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Boatguy
Active Member
I'm probably behind the curve on this, but I temporarily gave up on USB and was using Slacker, but every song was ending abruptly about 30-50sec before the end. Is that just me, or is that a feature of v8?
I'd like to mention one potential solution to some of the comments about not being able to play albums in correct track order. (I have not read every post in this and the other threads on this topic, so I apologize if I am repeating what someone else has said already.)
I did some more testing with version 8 and verified that the audio system will play the tracks in correct order when using the Genre mode, unlike when you use folders or albums. For example, if you have a Classical piece such as a symphony that you would want to play in order, it will do so when played in the Genre. And that even seems to work if the tracks have duplicate names. E.g., “Pictures at an Exhibition” by Mussorgsky has several tracks entitled “Promenade,” but I found that they play in the correct order as I originally burned it (with the track numbers in the “Name” field, not the “Title” field). This is a big advantage of using Genre over using the other modes that apparently all play tracks in alphabetical order. (Don’t ask me why it works in genre but not in the other modes! But I hope it continues to work this way.)
And you can create your own genres; you are not restricted to the "standard" list. So for example, I created one (earlier, before version 8) entitled “Christmas” for Christmas music. So if you want to, you could create a genre for an individual album or symphony, etc.
The practical problem is that you could end up with so many genres that you have the same issue with scrolling through a long list on the screen as we have been complaining about for artists. So you may want to use distinct Genres sparingly to avoid that problem. The good news is that when there are multiple albums in one genre, they are played separately, with the tracks in order within each album. So for example, you could have 3 or 4 albums by the same composer or artist/orchestra in a genre (e.g., one called “Beethoven” or “Billy Joel”) and the albums would play one after the other, with each played in track order (assuming the tracks are arranged correctly in the first place).
You might also want to be careful not to use overly long Genre names. I have not tested what limitations there might be on length – the longest in the drop-down list in my MP3 editing software is 22 characters.
If you do have multiple albums within an genre, you can scan the list of tracks in the genre before you start playing, and start at the beginning of the 2nd or 3rd or whatever album you want (running the risk of spending time away from the road, though).
And you can, of course, use Shuffle with a genre if you just want to play a mix of music and are not concerned about the order. (Leaving aside the comments above that Shuffle might turn off at random times -- something I have not yet extensively tested for in the Genre mode).
My testing has been limited so I hope this proves to be reliable. I'll be interested in others' comments on their experience with playing albums in order in the genre mode.
I did some more testing with version 8 and verified that the audio system will play the tracks in correct order when using the Genre mode, unlike when you use folders or albums. For example, if you have a Classical piece such as a symphony that you would want to play in order, it will do so when played in the Genre. And that even seems to work if the tracks have duplicate names. E.g., “Pictures at an Exhibition” by Mussorgsky has several tracks entitled “Promenade,” but I found that they play in the correct order as I originally burned it (with the track numbers in the “Name” field, not the “Title” field). This is a big advantage of using Genre over using the other modes that apparently all play tracks in alphabetical order. (Don’t ask me why it works in genre but not in the other modes! But I hope it continues to work this way.)
And you can create your own genres; you are not restricted to the "standard" list. So for example, I created one (earlier, before version 8) entitled “Christmas” for Christmas music. So if you want to, you could create a genre for an individual album or symphony, etc.
The practical problem is that you could end up with so many genres that you have the same issue with scrolling through a long list on the screen as we have been complaining about for artists. So you may want to use distinct Genres sparingly to avoid that problem. The good news is that when there are multiple albums in one genre, they are played separately, with the tracks in order within each album. So for example, you could have 3 or 4 albums by the same composer or artist/orchestra in a genre (e.g., one called “Beethoven” or “Billy Joel”) and the albums would play one after the other, with each played in track order (assuming the tracks are arranged correctly in the first place).
You might also want to be careful not to use overly long Genre names. I have not tested what limitations there might be on length – the longest in the drop-down list in my MP3 editing software is 22 characters.
If you do have multiple albums within an genre, you can scan the list of tracks in the genre before you start playing, and start at the beginning of the 2nd or 3rd or whatever album you want (running the risk of spending time away from the road, though).
