Media player in 8.0 actually got worse (for local music)

[Merrill]

Having spent more time with the new media player, and the hope that someone at Tesla actually reads these posts, a few suggestions, most of which have been discussed above:

1. Allow "Search Anything" to search our USB drives.
2. Return an alphabetical index to the USB interface so we can find artists, albums, playlists, songs, quickly and safely.
3. Don't return the scroll back to the beginning after each action. Keep it where we are looking, especially if we have invested many minutes scrolling to the middle of the alphabet.
4. Allow us to play albums in the order in which they were brought into this world. This is especially important for classical music which was never intended to be shuffled out of sequence, but also for a lot of great albums.
5. Make it so Serius XM stations are identified by the station name and not just the number. I have a lot of channel numbers that show up in my favorites now with no idea what they are. But other radio stations come through with clear identification and logos.
6. Allow us to organize our favorites. We can only delete them and I have no clue why the interface orders them as it does, but I would like to be able to organize how my favorite sources are displayed.

None of this is rocket science. Almost every other music interface we use in our normal lives - iTunes, Amarra, and the audio interfaces on most other advanced cars allows this, and has for quite some time. Those of us who paid for the upgraded sound system did so because we want to enjoy high quality audio as part of our driving experience. I bought my Tesla to be ahead of the curve, not well behind it.

Also make the album art available when looking for artist or album and on favorites.

 

[tomas]

So I'm one of those weirdos who actually keeps a large USB thumbdrive full of music in his car, and often prefers to use it as a source of music playback. I even go so far as to organize the files in the music collection so they're easy to browse.

After upgrading to 8.0, I've noticed a few changes that actually make the user experience a whole lot worse. Some feel like outright bugs, and others feel like blatant user interaction oversights. So here goes...

• When browsing by "Folders", album tracks are sorted alphabetically by song title. This completely ignores the track number in the metadata, and the file name itself (which, in my case, often has a track number prefix.) However, if you browse to the exact same album via the "Albums" grouping, tracks are correctly sorted.
• They removed the alphabetical jump-list from the right-hand side of the media lists, making it so there's no longer a quick way to skip to a particular letter in the list.
  
• Scrolling large lists of media is now extremely sluggish and painful. You can almost feel the system groaning at you as you do it, and it'll even mistake a scroll gesture for a tap gesture amidst the sluggishness. As such, you'll accidentally open albums during the process.
• When you browse back from an album, it jumps you back to the top of the entire list. Given how painful scrolling that list is, this just makes that experience even worse.

So in short... track sorting is screwed up, and the UI is so damn sluggish its painful to use.

You are not a weirdo.

Anyone who hates this should write [email protected]. I have. They need a deluge.

 

[Boatguy]

Lots of negative feedback so I am forced to ask...

Does Elon just not get it?

Elon's time is spent thinking about space. The Tesla media player does not have any mindshare with Elon, or anybody else at Tesla.

There have been so many threads on the media player with detailed wish lists and suggestions from so many owners. Media Player 8.0 is a total repudiation of their efforts.

 

[Boatguy]

I only wish Tesla's focus group could be as large...

I love so much about the car, but so far the magic fairy that provides free "upgrades" to my car is no longer a welcome thing, and I have now told two friends who are really interested in Tesla to look at it, but maybe hold off a few weeks to a couple of months.

As everyone has said previously, this part of the car shouldn't be that difficult to get right. Open apps to 3rd parties (I mean there is a whole screen just waiting for apps), and pay Apple what they want and get on with things so that we can bitch about them, instead of Tesla.

Elon is apparently afraid of Google and Apple. Maybe he's going to announce Tesla is going into the phone business next.

I'm over it. I also like a lot about the car, but Tesla is simply not a customer focused company. Tesla has left too long a path of broken promises. They got the jump on all the other manufacturers, but in 3-5yrs there will be a flood of EVs from Detroit, Germany and Japan. I leased my car and I think I'm going to have lots of choices from company's who either have adopted CarPlay and Android Auto, or solved the infotainment system design issues years ago and also have performance, range, styling, etc.

There is no proprietary aspect of an MS/MX that is a sustainable competitive advantage. Tesla's sole strategic competitive advantage is the supercharger network. At the moment that will be the achilles heel of the other EVs, but they have a few years to address that problem.

