Comprehensive USB Bug List

[JPP]

Be glad some of you can actually play music off of an USB jump drive under v.9. I am unable to get it to work on my Model 3 at all. Originally took my good working USB drive from my old Model S. On my 3, the MCU loads the names/artists/songs etc, but if you try to play a track, I get the Loading Error. I have rebooted the MCU. I have removed and reinstalled the jump drive. I pulled the jump drive and looked for odd tags (not mp3 or mp4). Yesterday I erased and reformatted the drive. I found a utility here on TMC written by an owner that copies your iTunes music and validates compatible formats (not losless) and cleans up the files. Still does not work. Yes, first world problem. And, yes, I can use a jump drive in our 2015 S70D on v.9 without an issue.

 

[MP3Mike]

Be glad some of you can actually play music off of an USB jump drive under v.9. I am unable to get it to work on my Model 3 at all. Originally took my good working USB drive from my old Model S. On my 3, the MCU loads the names/artists/songs etc, but if you try to play a track, I get the Loading Error. I have rebooted the MCU. I have removed and reinstalled the jump drive. I pulled the jump drive and looked for odd tags (not mp3 or mp4). Yesterday I erased and reformatted the drive. I found a utility here on TMC written by an owner that copies your iTunes music and validates compatible formats (not losless) and cleans up the files. Still does not work. Yes, first world problem. And, yes, I can use a jump drive in our 2015 S70D on v.9 without an issue.

I suspect your problem is the MP4 files, the Model 3 doesn't support the same formats as the S&X. I believe that it is Apple formats that cause a loading error on the Model 3.

 

[JPP]

I suspect your problem is the MP4 files, the Model 3 doesn't support the same formats as the S&X. I believe that it is Apple formats that cause a loading error on the Model 3.

So Tesla changed up the formats between models? Great move---and of course well documented (...not). What formats do I need for the Model 3? Anyone with a simple reference for how to copy from iTunes on a Mac?

 

[MP3Mike]

So Tesla changed up the formats between models? Great move---and of course well documented (...not). What formats do I need for the Model 3? Anyone with a simple reference for how to copy from iTunes on a Mac?

I think MP3 and FLAC are the main two formats people use on the Model 3, and they have more problems with FLAC than MP3.

 

[BertL]

@JPP, so we’re not guessing, what filetype/encoding method are you using on your USB drive?

I don’t have any experience with a Model 3, but as @MP3Mike suggests, try only MP3. It is a lot more solid in my MS than FLAC ever was. If you care about highest MP3 quality because you have lossless files (likely because you ripped CDs) in your master iTunes library, encode the MP3 with the VBS and highest quality options which give you a lossless version that is smaller than FLAC or Apple Lossless. BTW, if you are using Apple’s open-source M4A, only the lossy version works on MS, not the lossless variant which scans and shows in in the UI, but then gets a loading error upon playback (and both use the same file extension).

Check out some of my posts above re how I get files from Mac iTunes to my USB device. Net of that is if all you want to do is copy files and maybe convert to basic lossy MP3 on a Mac, look at the TeslaTunes app in the App Store, or investigate the M3Unify app from DougScripts. I’ve had best luck with the latter in recent months, but the choice depends on which options you care most about and the UI each have. Good luck.

 

[JPP]

@JPP, so we’re not guessing, what filetype/encoding method are you using on your USB drive?

I don’t have any experience with a Model 3, but as @MP3Mike suggests, try only MP3. It is a lot more solid in my MS than FLAC ever was. If you care about highest MP3 quality because you have lossless files (likely because you ripped CDs) in your master iTunes library, encode the MP3 with the VBS and highest quality options which give you a lossless version that is smaller than FLAC or Apple Lossless. BTW, if you are using Apple’s open-source M4A, only the lossy version works on MS, not the lossless variant which scans and shows in in the UI, but then gets a loading error upon playback (and both use the same file extension).

Check out some of my posts above re how I get files from Mac iTunes to my USB device. Net of that is if all you want to do is copy files and maybe convert to basic lossy MP3 on a Mac, look at the TeslaTunes app in the App Store, or investigate the M3Unify app from DougScripts. I’ve had best luck with the latter in recent months, but the choice depends on which options you care most about and the UI each have. Good luck.

