimes / unsure if it is triggered by changing USB audio sources, difficult to replicate / if the intended feature was to allow different equalizer settings for different USB sources, for example, a certain sound profile for audiobooks and a certain sound profile for music, then please disclose this in the release notes because that would be a really cool and welcome feature
9. Volume Naming - Spaces in USB volume name are represented by the ASCII value "\x20" and not as the intended <space> / again, not necesarily a problem if this was intentional on how to handle non-alphanumeric characters
10. Tag Display - Multi-artist album tag is not being read, indexed, or displayed for when ID3 Artist tag is not populated / Media Player needs to perform an IF/EXIST query and display album artist if song artist is not populated

 

[tomas]

Thanks, Supra. Wish there was a way to tell tesla amen to your list. Not sure you want to share your name or email but what could we refer to if we send email in support?

After thinking this through, this situation is really enigmatic. Tesla has the engineering skills to bring to market best BMS, AP, self updating car, and many software rich innovations. And musk has rockets in space. And landing on boats. There is no lack of software talent in the empire. Can't just say they don't know software engineering... too much evidence to the contrary. Maybe just spread too thin? At any rate, easy to fix if we can get enough owners to convince them it is important.