 

[Camera-Cruiser]

There is no proprietary aspect of an MS/MX that is a sustainable competitive advantage. Tesla's sole strategic competitive advantage is the supercharger network. At the moment that will be the achilles heel of the other EVs, but they have a few years to address that problem.

The market is theirs to lose. It's pretty bad when you have hundreds of thousands of fans/supporters and investors and you manage to tick them all off. Maybe not all at once, but in significant chunks at a time. I was an Apple fanboy once, and I won't do it for Tesla, or any company again.

I like that Elon thinks big, but he needs to care about the details too. He can't possibly drive the same thing he sells us, no one would tolerate it. I spent 4 hours on LA freeways (I think all of them) and only heard 65% of what I tried to listen to via streaming. Nothing like getting into the first 20 seconds of Pink Floyd's 'Run Like Hell' and have it stop, and serve up some Led Zepplin only to play 90% of that and jump to The Doors. I was dying to stop at a Tower Records and buy a CD, but oh, crap.

To me, there are two buckets. The AP bucket, and the bucket with everything else. Everyone has the everything else bucket, so it should be stable and state of the art by now. The AP bucket, while cool, should be like Apple TV, just a hobby, maybe a really nice hobby, but a hobby for a bit longer. The everything else bucket should always get the most attention and care since everyone benefits from it, and it could be the best in the business, even if Tesla doesn't want to canoodle with Google or Apple.

Otherwise someday you'll be jetting down the road in an autonomous Tesla with nothing to do, hot, or cold, and out of your mind because the havoc, wifi, radio, usb, and web browser don't work. But hey, you'll have an iPhone 8 to play with.

 

[supratachophobia]

Hey, could you guys chime in on the list we are working on for usb bugs, so we are sure not to miss anything?

Comprehensive USB Bug List

 

[Boatguy]

Hey, could you guys chime in on the list we are working on for usb bugs, so we are sure not to miss anything?

Comprehensive USB Bug List

Nope. Not wasting time on something that Tesla ignores. @BertL put a lot of effort into documenting how to fix Media player 7; total waste of time. I don't know where Tesla get their ideas about what needs fixing, but it's not from these forums.

 

[supratachophobia]

I'm also hoping for better USB support, since it's the only way to get CD-quality audio into the sound system. And I'm hoping they'll also add more robust support for larger USB devices -- I have an SSD with all my music that I plugged in to the USB port and froze my screens. Now I don't dare go larger than 32G.

I'm finding track items per storage volume might be the magic threshold. There is something about more than 10k tracks. I do a 256gb SSD and five volumes. Total scan time is less than 45 min, but 1 volume had 8k tracks and another 5k. Those take the longest obviously.

 

[supratachophobia]

Just an update, I have now got cover art from the USB, perhaps I wasnt listening to songs that had art but I have them now, I also get album art for content I stream through my phone i.e. soundcloud

It is looking at album art in the id3 tag now for usb art. Jpegs in folders are still ignored.

 

[supratachophobia]

Today I wanted to kick the media player in the face. I have a 32GB flash drive for music, and it's all FLAC, so there's not a ton on there. I wanted to listen to something starting with an R.

The Search "Anything" field, as you know, didn't work. That's a baffling lie, but whatever, I'll find it manually.

I kept scrolling down. It took forever. Occasionally it would register a scroll as a select, then I'd have to hit back and start all over because it goes back to the top of the list. Infuriating.

Also, the name of my USB drive is apparently:
\xbc\xbd\xdc\x2f\xcbk7\xce\xe0\xa2b
So that's awesome. I miss "USB1".

Don't say that! Usb1,2,etc was a pain for those if it's with more than 2 inputs as the car would randomly shuffle the assignments every night do you have a lot of non standard characters in your paths?

 

[Zythryn]

So I'm one of those weirdos who actually keeps a large USB thumbdrive full of music in his car, and often prefers to use it as a source of music playback...

So in short... track sorting is screwed up, and the UI is so damn sluggish its painful to use.

Good list, did you send this feedback to Tesla?

 

[Skipdd]

A suggestion -

If the objective is to get this fixed, then tie it to something that seems to motivate Tesla to take action. One of the company's stated goals is to drive mass adoption of EVs. Things that get picked up in the mainstream media with a "negative lens" and also start to impact the overall perception of the car, potentially threaten to derail that effort. While I am still passionate about Tesla, I agree that I'd like to see them continue to deliver excellence in all offered areas. So, perhaps getting this information to be more broadly understood would spur the company to take action.