So in fact I downloaded TeslaTunes yesterday and let it run for 8 hours or so, and used this to clean up and copy my Apple Mac iTunes Media/Music to my freshly reformatted USB drive. I assumed that this would take care of the problem. But in fact when I now look at the files, they all are m4a, which I gather is an extension/type that the MCU does not like. I will look at M3Unify and see if I can just copy my files over as MP3 and get it to work.

Thanks for the info.

 

[tomas]

It aggravates me to hear generalizations like “people have had a lot of trouble with FLAC”. What I take from this thread is people have had a lot of trouble with tagging and the media player’s unconventional treatment of tags. Which drives organization of tracks. FLAC as a format has played fine for me through 6 years with Model S and over last year with 2 Model 3s. Using multiple media and across countless firmware versions.

 

[thecloud]

It is a lot more solid in my MS than FLAC ever was. If you care about highest MP3 quality because you have lossless files (likely because you ripped CDs) in your master iTunes library, encode the MP3 with the VBS and highest quality options which give you a lossless version that is smaller than FLAC or Apple Lossless.

@Bert, really appreciate all your past posts on this topic. Just want to make a small correction here: encoding with MP3, even at the highest possible quality, will not give you a "lossless" version. MP3 can only generate a lossy encoding that throws away some of the original source data, which is why the resulting files are smaller than FLAC, ALAC, or WAV. In the best case, the data it throws away is outside the spectrum of human hearing; in the worst case, the output may sound tinny or have noticeably less dynamic range.

And my experience, like @tomas, has been that FLAC has always played well in my Model S. It is preferable to MP3 in terms of having the best quality sound reproduction, precisely because it's a lossless format. Out of thousands of tracks, only 2 or 3 have ever caused the dreaded "Loading Error," and this was because their bitrate was too high for the CPU to handle. Re-encoding those tracks caused them to play with no issues. I didn't need to give up the lossless quality of 99.9% of my collection because a couple of tracks needed re-encoding.

 

[MP3Mike]

It aggravates me to hear generalizations like “people have had a lot of trouble with FLAC”.

Them I guess it is a good thing nobody said that.

 

[wdolson]

I've never found Tesla's MP USB player makes changes to anything on a USB device. The new V9 AP2 cam functionality would be an exception to that, but isn't what either of our S90Ds are capable of.

I still suspect the problems you are having are related to not just file naming and file placement within a directory you see and modified via Windows, but how the individual tracks are tagged via ID3 inside each of those files. The ID3 tagging cannot be seen or changed by just moving or renaming files via Windows. This article may provide insight what ID3 is all about if you're not familiar with it. To workaround the problems you are encountering will require you explore and likely modify the ID3 tagging in each of your audiobook files as I suggested before, using a Windows application designed to read and change ID3 tags. There are many 3rd party apps and ways to accomplish that. I personally migrated from using Windows to a Mac several years ago, so can't help more in terms of present day Windows-specific apps you may want to try. Others here may be able to offer assistance if you need it. Good luck.

Yup, it looks like the file "09 - Track 09.mp3" has the ID3 title set to "Track 01". I have an aftermarket Windows Explorer replacement (Xplorer2) that allows viewing and editing the ID3 stuff from the Properties dialog, but I also found a utility on SourceForge that will allow editing all the tags at once, though it's annoying to have to do this and version 8.1 didn't do this.

Wouldn't it work if you put each disc folder individually on the USB stick and then played each disc folder separately? Not as convenient as playing the entire book in a single folder, the way it is supposed to work, but really easy to implement.

I have a three disc music folder that plays in perfect order in V9 but I don't recall doing anything special when I ripped it years ago.

I can't remember how 8.1 worked, but 9 is eliminated the folder structure when it parsed the stick. The separate Disc 1, Disc 2, etc. folders are not visible in the media player. Looking at the files by folder shows everything together in one place.

 

[BertL]

@Bert, really appreciate all your past posts on this topic. Just want to make a small correction here: encoding with MP3, even at the highest possible quality, will not give you a "lossless" version. MP3 can only generate a lossy encoding that throws away some of the original source data, which is why the resulting files are smaller than FLAC, ALAC, or WAV. In the best case, the data it throws away is outside the spectrum of human hearing; in the worst case, the output may sound tinny or have noticeably less dynamic range.

