Comprehensive USB Bug List

[aesculus]

When I asked Tesla about when they would fix some of the media player issues, I was told bug fixes are based on how many inquiries they get from customers.

While on the surface that may appear to be a good business decision, it is short sighted. If a feature is broken, either fix it, or remove the feature. Leaving things broken for individual customers to struggle with day after day will just piss people off, and angry customers are not good for business.

The problem is that Tesla was built on the wallets of a lot of rich old techies. This group had a fair sized crowd that liked their own uncompressed media content. The USB fit that need. And as long as they were buying lots of overpriced S/X, Tesla paid attention.

Now that group is dwarfed on the next tier of buyers who probably could not even tell you what a FLAC file is. It's all about streaming and MP3's from the phones bluetoothed into the car. If anything they are pushing for Apple and Google car features.

So I have pretty much given up on Tesla ever fixing their USB issues. I have made as many concessions as I can with my media wrt organization and tagging that I should not have had to do just to get it to work in a minimalist way (ie by Artist, Album or files - forget playlists). I use a fairly small (150 gb) USB drive which does not seem to ever have reindexing issues so that is good for me.

 

[tomas]

customer complaint frequency is NOT how they make decisions. I don’t understand how a) a low level Tesla person says something ridiculous that does not foot with real evidence and we believe them, and b) that theory then gets legs in the forum.

Have you read the news bits in the last few days about fixing dog mode? One guy complained loudly on social media about his hot dog and they jump to it. They’ve added features when one guy tweets to Elon and he likes it.

Why? The news value of this stuff is their version of advertising.

USB obviously neither sexy nor a priority. Plus, clearly, there’s something very bad in its original design, as some users have these problems and some don’t. I hope it gets fixed, but I can’t crusade because it’s a bad emotional investment

 

[tomas]

The problem is that Tesla was built on the wallets of a lot of rich old techies. This group had a fair sized crowd that liked their own uncompressed media content. The USB fit that need. And as long as they were buying lots of overpriced S/X, Tesla paid attention.

Now that group is dwarfed on the next tier of buyers who probably could not even tell you what a FLAC file is. It's all about streaming and MP3's from the phones bluetoothed into the car. If anything they are pushing for Apple and Google car features.

So I have pretty much given up on Tesla ever fixing their USB issues. I have made as many concessions as I can with my media wrt organization and tagging that I should not have had to do just to get it to work in a minimalist way (ie by Artist, Album or files - forget playlists). I use a fairly small (150 gb) USB drive which does not seem to ever have reindexing issues so that is good for me.

LOL, I guess I’m a rich old techie. But I’m not sure the USB function was ever more than an afterthought, as the car was designed by streaming generation people. I’m guessing one guy snuck it into the code and they told him to stop!

 

[PhilDavid]

The problem is that Tesla was built on the wallets of a lot of rich old techies. This group had a fair sized crowd that liked their own uncompressed media content. The USB fit that need. And as long as they were buying lots of overpriced S/X, Tesla paid attention.

Now that group is dwarfed on the next tier of buyers who probably could not even tell you what a FLAC file is. It's all about streaming and MP3's from the phones bluetoothed into the car. If anything they are pushing for Apple and Google car features.

So I have pretty much given up on Tesla ever fixing their USB issues. I have made as many concessions as I can with my media wrt organization and tagging that I should not have had to do just to get it to work in a minimalist way (ie by Artist, Album or files - forget playlists). I use a fairly small (150 gb) USB drive which does not seem to ever have reindexing issues so that is good for me.

Don;t underestimate Model 3 buyers also wanting to enjoy quality music in their cars. Also 4G coverage falls apart very quickly when you drive away from a major city. We just got back from 3 day trip and for most of the time, we did not have 4G coverage even if we wanted to stream music.

The 4 things I listed are really not that hard to implement and they will make such a big difference in the lives of customers.

Love Tesla. Love my car. Wish Tesla would please fix the USB Audio Player.

Especially the issue of not resuming music, USB or otherwise, makes for a bad experience the moment you get in the car and I wish they'd maintain what the customer was listening to when they leave the car so the music, USB or otherwise, can resume. Resuming music is the most basic expectation from a media player...

Please everyone login to your Tesla account once a week and submit a support request reminding Tesla to please fix the USB media player.

 

[PhilDavid]

customer complaint frequency is NOT how they make decisions. I don’t understand how a) a low level Tesla person says something ridiculous that does not foot with real evidence and we believe them, and b) that theory then gets legs in the forum.