Like @Boatguy, I leased my car - with one of the main reasons being to arbitrage the risk/technology curve. At the moment I'm still leaning toward re-upping my lease in about a year, but I continue to evaluate based on how I see things evolving. And I will certainly consider all options in the market. Before Tesla, I was going to get a Porsche..

 

[AmpedRealtor]

Version 8 makes me long for more competition in the EV space. In 2013 I said my next car will definitely be a Tesla. In the last 3 years Tesla has screwed up every single firmware release sent to my car, and consistently removed functionality with each one. I can't wait for Mercedes, Audi, and BMW to get into the EV space with a viable competitor. At this point, I doubt my next EV will be a Tesla. Tesla doesn't seem to give a rat's ass about what their customers want or that their cars offer basic features present in other vehicles costing half as much. I'm loathe to buy another product from such a company.

 

[Camera-Cruiser]

Version 8 makes me long for more competition in the EV space. In 2013 I said my next car will definitely be a Tesla. In the last 3 years Tesla has screwed up every single firmware release sent to my car, and consistently removed functionality with each one. I can't wait for Mercedes, Audi, and BMW to get into the EV space with a viable competitor. At this point, I doubt my next EV will be a Tesla. Tesla doesn't seem to give a rat's ass about what their customers want or that their cars offer basic features present in other vehicles costing half as much. I'm loathe to buy another product from such a company.

You just save me from typing the same thing.

A year ago, almost to the day, I stopped, looking at the BMW i3 and Volt and went full on CPO Tesla. Buy Halloween my wife and I had bought our Tesla, and it was sitting in our office/garage. We were happy, and for the most part still are after 18,000 miles.

But the car's software has gone from good, to terrible.

In the old days MP3 players had skins, I think Tesla needs to fix the underpinnings, and then offer us skins so we can choose from high contrast easier to read and use to maybe a flatter look, that those with younger eyes might prefer.

Regardless, I want Tesla to succeed and for our family to buy their products. But if BMW, Audi, or any manufacturer can do better, then I will go that way.

 

[ArcAngel]

Version 8 makes me long for more competition in the EV space. In 2013 I said my next car will definitely be a Tesla. In the last 3 years Tesla has screwed up every single firmware release sent to my car, and consistently removed functionality with each one. I can't wait for Mercedes, Audi, and BMW to get into the EV space with a viable competitor. At this point, I doubt my next EV will be a Tesla. Tesla doesn't seem to give a rat's ass about what their customers want or that their cars offer basic features present in other vehicles costing half as much. I'm loathe to buy another product from such a company.

What you said...I could not possibly agree more. Tesla does not seem to be listening at all...they think all anyone cares about is Autopilot. Meanwhile, GM and Hyundai's have Apple CarPlay and 10X the media functionality and smartphone integration that we have.

 

[tomas]

Will the people who are passionate about this please write tesla? Thx.

 

[BertL]

Will the people who are passionate about this please write tesla? Thx.

Yes, everyone should PLEASE send in their cards and letters. Some of us try to stick to only the most important things, so we don't come across in some Tesla database as a (nuisance or) complaining customer if you know what I mean , using email for suggestions, and ensuring problems (not feature requests) are reported officially when we go in for Service so the firmware bugs are documented on our Service Record, and have even sent registered letters to Tesla Service in Palo Alto (with no reply). More voices will hopefully turn the tides with additional focus on Customer input and requirements.

 

[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] 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

 

[Gizmotoy]

Don't say that! Usb1,2,etc was a pain for those if it's with more than 2 inputs as the car would randomly shuffle the assignments every night do you have a lot of non standard characters in your paths?

I don't have any unicode in the drive name: It's "Tesla Music" I think, or something to that effect... "TSLAMUSC" maybe. I think there may be a couple folders on the drive with unicode. There's a few é, I'm pretty sure.

 

[supratachophobia]

I don't have any unicode in the drive name: It's "Tesla Music" I think, or something to that effect... "TSLAMUSC" maybe. I think there may be a couple folders on the drive with unicode. There's a few é, I'm pretty sure.

I'm going to take the 'space' out of the volume name "new music".