And my experience, like @tomas, has been that FLAC has always played well in my Model S. It is preferable to MP3 in terms of having the best quality sound reproduction, precisely because it's a lossless format. Out of thousands of tracks, only 2 or 3 have ever caused the dreaded "Loading Error," and this was because their bitrate was too high for the CPU to handle. Re-encoding those tracks caused them to play with no issues. I didn't need to give up the lossless quality of 99.9% of my collection because a couple of tracks needed re-encoding.

Yes, I got caught in my attempt at over simplification.

Quite a while back, I spent man weeks ripping my 1500+ CD collection into Apple M4A Lossless for my master iTunes library, as I like retaining the best quality possible on all my home and mobile devices including playback in my MS. Since M4A Lossless (open source for 6+ years) does not work in our MS, I originally converted selected tracks to FLAC (lossless level 5) on my MS USB sticks and ran that way through V7 and early V8. I had days go by where FLAC worked great (remember, I play on random shuffle a majority of the time), then other times when I had multiple very frustrating failures on the same day or week. Between loading errors, unexpected freezes, reboots and rescans that have ebbed and flowed with firmware updates, my goal became to reduce as many of the failures I could through my own trial and error by re-encoding, changing tagging and filename/directory structures. Amongst other things documented upthread, I eventually found MP3 VBS at "-V 0" (highest quality ~240kbps) was a great improvement over FLAC against my objectives in my MS: I can't hear any difference in my MS that has Tesla's premium sound option -- especially with road noise at higher speeds; the files are smaller if that makes any difference with my over-taxed MCU1 CPU and memory; the crazy MP UI will pick-up playback of a track where it left off when I get back into my MS (FLAC never, if rarely did for me), and the best thing is I rarely have a loading error -- and when I do, the track will almost always play if I just reselect it within the UI (indicating a problem with Tesla's firmware, not the MP3 VBS encoding.)

I'm glad some folks have no issue with FLAC or any other format, but then there are also some owners that have reported success with more than double the number of tracks on their USB device than what I've ever been able to handle for long. I'm envious. I bet most of us here agree, it would be nice to just have a MP that has basic USB owner documentation as to what is supported like other major auto mfgrs provide, and then consistently plays tracks with a UI that is flexible enough to satisfy not only the casual listener, but audiophiles that care to listen to larger curated music libraries in their Tesla.

 

[BertL]

So in fact I downloaded TeslaTunes yesterday and let it run for 8 hours or so, and used this to clean up and copy my Apple Mac iTunes Media/Music to my freshly reformatted USB drive. I assumed that this would take care of the problem. But in fact when I now look at the files, they all are m4a, which I gather is an extension/type that the MCU does not like. I will look at M3Unify and see if I can just copy my files over as MP3 and get it to work.

Thanks for the info.

M3Unify will give you the ability to convert and export files as MP3 VBR High Quality if that's what you'd like to do in a single step: Drop your playlists or tracks into the window and it will chug away building your USB device. I maintain a specific iTunes playlist for my Tesla that shows only a subset of tracks from my iTunes Library based on genre and other things, so when I want to rebuild, I just drag that playlist into M3Unify and let my Mac do it's thing. (From there, I use dBpoweramp to do all the additional tagging and filename manipulation to workaround other challenges, but first-things-first!)

Another app you could try is "Export for iTunes" also on the Mac App Store -- it will allow you to convert to MP3 at 256kbps, but I don't think into the variable bit variant M3Unify or say dBpoweramp provides. I've had trouble in the past with Export for iTunes error handling (just as I did originally with TeslaTunes) and is why I switched to M3Unify which is more continually updated and has been more rock solid for me.

Good luck.

UPDATE: If helpful, here is a partial screenshot of one of my Tesla iTunes Playlists I use with M3Unify. You'll need to modify it to meet your tastes and needs, but it may perhaps provide a starting point if you don't already have something similar.

 

[JPP]

M3Unify will give you the ability to convert and export files as MP3 VBR High Quality if that's what you'd like to do in a single step: Drop your playlists or tracks into the window and it will chug away building your USB device. I maintain a specific iTunes playlist for my Tesla that shows only a subset of tracks from my iTunes Library based on genre and other things, so when I want to rebuild, I just drag that playlist into M3Unify and let my Mac do it's thing. (From there, I use dBpoweramp to do all the additional tagging and filename manipulation to workaround other challenges, but first-things-first!)