Have you read the news bits in the last few days about fixing dog mode? One guy complained loudly on social media about his hot dog and they jump to it. They’ve added features when one guy tweets to Elon and he likes it.

Why? The news value of this stuff is their version of advertising.

USB obviously neither sexy nor a priority. Plus, clearly, there’s something very bad in its original design, as some users have these problems and some don’t. I hope it gets fixed, but I can’t crusade because it’s a bad emotional investment

Wait a minute. Don;t say USB music is not sexy!

I have lots of sexy USB music!

SO are you suggesting we should all Tweet Elon about please fixing the USB media player?

 

[Boatguy]

Funny (if it weren't so bad) resume music today. Playing from USB, working OK (per 98 pages of comments!). Stop at the store, back in the car, music resumes. Stop at the next store, back in the car, no music. Short ride home so I ignore it. Home, in the garage, open the trunk, get out and close the driver's door. Open the passenger door, music starts where it stopped at the store!

And for good measure, the cruise control and auto-steering in my 2018 S100D are not nearly as smooth as they were in my 2016 S90D!

 

[tomas]

Funny (if it weren't so bad) resume music today. Playing from USB, working OK (per 98 pages of comments!). Stop at the store, back in the car, music resumes. Stop at the next store, back in the car, no music. Short ride home so I ignore it. Home, in the garage, open the trunk, get out and close the driver's door. Open the passenger door, music starts where it stopped at the store!

And for good measure, the cruise control and auto-steering in my 2018 S100D are not nearly as smooth as they were in my 2016 S90D!

I reported this a while back, but it has been buried. About 6 months ago, Tesla fixed USB resume. Most of the time. When it doesn’t work, get out of car, close door, get back in, and voila it will work. I suspect Tesla has issues with its startup architecture where stuff doesn’t always fire off in same sequence, or sometimes concurrent tasks finish staggered differently... which creates unpredictable startup behaviors.

 

[wdolson]

I don't want to stream again from my phone until Apple fixes a problem with Bluetooth streaming. We streamed a podcast on my phone and it started playing the podcast again every time I tried to make a phone call over Bluetooth. The only way I could get it to stop was to stream a sound effect I had over Bluetooth and set the volume to zero. When I've made a call over Bluetooth in the car the sound effect is playing on my phone when I get home, but with no volume.

My SO tried to stream something on her phone and got the same problem.

According to the Apple forums this is a bug in the iPhone and Apple is looking at it. Apparently with cars with Apple Play it can be disabled somehow, but with cars like Tesla my trick is the only fix possible.

I downloaded several episodes of the podcast and put it on a memory stick for the car. The USB player isn't perfect, but it doesn't start playing when I'm trying to make a phone call.

 

[Sparrow]

I tried what @tomas suggested above. I open the door of my Model X. If the usb music does not play (which is virtually every time), I close the door and then open it back almost immediately. In my 2 attempts so far, the music has successfully started both times upon opening the door the second time. I am hoping this continues to be a work around until they fix the underlying issue.

 

[Sparrow]

One other oddity I have noted. Although this opening and closing the door and then opening it again seems to be working with the usb music. The display still shows TuneIn as highlighted (darkened compared to the other choices) while the usb music is playing and song info is shown.

 

[tomas]

I tried what @tomas suggested above. I open the door of my Model X. If the usb music does not play (which is virtually every time), I close the door and then open it back almost immediately. In my 2 attempts so far, the music has successfully started both times upon opening the door the second time. I am hoping this continues to be a work around until they fix the underlying issue.

I wouldn’t hold my breath. I’ve had at least half a dozen minor startup issues across my 3 Teslas. I suspect their system architecture has multiple tasks going at same time. Like the master task says “everybody start up” and they all ring back when they are done. This would mean that slight state differences could cause startup tasks to complete in different order, resulting in anomalies. So I think it is much deeper than just fixing media player.

 

[wdolson]

I wouldn’t hold my breath. I’ve had at least half a dozen minor startup issues across my 3 Teslas. I suspect their system architecture has multiple tasks going at same time. Like the master task says “everybody start up” and they all ring back when they are done. This would mean that slight state differences could cause startup tasks to complete in different order, resulting in anomalies. So I think it is much deeper than just fixing media player.

Most of the time I have the radio set when I leave the car. Many times I will get in the car and the radio will hiccup for 30 seconds or more while it bounces between 89.5 and the set station. Sometimes I can get it to stop by tapping the station select, but sometimes that doesn't work either. Sometimes the instrument cluster will go dark when I get in the car and take a few seconds to come back.

