USB Audio Random Actually Random Now

[Lightmatrix]

Last week I took my MS in for service to replace my driver handle that decided it no longer wanted to extend (Early 2015 S85). During the visit, they updated my firmware to 17.18.50. I was very pleased to see when I picked up my car and as I do whenever there is a firmware update, checked random play via the USB music player. I am happy to report it FINALLY shuffles songs randomly!

That only took 5 years.

 

[Tdriver]

Last week I took my MS in for service to replace my driver handle that decided it no longer wanted to extend (Early 2015 S85). During the visit, they updated my firmware to 17.18.50. I was very pleased to see when I picked up my car and as I do whenever there is a firmware update, checked random play via the USB music player. I am happy to report it FINALLY shuffles songs randomly!

That only took 5 years.

I always had random on my 15 85D.

 

[drklain]

@Tdriver -- his point was that the implementation of random wasn't truly random. If you started it again from the same song, you'd get the same songs in the same order the next time you played it "randomly" vice the sequence changing each time.

 

[Drumheller]

There's a random play function? I've totally missed that somehow. It cycles through all folders and files on the USB?

 

[KidDoc]

Huh mine has had the scramble icon for a while now and seems to be fairly random. Certainly not in the same order all the time. Have about 1700 songs on a tiny stick.

 

[RogerHScott]

So it's not my imagination that the randomness isn't very random? I thought I'd noticed that on several occasions, but its not like I keep careful track of exactly which tracks it has played in order to know for sure. That said...

... this is what they choose to fix in the USB player??!?! Please tell me they also fixed frequent, random (well... ) "Failure to load..." errors when playing from USB. To me, at least, that's the really aggravating bug.

There's a random play function? ... It cycles through all folders and files on the USB?

No, it randomizes the order of play of whatever you are otherwise playing in order.

 

[animorph]

I tried random on our road trip in April. It started repeating the same sequence of songs. Seemed like only about an hour long loop. I ended up not shuffling and starting with a different letter of the alphabet for song titles. I'll be glad to get a useful random back, but still waiting for an update past 17.17.4.

 

[GasKilla]

@Tdriver -- his point was that the implementation of random wasn't truly random. If you started it again from the same song, you'd get the same songs in the same order the next time you played it "randomly" vice the sequence changing each time.

Yep, experienced the same thing many times. Very disappointing, love to get the "random" update...

 

[bob_p]

The bug introduced as part of the 8.0 media player "improvements" - when returning to the USB source after playing a different source, no matter what song you select to start playing, when running in "random" or "shuffle" mode, the second and subsequent songs are always the same songs - playing in the same "random" sequence, jumping from song-to-song on the USB.

This is a pretty basic software problem - the standard "random" software functions really aren't random and usually require introducing another item (such as the current time in fractions of a second) to make the random number sequence less repeatable.

This should have been a relatively easy bug to fix - and at least up until the 17.18.x versions (which I don't have yet), Tesla still hasn't fixed it. They did have time for other higher priority features - like the easter eggs...

If the USB shuffle mode is fixed in the latest release - have they fixed the other major USB "improvement" introduced in 8.0 - retaining the current song being played when returning back to USB after listening to another source? And have they fixed the XM radio software so it's actually usable - by restoring the station slider - and populating the channel & category list (which has been broken, at least in new cars, since 8.0 was released)?

 

[KidDoc]

Now that I'm thinking about it, the shuffler does some to pull similar songs day to day considering with 1700 song and a 6-10 minute commute I shouldn't hear the same songs week to week! Repeat is set to off.

 

[Lightmatrix]

The bug introduced as part of the 8.0 media player "improvements" - when returning to the USB source after playing a different source, no matter what song you select to start playing, when running in "random" or "shuffle" mode, the second and subsequent songs are always the same songs - playing in the same "random" sequence, jumping from song-to-song on the USB.

This is a pretty basic software problem - the standard "random" software functions really aren't random and usually require introducing another item (such as the current time in fractions of a second) to make the random number sequence less repeatable.

This should have been a relatively easy bug to fix - and at least up until the 17.18.x versions (which I don't have yet), Tesla still hasn't fixed it. They did have time for other higher priority features - like the easter eggs...

If the USB shuffle mode is fixed in the latest release - have they fixed the other major USB "improvement" introduced in 8.0 - retaining the current song being played when returning back to USB after listening to another source? And have they fixed the XM radio software so it's actually usable - by restoring the station slider - and populating the channel & category list (which has been broken, at least in new cars, since 8.0 was released)?

