USB audio doesn't show up in Recents

[tharasix]

After the big UI update in my Model 3, all of my recent plays from my USB stick were removed from the Recents in the audio panel. And if I play something off the USB stick, it never gets added to the recents. Streaming audio does get added, just not USB audio. Has anybody else seen this?

 

[Merrill]

Yes, I have put many post about this I use to have most of my music on the usb show album art and show recents on the panel. A few software updates ago it got rid of all that. It really makes it difficult and dangerous while driving to find your music, you have to hit the usb tab at the bottom of the screen then hit the file that comes up, then find the music you want to play hit that either artist or album then tap on the first song. For a car that is supposed to be state of the art that should not happen. No one at Tesla cares about this, they would rather concentrate on the fart noise, games or stupid stuff.

 

[tharasix]

Good to know it's not just me. Certainly, Autopilot gets some use in my car to keep me from hitting stuff while I queue up more music off my USB stick.

 

[sduck]

Right. It's borked currently. And it never really worked right in the first place. Welcome to the forum - there are numerous threads on this.

 

[tharasix]

Thanks. Yeah, I'm not surprised, but my handful of searches in the forum didn't turn up anything that really matched the issue.

 

[VanFriscia]

Hello! I'm a migrant from the recently shuttered official Model 3 forums, but have long since been annoyed with USB audio playback in my otherwise awesome car . For what it's worth, I did a chat with Tesla last week to at least TRY and get some action on this. If others that feel similarly did the same, maybe Tesla will actually, eventually fix it. Not that I don't believe the support rep, but I'm sure this isn't high on their priorities list even if they're aware of it, so I'm hoping there would be strength in numbers.

The chat transcript is below (lightly edited to remove my name). Feel free to copy & paste my concerns into your own chat if you feel so inclined.

Erick:
how may help?

Me:
There are numerous bugs with USB audio playback that have been present for 6+ months now...

Me:
1. Embedded album art no longer displays.
2. USB audio has disappeared from the Recents list.
3. Voice commands do not search USB for playback. Combined with #2, this makes playback while driving very difficult.
4. USB audio often (50-75% of the time) doesn't resume playback when re-entering the car.

Me:
I obviously don't expect these to get fixed while on this chat, but I wanted to let someone at Tesla know so that maybe it could get pushed up the chain. I know not a ton of people use this feature, but it sure does stink for those of us that do

Erick:
okay we can do this for you and make sure that this is feedback that we correct going forward. We will always take feedback and try to strive to be better.

Me:
Thank you Erick, I appreciate that.

Erick:
take care.

 

[tharasix]

Thanks for getting that in front of somebody at Tesla! I may do the same. Hopefully something will come of it.

 

[Knightshade]

Thanks for getting that in front of somebody at Tesla! I may do the same. Hopefully something will come of it.

Folks have been giving "USB music sucks for these specific reasons" feedback for nearing a decade (well, since Model S anyway) and let's just say I admire your optimism.

It took what like 6 or 7 years of people asking just to have 'random' playback added before they finally did it?

 

[Merrill]

Yes, been happening since I got my 2013 Model S but only with a recent update did I lose all recents and album art.

 

[sduck]

4. USB audio often (50-75% of the time) doesn't resume playback when re-entering the car.

This one at least can be addressed. I use a msata m.2 ssd inside a case with a very fast interface chip, and format the drive as ext4, no partitions, just music files on it. Plug that drive directly into the usb port, not going through any hubs. While it still doesn't work 100%, it's pretty close - around 95% of the time the music resumes playback correctly over power cycles. You don't have to use this exact hardware, but you do need a good usb interface chip on your drive (note: flash drives don't have good chips), and as little else as possible between the drive and the car. There are other tricks people use to get really good resume working, but going with this approach works for me.

Oh, and a relatively long thread about the missing album art thing - USB Music - cover art

 

[VanFriscia]

This one at least can be addressed. I use a msata m.2 ssd inside a case with a very fast interface chip, and format the drive as ext4, no partitions, just music files on it. Plug that drive directly into the usb port, not going through any hubs. While it still doesn't work 100%, it's pretty close - around 95% of the time the music resumes playback correctly over power cycles. You don't have to use this exact hardware, but you do need a good usb interface chip on your drive (note: flash drives don't have good chips), and as little else as possible between the drive and the car. There are other tricks people use to get really good resume working, but going with this approach works for me.

Oh, and a relatively long thread about the missing album art thing - USB Music - cover art

Ah, didn't know any of that - Thanks! And I'll keep an eye on that other, seemingly more popular thread for this issue.

 

[sduck]

But you have one important point - one shouldn't have to jump through hardware hoops to get this thing to work passably.

My weekly chat with support about this went a bit differently this time:

"Me:
Album art in USB playback is broken, and has been broken since version 2020.44 came out last November. That's five months - it should have been fixed by now.

Music resuming properly over power cycles has been an issue since day one that I've had the car, which is almost 3 years now. This should have been fixed long ago - in fact it never should have been an issue in the first place - this isn't an issue in ANY other manufacturers cars.

Gaps between tracks in USB playback still happen - again, this should have been fixed ages ago, and shouldn't have been an issue in the first place.

Search is broken for USB music.
Voice commands to play USB tracks is broken.
USB tracks don't show up in the recently played list, also broken.

The ipod came out in 2001. While it had some of these and similar issues at first, they were all fixed within a year. Be like apple - fix the things! Please!

Kelly
12:16 PM
I understand your frustration, if you cannot wait for our advanced team to review you can take it into service to have them look over it as well.

Stephen
12:17 PM
Service can't fix these - these are software issues.

Kelly
12:18 PM
Understood, I will escalate this to our advanced support team and have them review. One moment please

Kelly
12:21 PM
OK I have some questions regarding the USB

Stephen
12:21 PM
sure

Kelly
12:22 PM
Q: What brand of USB drive is being used?

Q: How much capacity does the USB drive have?

Q: Has the USB device been reformatted, and if so when?

Q: Is the USB Device being used for anything else? (e.g. dashcam, sentry mode and USB media)

Q: Has more than one USB device been tried?


Stephen
12:24 PM
It's a crucial m.2 msata ssd in a high end enclosure, 256gb - it's formatted in ext4 - no, only one partition - yes, I've tried numerous, like dozens of different kinds of drives, this one works the best, and resumes playback correctly maybe 90% of the time.

Stephen
12:25 PM
And there's no hub between the drive and the car. There's no buffering apparently, so have to eliminate any extra steps to get things to work passably.

Kelly
12:29 PM
OK Thank you for the details ive submitted everything over to our ATS team, they will review and then follow up. Bear in mind this can take sometime, the ETA I show is 10-12 business days. Was there anything else

Stephen
12:30 PM
No, that's excellent! Thank you!

Kelly
12:30 PM
You are welcome and thank you for contacting Tesla!"

This got submitted to the ATS team! I don't know what an ATS team is, or if they'll actually get back to me, but it's a huge difference from the usual "known issue that will be addressed in a future update".