Could we finally expect the USB Media Player to be fixed in Ver. 9.0?

[PhilDavid]

We love everything about our car but the issues we constantly have with USB Media playback. I know, I know, the car can stream music but our travels often takes us away from strong cellphone connectivity and I also prefer listening to high quality music. We have about 7,000 lossless audio tracks in a 250GB USB drive. Just about all the files are FLAC encoded but we are having all sorts of playback and scanning issues.

Does anyone know if we can expect a better Media Player in V 9.0? While they add games and other fun stuff to the software, I really wish they would pay as much attention to fixing core features such as media playback.

 

[ghostrunner]

Never had trouble with the USB Media playback it works flawless, maybe try a different USB drive or scan the one you have for errors, I had to do that for one of mine and now it works

 

[Derek Kessler]

If you have no expectations then you'll never be disappointed.

 

[Joelgjr]

Mine works fine as well

 

[Raechris]

Mine works fine too. It may be the size of the drive if the MCU RAM is being tapped out. I would try a smaller USB drive at class 10 speed or faster.

 

[MP3Mike]

Just about all the files are FLAC encoded but we are having all sorts of playback and scanning issues.

People that have converted their FLAC files to MP3 VBR files report a lot fewer problems. Also, 7,000 tracks seems to be the upper bound of what is OK. (Though some reports are that the newer firmware versions actually have a lower limit, at least on MCU1 cars.)

 

[PhilDavid]

Mine works fine too. It may be the size of the drive if the MCU RAM is being tapped out. I would try a smaller USB drive at class 10 speed or faster.

I doubt the USB drive speed is the issue. The data read/transfer rate of the USB flash drive is well beyond the saturation point of an uncompressed FLAC stream. The issues I have to do with the software not recognizing the music properly and issues scanning the music library.

People that have converted their FLAC files to MP3 VBR files report a lot fewer problems. Also, 7,000 tracks seems to be the upper bound of what is OK. (Though some reports are that the newer firmware versions actually have a lower limit, at least on MCU1 cars.)

The point is that I don't want the audio to be compressed. In other cars I've owned, playback of lossless music with 7,000+ tracks and over 200GB has been flawless, granted that it is via the iPod interface and an iPod modified with a 250GB drive.

I'd love for the USB Media player to flawlessly handle large music libraries of lossless music as that's how I primarily listen to music in the car.

 

[strider]

The Media Player has sucked for a few years now. We have a 64GB flash drive with a few hundred regular mp3 and mp4 files. We regularly get "Loading Error" when trying to play a song. We'll have to go back into the list and try it again, or select the song before or after it and then use the forward or backward track buttons to get to it. My Ranger says he has other customers with the same problem. They haven't been able to figure out a pattern. Tesla's drive control software has been flawless but their infotainment software not so much.

 

[PhilDavid]

The Media Player has sucked for a few years now. We have a 64GB flash drive with a few hundred regular mp3 and mp4 files. We regularly get "Loading Error" when trying to play a song. We'll have to go back into the list and try it again, or select the song before or after it and then use the forward or backward track buttons to get to it. My Ranger says he has other customers with the same problem. They haven't been able to figure out a pattern. Tesla's drive control software has been flawless but their infotainment software not so much.

These are exactly the same issues that we are having

The USB Media Player is the only aspect of the Tesla software that I'm disappointment with in the car but it affects just about all the time I spend in the car. This is why I really hope that they have finally fixed the media player in Version 9.

Has anyone seen any news about media player improvements? The media player shouldn't be that hard to fix...

 

[araxara]

I switched over to using only MP3 files (converted as they were copied from iTunes M4A format). I have a total of about 8900 files. I no longer have loading errors and all files play nicely – cover art also works properly. I wrote a script which does this and can be accessed here:

Dropbox - Convert Music to MP3​

You'll need to have the proper file dependancies and this has been written for Mac OS Terminal.

 

[PhilDavid]

I switched over to using only MP3 files (converted as they were copied from iTunes M4A format). I have a total of about 8900 files. I no longer have loading errors and all files play nicely – cover art also works properly. I wrote a script which does this and can be accessed here:

Dropbox - Convert Music to MP3​

You'll need to have the proper file dependancies and this has been written for Mac OS Terminal.

Thanks for the link but I'm still holding out hope that I can listen to lossless music in the car without losing quality by converting to MP3. I listen to a lot of jazz and classical music and love how lossless FLAC files sound with the upgraded audio in the car. I've invested a lot of time and effort in building and keeping my music library lossless so converting to MP3 is not really an option I. The media player does play FLAC files, they just need to play the files reliably and fix the issues with scanning relatively large music libraries of a few thousand tracks.

My circa 2007 iPod has no issues playing lossless audio files. I feel with such a sophisticated car, you should not have to degrade the quality of your music my converting it to MP3 in order to be able to enjoy the music in the car...

 

[Vitold]

Can Tesla reproduce your issue?

Divide your collection to groups of 1000 tracks, play each group separately - do yo still see the issue across all groups? Is the issue same across all groups?

 

[bob_p]

The version 8.0 release with the "improved" media player introduced a number of media player design flaws and bugs.