I have not checked on the issue of retaining the current song being played when returning back to USB from another source. My vehicle is not equipped with XM, so I cannot speak to that either. There is still one bug or issue that I am still experiencing, which is if I leave my vehicle with USB playing music on random occasions the USB player does *something* to cause my USB drive to completely reload all the song information. This may not be a problem with a few hundred songs, mine is 21,000 so it ends up taking several hours of the vehicle being driven/on.

 

[TLej]

I tried switching from USB to FM, when I switched back the USB song was forgotten. I have noticed the shuffle play seems to be working better though, have had it playing for a couple of days with no repeats yet.

 

[TLej]

Forgot to mention, having something plugged in to USB seems to cause my GPS to have problems. Car doesn't move on the map screen, doesn't recognise when it gets home so no auto garage door and no scheduled charging, etc. Had the USB stick out for the past week or so, nav worked fine. Plugged it back in on Sunday, by Monday evening nav was acting up again. I think I remember seeing elsewhere on here that this is a known bug, but I could be wrong.

 

[HankLloydRight]

Forgot to mention, having something plugged in to USB seems to cause my GPS to have problems. Car doesn't move on the map screen, doesn't recognise when it gets home so no auto garage door and no scheduled charging, etc. Had the USB stick out for the past week or so, nav worked fine. Plugged it back in on Sunday, by Monday evening nav was acting up again. I think I remember seeing elsewhere on here that this is a known bug, but I could be wrong.

Have you tried rebooting? I've seen the Nav get caught up/jammed up just on its own.. and rebooting always restored it to full working order.

 

[GasKilla]

Forgot to mention, having something plugged in to USB seems to cause my GPS to have problems. Car doesn't move on the map screen, doesn't recognise when it gets home so no auto garage door and no scheduled charging, etc. Had the USB stick out for the past week or so, nav worked fine. Plugged it back in on Sunday, by Monday evening nav was acting up again. I think I remember seeing elsewhere on here that this is a known bug, but I could be wrong.

I had a gps problem that required a call to tech support to remotely fix some corrupted data, but that was pre 8.0. As suggested try rebooting and if that doesn't work call suppport.

 

[RogerHScott]

Forgot to mention, having something plugged in to USB seems to cause my GPS to have problems. Car doesn't move on the map screen, doesn't recognise when it gets home so no auto garage door and no scheduled charging, etc. Had the USB stick out for the past week or so, nav worked fine. Plugged it back in on Sunday, by Monday evening nav was acting up again. I think I remember seeing elsewhere on here that this is a known bug, but I could be wrong.

Makes ya wonder what's on that USB stick, doesn't it? Stuxnet, anyone?

 

[thecloud]

According to this post in the Comprehensive USB Bug List thread, 17.18.50 did not fix the lack of randomness in USB shuffle playback.

(I'm still on 17.11.10, where "shuffle" apparently means that a fixed playlist of randomly-chosen songs is repeated in exactly the same order, again and again, until you rename your USB drive or its top-level contents.)

 

[TLej]

@HankLloydRight @GasKilla Thanks fellas. Yes, reboots sometimes clear the issue but mostly not. I've called tech a few times, we go through the same troubleshooting steps each time, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I'm not too worried, I'll ask them to look at it when I take it in for its 40,000 km service.

@RogerHScott Not too worried about Stuxnet, my centrifuge is still working fine. Thank goodness.

 

[bob_p]

The shuffle problem occurs when the media player starts a new playing a new sequence of songs. No matter what song is selected to play first, starting with the second song, the media player appears to follow the same sequence of "random" songs.

Because the media player forgets the previously playing song when changing audio sources, or sometimes when the car resumes from sleep, the media player will start playing new shuffle sequences more often than needed, making the problem more obvious.

What's disappointing is that the fix for this problem is likely in only a single line of source code.

Saving the currently the currently playing song when entering sleep mode or changing audio sources may require changing several lines of code, so that change is likely a little more complicated - but still pretty simple.

Tesla also broke the XM radio player in 8.0 - removing the station slider (now you can only single step one channel number up or down) and not populating the station list or categories (the station list only shows channel 1). These may be more difficult changes - but if they would only put back the 7.x XM radio player, they'd fix both of these problems.

It's understandable Tesla has prioritized getting the AP2 software out - but since 8.0, they have had time to introduce several non-AP features, like adding easter egg support. Couldn't they also fix problems that are degrading the user experience in using the media player???

 

[RodF]

Even when I select different first songs it always seems to revert back to the same old order after a few songs. Looking forward to getting this fixed. I have over 6000 songs on my USB and would like to make use of it.