Another app you could try is "Export for iTunes" also on the Mac App Store -- it will allow you to convert to MP3 at 256kbps, but I don't think into the variable bit variant M3Unify or say dBpoweramp provides. I've had trouble in the past with Export for iTunes error handling (just as I did originally with TeslaTunes) and is why I switched to M3Unify which is more continually updated and has been more rock solid for me.

Good luck.

UPDATE: If helpful, here is a partial screenshot of one of my Tesla iTunes Playlists I use with M3Unify. You'll need to modify it to meet your tastes and needs, but it may perhaps provide a starting point if you don't already have something similar.
View attachment 346074

I downloaded M3Unify last night and paid for the $15 unlimited license. I did a first pass attempt to copy about 3000+ songs to MP3 VBR Highest quality, and went to bed. The app was 'done' this morning, so I took my SanDisk USB drive and popped it into my 3. Only got about 300+ songs onto the drive, but now the songs are seen by the MCU and play without loading errors. I am today re-converting my music. I think that M3Unify ran into a bad/unreadable song last night, popped up an error message, and since it did not get a response from me, just quit the operation. I am monitoring it now and I have seen a couple of bad tracks that bring up an error message and dialog. You have to acknowledge the issue. M3Unify then stops. I needed to restart, figure out which track was bad, and delete it from the M3Unify list. Then I had to restart the process again (but could UNcheck the Replace Same-Named Files option), so it picked up pretty much where it left off. I am waiting for M3Unify to finish up, and I will then copy the output to my USB jump drive and see. More later.

And many, many thanks for all of your detailed efforts in this whole process over the years. Really appreciated--and as you know, should not be necessary with the right programming and interface in the MCU.

 

[supratachophobia]

Do we have a current/updated buglist for version 9? I'd like to bring it up on the quarterly conference call with the worldwide presidents of the owner groups and our Tesla liasons.

 

[JPP]

I downloaded M3Unify last night and paid for the $15 unlimited license. I did a first pass attempt to copy about 3000+ songs to MP3 VBR Highest quality, and went to bed. The app was 'done' this morning, so I took my SanDisk USB drive and popped it into my 3. Only got about 300+ songs onto the drive, but now the songs are seen by the MCU and play without loading errors. I am today re-converting my music. I think that M3Unify ran into a bad/unreadable song last night, popped up an error message, and since it did not get a response from me, just quit the operation. I am monitoring it now and I have seen a couple of bad tracks that bring up an error message and dialog. You have to acknowledge the issue. M3Unify then stops. I needed to restart, figure out which track was bad, and delete it from the M3Unify list. Then I had to restart the process again (but could UNcheck the Replace Same-Named Files option), so it picked up pretty much where it left off. I am waiting for M3Unify to finish up, and I will then copy the output to my USB jump drive and see. More later.

And many, many thanks for all of your detailed efforts in this whole process over the years. Really appreciated--and as you know, should not be necessary with the right programming and interface in the MCU.

Update...I started again today with M3Unity, and converted about 3500 tracks to MP3 VBR Highest quality from my Mac iTunes library (most were in m4a format). This took about 5 hours (on a MacBook Pro with an SSD running 10.13 High Sierra), with 2 interruptions for a couple of corrupted tracks that halted conversion (I had to delete the offenders from the M3Unity list). Once done, I then copied the files/folders onto my newly reformatted SanDisk low profile USB drive (about 32 Gb of data)--this took a couple of hours. Went up to my 3 and plugged the drive into the open front USB port (the other port has the drive for TeslaCam--I did not want to have a dual partition). The music USB mounted and loaded in a couple of minutes. All songs/tracks are visible, folders/artists/albums look good. I sampled a dozen songs--all play. Magic. Wish Tesla did not make this so onerous. Again, many thanks to BertL and the others who have contributed here. Wish the engineers at Tesla were paying attention to this and maybe spending a bit less time on proving Atari.