I think you're right that multiple systems are trying to boot at the same time. What would be interesting would be to see the behavior between older MCU and newer MCU systems. My car is a mid-2016.

 

[f-stop]

I reported this a while back, but it has been buried. About 6 months ago, Tesla fixed USB resume. Most of the time. When it doesn’t work, get out of car, close door, get back in, and voila it will work. I suspect Tesla has issues with its startup architecture where stuff doesn’t always fire off in same sequence, or sometimes concurrent tasks finish staggered differently... which creates unpredictable startup behaviors.

I also mentioned earlier that I believed they somehow fixed the USB resume a number of updates ago, it was working in my MS for quite a few months - until I noticed it broken again earlier this week. And then today while driving I noticed the USB was completely missing from touchscreen display - i.e. there was no way to pick it as the audio source (Slacker was playing at the time). I had seen the USB disappear before, but not for maybe a year or more. When I got home, I rebooted the screen and USB came back, after the expected rescan following the reboot.

And now, after getting out of the car and getting back in, USB playback again resumes where it left off, as it had been doing for a while until this latest glitch. I agree there's probably some sequence of things in the underlying (sloppy) code which from time to time gets out of whack, maybe this explains why people are seeing different unpredictable behaviours in the media player. FWIW my MS is currently on 2019.24.4

 

[Sparrow]

Disappointed that the door trick worked to resume usb play leaving my garage this morning, but failed to work both times I tried it while out. The only big difference I can see is that I left the AC on while I was out of the car both times that the opening closing and then opening again failed

 

[tomas]

Disappointed that the door trick worked to resume usb play leaving my garage this morning, but failed to work both times I tried it while out. The only big difference I can see is that I left the AC on while I was out of the car both times that the opening closing and then opening again failed

I dont think just opening and closing does it. Youve got to turn car off and on again, which means get out, close door, get back in.

 

[Sparrow]

This is how it works for me. I approach the Model X. Door opens by itself. I stick my head in the door without getting in. If I hear music (which is rare) I get in and all is good. If I do not hear any music I close the door, make sure all the screens are dark and then open the door again. Music comes on almost all the time.

By the way I got another new version yesterday, 2019.28.3. Hoping they fixed the wakeup bug that is keeping my usb music from starting properly with the first door opening, but no luck.

 

[PhilDavid]

I dont think just opening and closing does it. Youve got to turn car off and on again, which means get out, close door, get back in.

At that point, isn't the solution more of a pain than simply manually resuming the music, even if it means waiting for a few minutes for the music to "load?"

 

[Sparrow]

2019.28.3.1 has made things even worse. The door trick no longer works, I guess because the usb drive appears to be rescanning everytime the car is turned back on. Not related to the usb drive, but the button on my HPWC no longer opens the charge port either. How knows what else they broke.

 

[BertL]

To long-term contributors of this thread — a Goodbye

FWIW I am in process of disconnecting from TMC, and will no longer be an active participant in this thread or able to assist via PM. I will be selling my MS in upcoming weeks and returning to an in some ways, lesser, PHEV. OTOH, while I won’t go into detail, the new ride I ordered today should amongst other things, bring me superior stability and Infotainment functionality for my needs (including Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, 50+ pages of owner documentation on the broad Infotainment and USB support, while officially supporting up to 15K tracks and 100 playlists on a USB device with all the major encoding formats we’ve come to expect — oh, and no useless Easter Eggs!)

It’s been a long and terribly tough decision, as I adore so much of my MS. I will truly miss being all-electric with all that means to me personally each and every day — but continued uneven Tesla service and the many longstanding unresolved basic software bugs that keep biting me, have driven me to likely take a financial loss and make a change. I appreciate these issues are less important or can be overlooked by some. The aggregate problems I’ve encountered over my 4-year ownership, with no resolution in sight, despite man-weeks of personal effort and many business-like approaches to convey the issues to Tesla, have moved what should have been temporary annoyances into something greater for me — finally surpassing all the wondrous things my MS does provide. Perhaps one day I’ll return to the Tesla family if I see a long-term demonstrated focus on customer satisfaction, problem resolution, and quality.

Until then, I wish you all the best with happy listening to your favorite tunes, as you quickly and silently glide down the highway. You own the best overall EV in the market. Thanks, one last time, for the help many of you have given me over the years in my attempts to listen to my music, my way.​

 

[aesculus]

To long-term contributors of this thread — a Goodbye

Oh no. Thanks for all the support and wish you all the luck.