Some were quickly fixed after release (such as adding back the first letter scroll bar for lists). Tesla promised fixes in the 8.1 release, but a number of the problems, especially with USB still exist, such as frequently losing the current position/song/source selection/radio station after returning to the car.

Musk has promised several times the media player bugs would be fixed - and can't recall hearing anything about this for a while.

Based on the 8.0 experience, even if they do fix the media player issues, wouldn't be surprised for some new design flaws to appear (like losing the ability to change the media player source from the right steering wheel scroll button) or new bugs to be added. Tesla's beta testing with a small number of hand-picked beta testers appears to miss obvious problems - so it could be an adventure in the next month or so when we finally get 9.0.

 

[David29]

I'd expand this question to ask if all the other issues with the media player will be addressed. Lots of threads have tabulated these issues. The one most annoying me now from day to day is the system's inability to hold its place in a song or podcast when I leave the car. This has been an issue for 3 years or more, and is well documented. Tesla seems not to put priority on these legacy issues that don't affect driving (or maybe that don't make a difference in what features they can say the car has).

My best guess is that the answer is No, they won't fix these things. They haven't fixed them in the 2 dozen or so releases in the past 3 years, so why would we expect them to suddenly become a priority? (I admit there have been some tweaks that have made some audio issues better over those years, but several annoying ones remain.)

 

[BIG ACH]

I just want my second usb plug to work... period lol


At least one works right now...


Too lazy / cheap to get it fixed,

 

[PhilDavid]

I'd expand this question to ask if all the other issues with the media player will be addressed. Lots of threads have tabulated these issues. The one most annoying me now from day to day is the system's inability to hold its place in a song or podcast when I leave the car. This has been an issue for 3 years or more, and is well documented. Tesla seems not to put priority on these legacy issues that don't affect driving (or maybe that don't make a difference in what features they can say the car has).

My best guess is that the answer is No, they won't fix these things. They haven't fixed them in the 2 dozen or so releases in the past 3 years, so why would we expect them to suddenly become a priority? (I admit there have been some tweaks that have made some audio issues better over those years, but several annoying ones remain.)

Well, they are now adding video games to the car...

This is what gave me hope that in Ver 9 they will finally fix the Media Player. Fixing the media player should not be that complicated and would be a tremendous improvement in the user experience for customers who primarily listen to music with the USB media player. They just need to figure out what is causing the software to choke on large lossless music collections and start the music where it was left off.

The media player fixes are not that difficult or resource intensive. A $49 Amazon Fire tablet can process and play my 200+ GB lossless music library stored in an SD card flawlessly.

After having listened to high quality lossless audio tracks with the upgraded audio in the car, I just can't go back to MP3.

 

[E-Ryc]

Well, they are now adding video games to the car... This is what gave me hope that in Ver 9 they will finally fix the Media Player.

I'd guess not. Fixing bugs is boring, let's implement some new cool feature interesting for developers. Who cares if it's also interesting for users.

 

[bob_p]

The inability to reliably resume in the current usb file has been a problem since we received our first Model S in early 2013, making it impossible to use the media player for audio books. With our previous ICEs, we would listen to audiobooks on CDs - and when switching from CD to radio and back, the current CD file position would be restored and the audiobook would be resumed from the last position.

This has never worked with the Tesla media player. And when sleep mode was first introduced in 2013, the media player started losing the current file/position when resuming from sleep. Which was made worse when Tesla started forcing all cars into sleep mode (there's no longer a setting to control sleep mode in the newer Tesla cars).

While I hope they'll finally address the long list of media player bugs and design flaws, realistically, expect to see two steps forward and one step backward in the next release, with some improvements and a few new design flaws & bugs, which should have been caught by Tesla's internal testers and hand picked beta testers prior to release.

 

[PhilDavid]

I'd guess not. Fixing bugs is boring, let's implement some new cool feature interesting for developers. Who cares if it's also interesting for users.

This is why I'd love for Tesla to take a small break from adding cowbells and really refine the existing functionality and clean up some of the lingering bugs. Media playback is really a basic core feature of the car and it should always work reliably.

 

[Mediocrates]

Thanks for the link but I'm still holding out hope that I can listen to lossless music in the car without losing quality by converting to MP3.

Very few people can tell the difference between original uncompressed audio at CD specifications (sampling and bits per sample) and MP3, and only on very few audio tracks played on very high quality equipment (which Tesla audio isn't) in controlled environments (which a car on the road also isn't). This has been tested extensively at MP3 bitrates well below the standard maximum (320 kbps). Most people achieve audio transparency (inability to detect the difference between the original and the MP3) well below that bitrate (usually around 200kbps). Some people insist on being able to detect the difference with ease, but those claims are unsupported until a proper ABX test (ABX - Hydrogenaudio Knowledgebase) is performed (which, conveniently, such people never seem to perform). Now, at lower bitrates and/or with poor MP3 encoders, compression artifacts can be more frequently detected by many listeners (see: Slacker audio). This can be easily avoided by using a good encoder (LAME being the de facto standard) and a proper bitrate (feel free to use the maximum of 320kbps if you want to err on the safe side).

I'm not saying you should have to convert your FLAC library to MP3 to work around Tesla's poor software development practices, but rather that you can relax the concern of using MP3 audio for fear of quality loss.