And you can, of course, use Shuffle with a genre if you just want to play a mix of music and are not concerned about the order. (Leaving aside the comments above that Shuffle might turn off at random times -- something I have not yet extensively tested for in the Genre mode).
My testing has been limited so I hope this proves to be reliable. I'll be interested in others' comments on their experience with playing albums in order in the genre mode.
Hey guys, I fixed all the media player bugs....
But your interface has it's own bugs. (Sideways and facing the wrong direction for the driver.)
Yeah, for some odd reason my Nexus 7 will lock to portrait mode until restart randomly. It's done this ever since I dropped it in the shower.But your interface has it's own bugs. (Sideways and facing the wrong direction for the driver.)
f-stop
Active Member
well good thing at least it's not a Note 7 or S7 Edge...
Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge phones are catching fire too; 2 fires in the last week
anyhow... so I see some reports that searching the USB works now, but can't get it to do so (I'm on v8.0 2.40.21). Tried tapping the search box a second time after initial results come up, but no dice.
While the above photo may seem funny, it is actually what many Tesla owners are doing - mounting their mobile devices and using those as an alternative to the media player or navigation software.
I saw an online article recently commenting that spending extra $$$ for car infotainment software was a waste of $$$ because the smartphones have much better apps than what the car manufacturers are providing, unless the cars have something like Apple CarPlay or Android Auto.
Though what's missing from this analysis is ease of use and safety. Having the driver interact with the smaller mobile device displays, while the car is in motion, increases risks the driver isn't paying attention.
I saw an online article recently commenting that spending extra $$$ for car infotainment software was a waste of $$$ because the smartphones have much better apps than what the car manufacturers are providing, unless the cars have something like Apple CarPlay or Android Auto.
Though what's missing from this analysis is ease of use and safety. Having the driver interact with the smaller mobile device displays, while the car is in motion, increases risks the driver isn't paying attention.
STbreaker
Member
Sorting by "Albums" also will play tracks in order. Of course the scrolling bug and lack of search (I apparently haven't gotten this second update) make sorting this way borderline unusable if you have a lot of albums.
flipb
Member
Confused. I just got my 2013 Model S and I have a USB stick with music. I'm still on firmware 7.1, just haven't seen the push notification for 8.0 yet. And I've never figured out a way to shuffle/scramble/randomize the tracks from the USB stick. Explain, please?
BertL
Active Member
Use the little crossed-arrow symbol when a track is playing. It will sort-of random/shuffle using that track as the first in a sequence it determines. I'm on 8.0 now, so can't take a photo for you. Good luck.
The serious side to your comment is that once I get the OTG cable to work properly with the Nexus 7, it will be running PowerAmp and replacing the factory Media Player for a test run. So, it's not funny at all that I'm using a rigged alternative for a $100k car.
f-stop
Active Member
what's the supposed way to get search to return USB results on 2.40.21?
also, not sure if this is already reported but just noticed when you view by Artist, all the artists with names starting with "The..." get grouped with the letter T (yeah, I scrolled allllll the way down to the letter T, through my hundreds of artists, just to see. A painful process and obviously not something you could ever do while driving). I'm guessing the same thing will happen when you list by Album or Song, though that wouldn't be as annoying as for Artist.
In my iTunes library and on my iPhone, the list-by-artist ignores the leading "The" - so The Beach Boys, The Beatles etc all end up under "B" as they logically should. But not in the Tesla media player!!
Holy hell......
None of us would have caught that since we pretty much gave up on scrolling an hour after getting v8.
f-stop
Active Member
Actually I've had v8 for a couple weeks now and just came back from a 3500km road trip. But my copilot had total control over the audio selection on the trip and pretty well kept it fixed on one or two TuneIn channels. So now is the first chance I've had to look at v8 media player in detail, and confirm all its problems using a USB with 7000+ songs
BTW, I was actually scrolling to "V" when I noticed the mess under "T" !!
I was interested to see how a particular classical artist/album listed its songs and of course couldn't search for it. Yeah glutton for punishment, I know. Do I get a badge? 
CuriousG
Active Member
