Media Player: Metadata Caching Driving Me Bonkers

[Todd Burch]

Unfortunately, the Media player seems to cache metadata.

I had some incorrect metadata on a few of my FLAC files on my jump drive. For instance, some songs had the genre listed as "Hip Hop" and others as "Hip-Hop". Some had "Goo Goo Dolls" and others "The Goo Goo Dolls". Obviously this causes a bunch of extra entries in the media player genre/artist lists, so I brought my jump drive in from the car, plugged it into my computer, and made some changes to the FLAC files using Kid3.

Once I'd cleaned everything up, I put the jump drive back into the car, and....nothing changed.

It seems as though the Model S caches song metadata.

So I said to myself: No problem, I'll just reboot the screen. Didn't fix it.

Then I removed the jump drive, rebooted the driver's console and the main touchscreen, then replaced it. Didn't fix it.

Then I tried putting in a different jump drive, removing it, then replacing it with the original. Didn't fix it.

Then I thought that if I changed the name of the jump drive volume, the car would see it as a different storage device, and not use the cached info. Didn't fix it.

Has anyone found a way to "clear the cache", so to speak, so that the drive and all of its metadata is rescanned? I'm on 4.5 (the .44 flavor). I remember that in the past, I'd frequently see the drive getting parsed/scanned, but I haven't seen that lately. Trying to figure out how to get it to rescan so I can refresh the incorrect metadata.

This drives me bonkers.

 

[anthony]

I haven't used a jump drive, but I've found the meta data on my contacts is also cached and display incorrect company info through bt connection to the phone.

Suddenly everyone works for the last company i called.

 

[montgom626]

I have some continuing medical education mp3 (CME) files that get metadata that is all messed up. Not the fault of Tesla, or anyone else. Just that metadata is imperfect at times. Music metadata files 99% correct.

 

[youlikeadajuice]

I believe mine reset when I updated to 4.4...I haven't found a way to force it though. I'm still waiting on 4.5, I'll try to verify this when I do. I agree, it's very frustrating!

 

[Todd Burch]

I asked ownership about this. The support rep consulted with engineering and they indicated that the car does NOT cache this data. I was asked to clear the flash drive completely, put it into the car, verify that nothing was showing, then copy the songs back and put them into the car.

I did this, even performing a touchscreen reboot after putting the empty flash drive in. When I copied a few songs back to the flash drive and put it into the car, not only was the old metadata showing, but it even showed the cached album art from the flac file....argghhh....maybe I'll call again.

 

[Todd Burch]

OK, I've verified that both the Tesla customer support person and the engineer he supposedly consulted on this issue were both wrong. The car MUST cache the data. Here's how I proved it to myself:

I took the song, changed the title/artist/album/genre/date/track number to something else, then saved it back to the USB drive. Put it in the car, and everything correctly changed. Also, the album art no longer showed, whereas it was showing before (in my garage with no 3G coverage).

This proves that

a) Metadata is indeed cached, and
b) Album art is also cached (as was indicated by earlier complaints about metadata album art not being used).

So frustrating to consistently get poor information from Tesla support. If you don't know an answer, don't give one until you do.

I will call back.

- - - Updated - - -

I talked to Walter, who's been awesome on support. Here's what he said:

1. He opened up a case for engineering to look into the caching issue. It obviously isn't critical, but I suggested that Tesla offer a way to manually clear the cache for these types of cases. I suggested holding down on the "USB 1" or "USB 2" entry in the media player app for a few seconds to manually clear the cache.

2. The support guys now have a button on their console for which they can reset your car to factory defaults. I chose not to do this, since I don't want to reprogram my Homelink and all of my other settings.

3. He does not get ETAs for upcoming software issues. He says that they are still working the issue with the fans. Not sure when it will be pushed.

4. I asked about the "Big" 5.0 release. He said plans are still for this summer, but it sounded like he was downplaying it a little bit. Maybe not as major as some of us are thinking? I guess we'll see...

 

[Todd Burch]

OK, here's some closure:

I tried changing JUST the filename on the song....and BAM. That fixed it.

So that proves that the car is caching the metadata based on the filename. So if you run into this issue, just use a different file name for the file, and the metadata will be refreshed. It's a workaround for now...

 

[SCW-Greg]

Interesting, catching up on your music woes. Obviously you've got the reboot thing down. I likely have the same caching issue then, but haven't had a problem with it yet.

For the big 5.0, sure hope they add random play, and to have playlists carried over from Android or iOS. I high some cheap 8Gb SanDisk Cruisers to make pseudo playlists that way... until playlists come.

 

[FlasherZ]

Due to bad data coming from the local FM radio station, I once had to have Tesla purge my metadata cache, to include album names, album art, etc. Unfortunately, it's not something you can do easily but when you give engineering permission, they can log in and wipe your cache.