 

[BertL]

Update...I started again today with M3Unity, and converted about 3500 tracks to MP3 VBR Highest quality from my Mac iTunes library (most were in m4a format). This took about 5 hours (on a MacBook Pro with an SSD running 10.13 High Sierra), with 2 interruptions for a couple of corrupted tracks that halted conversion (I had to delete the offenders from the M3Unity list). Once done, I then copied the files/folders onto my newly reformatted SanDisk low profile USB drive (about 32 Gb of data)--this took a couple of hours. Went up to my 3 and plugged the drive into the open front USB port (the other port has the drive for TeslaCam--I did not want to have a dual partition). The music USB mounted and loaded in a couple of minutes. All songs/tracks are visible, folders/artists/albums look good. I sampled a dozen songs--all play. Magic. Wish Tesla did not make this so onerous. Again, many thanks to BertL and the others who have contributed here. Wish the engineers at Tesla were paying attention to this and maybe spending a bit less time on proving Atari.

Very happy to hear we got you working, albeit as you say, via methods that no owner should ever have to go through.

 

[BertL]

Do we have a current/updated buglist for version 9? I'd like to bring it up on the quarterly conference call with the worldwide presidents of the owner groups and our Tesla liasons.

My original MS V9 list in both summary and detailed form is in Comprehensive USB Bug List, with additional responsiveness observations & an old loading error problem seeming to be back in the Comprehensive USB Bug List post from 3 weeks ago. Add to that the new Randomness Bug I reported in Comprehensive USB Bug List from this past weekend.

I don't remember other issues being reported yet for MS MP USB V9, or someone yet disputing my initial observations beyond smaller quibbles, but it's easy enough to scan the past 3 pages of this thread to double-check for anything you think important, which is when the V9 discussion began. I'll let you put those thoughts together in whatever form is useful for your purpose... just not gonna do that, or review input someone else consolidates again myself, as I have done both too many times over the past 3 years with almost zero positive Tesla-generated improvement from my POV.

 

[supratachophobia]

My original MS V9 list in both summary and detailed form is in Comprehensive USB Bug List, with additional responsiveness observations & an old loading error problem seeming to be back in the Comprehensive USB Bug List post from 3 weeks ago. Add to that the new Randomness Bug I reported in Comprehensive USB Bug List from this past weekend.

I don't remember other issues being reported yet for MS MP USB V9, or someone yet disputing my initial observations beyond smaller quibbles, but it's easy enough to scan the past 3 pages of this thread to double-check for anything you think important, which is when the V9 discussion began. I'll let you put those thoughts together in whatever form is useful for your purpose... just not gonna do that, or review input someone else consolidates again myself, as I have done both too many times over the past 3 years with almost zero positive Tesla-generated improvement from my POV.

Thanks, will do.

 

[wdolson]

I had a harebrained idea for Tesla. They could really up the quality of the radio/media player/etc. by farming it out to users with the proper skills. Announce they are doing an open source style project for a new sub-system and take proposals from teams and/or individuals. If more than one looks good, let them all work on their own version. If more than one succeeds, they could offer an option for users of which media system UI they want.

Tesla should require all source code be turned over to them and it should be thoroughly tested by their own engineers before going live. Teams also shouldn't be anonymous to Tesla to prevent bad actors from inserting malware but don't need to be known to the world unless they want to. But they could use this to leapfrog ahead of the competition in infotainment UI instead of lagging like they are now.

I'm sure there are owners out there with the skills to make this happen. I would be interested, my background is in embedded programming and Electronic Engineering. I've been way too busy until just recently. Thanks to the trade war my workweek with my primary customer is down to 4 days.

 

[supratachophobia]

I had a harebrained idea for Tesla. They could really up the quality of the radio/media player/etc. by farming it out to users with the proper skills. Announce they are doing an open source style project for a new sub-system and take proposals from teams and/or individuals. If more than one looks good, let them all work on their own version. If more than one succeeds, they could offer an option for users of which media system UI they want.

Tesla should require all source code be turned over to them and it should be thoroughly tested by their own engineers before going live. Teams also shouldn't be anonymous to Tesla to prevent bad actors from inserting malware but don't need to be known to the world unless they want to. But they could use this to leapfrog ahead of the competition in infotainment UI instead of lagging like they are now.

I'm sure there are owners out there with the skills to make this happen. I would be interested, my background is in embedded programming and Electronic Engineering. I've been way too busy until just recently. Thanks to the trade war my workweek with my primary customer is down to 4 days.

They've flat out said no to this. There is still enough hubris left for them to think that they can still do it best.