USB for both TeslaCam and Music

[Zcd1]

Maybe a dumb question, but I'm perplexed:

I installed the same USB flash drive that I used for Dash Cam and Music without problems in my 2018 M3P in my new 2022 M3P, but the car doesn't seem to even recognize that the drive is there, regardless of which USB port I use (console or glovebox).

Any ideas/suggestions?

 

[Knightshade]

Does it work if you plug into a PC? Possible the formatting/partitioning got corrupted if not.

 

[Zcd1]

Does it work if you plug into a PC? Possible the formatting/partitioning got corrupted if not.

Yes, works in a PC - formatting intact.

After unplugging it and checking it in the PC, plugged it back into the car and the car recognized it.

Happy to have my music again!

 

[hohjoe]

I’m struggling with this. I have a ’23 M3 and I purchased one of the Samsung T7 1TB drives created two partitions equal in size and formatted in exFAT. One partition I named TESLADRIVE and created a TeslaCam folder. The other folder I named Music. And I’m connecting to the USB port in the glovebox.

The dashcam does not see the drive. The media player does see the music and I can play songs.

I used a small thumb drive and named it TESLADRIVE, formatted in exFAT and created a TeslaCam folder. The camera sees that fine

I reformatted the T7, created one partition and named it TESLADRIVE added the TeslaCam folder, and the camera sees the drive. Yet when I create two partitions the camera doesn’t see the drive, only the music folder.

Any ideas?

 

[electrons4u]

See my 2022-04-02 post with screenshots: USB for both TeslaCam and Music

Possibilities:
1) The car doesn't handle 1 TB USB sticks, though that would be a surprise. Have you tried partitioning the small thumb drive into 2 partitions and see if you get a different result from the 1 TB Samsung drive?
2) Your partition map is not Master Boot Record (see my screenshots).
3) You said "The other folder I named Music". Did you mean the other partition? You have to put the music in the music partition, not in a music folder in the TESLADRIVE partition. Also, I didn't put a top-level "Music" folder in the music partition. I just added Artist folders, which contain Album folders, and those contain the actual music files (see my screenshots).

Hope that helps!

p.s. I have a 2022 M3 and I had to use the 2-partition scheme because Telsa dumped data support on the center console USB ports. They only charge. They didn't even tell me; I found out on my own. Now it's a tiny note in the Owner's Manual. In May 2022 the car started having problems seeing the 128GB Tesla-branded USB stick that came with the car. The local Tesla Service Center advised me to get a faster USB device. So I bought from Micro Center:

• Samsung 128 GB EVOPlus microSDXC UHS-I memory card A2 V30 4K ($15.99 + tax)
• IOGEAR Compact USB 3.0 SDXC/MicroSDXC reader/writer ($17.99 + tax)

That fixed the issue with the car not seeing the USB drive. However, after over a year's worth of software updates, the car still often forgets that it was playing from USB and goes back to a streaming station or over-the-air FM radio. This usually happens when I've been away from the car for a number of hours. Seems like it's a low-priority issue for Tesla, if they even know about it. I don't think I ever told them. Maybe their software intentionally "forgets" about USB, so then you might hear a nice streaming station and decide not to dump the $10/mo Premium Connectivity.

 

[hohjoe]

See my 2022-04-02 post with screenshots: USB for both TeslaCam and Music

Possibilities:
1) The car doesn't handle 1 TB USB sticks, though that would be a surprise. Have you tried partitioning the small thumb drive into 2 partitions and see if you get a different result from the 1 TB Samsung drive?
2) Your partition map is not Master Boot Record (see my screenshots).
3) You said "The other folder I named Music". Did you mean the other partition? You have to put the music in the music partition, not in a music folder in the TESLADRIVE partition. Also, I didn't put a top-level "Music" folder in the music partition. I just added Artist folders, which contain Album folders, and those contain the actual music files (see my screenshots).

Hope that helps!

p.s. I have a 2022 M3 and I had to use the 2-partition scheme because Telsa dumped data support on the center console USB ports. They only charge. They didn't even tell me; I found out on my own. Now it's a tiny note in the Owner's Manual. In May 2022 the car started having problems seeing the 128GB Tesla-branded USB stick that came with the car. The local Tesla Service Center advised me to get a faster USB device. So I bought from Micro Center:

• Samsung 128 GB EVOPlus microSDXC UHS-I memory card A2 V30 4K ($15.99 + tax)
• IOGEAR Compact USB 3.0 SDXC/MicroSDXC reader/writer ($17.99 + tax)

That fixed the issue with the car not seeing the USB drive. However, after over a year's worth of software updates, the car still often forgets that it was playing from USB and goes back to a streaming station or over-the-air FM radio. This usually happens when I've been away from the car for a number of hours. Seems like it's a low-priority issue for Tesla, if they even know about it. I don't think I ever told them. Maybe their software intentionally "forgets" about USB, so then you might hear a nice streaming station and decide not to dump the $10/mo Premium Connectivity.

Thanks for the reply.

I wasn't able to work on this yesterday and my intention today was to split the smaller drive into tow partitions and test that.

I did mean the other partition was named Music. I created a partition named Music and I added a folder labeled Music.

I did not use a Master Boot Record, I just created the two partitions. I will create the MBR and try that.

 

[hohjoe]

I have it working, however I'm sure what the fix was. I reformatted the drive and created two partitions and instead of making the partitions equal in size I made the TESLADRIVE partition 2/3 of the drive and the other the remaining 1/3 and I named the second partition Songs and just dumped the songs in the partition instead of a folder within the partition. I can't imagine any of those steps mad a difference, but it's working and that was the goal.

 

[electrons4u]

@hohjoe Great to hear it's working. Before I repartitioned the USB stick I made a screen shot of the disk utility to make sure everything was the same. There are different schemes for the partitioning table, like "GUID Paritioning Table" and "Master Boot Record". I made sure I used "Master Boot Record" because that's what was used originally. It takes a long time to troubleshoot this stuff if you only change one thing at a time, but then you know what it was that fixed the problem. Cheers!

 

[hohjoe]

Thanks.

The only issue I have now is when I get out and lock the car, it will not start playing the song that was playing when I got out of the car. I have a spinning wheel on the screen where the song info should be and I have to manually select the USB icon to start a song.

 

[Zcd1]

Thanks.

The only issue I have now is when I get out and lock the car, it will not start playing the song that was playing when I got out of the car. I have a spinning wheel on the screen where the song info should be and I have to manually select the USB icon to start a song.

That’s a feature, not a glitch.

 

[Kevy Baby]

Thanks.

The only issue I have now is when I get out and lock the car, it will not start playing the song that was playing when I got out of the car. I have a spinning wheel on the screen where the song info should be and I have to manually select the USB icon to start a song.

Somewhere there is a long thread about this REALLY annoying defect (and other annoyances of the abysmal USB music UX). BUT:

• For a while, I was leaving Sentry on everywhere (including work & home) and about 60-70% of the time, it would remember the playback position. A completely ridiculous way to handle this, but it's a solution (with a hefty energy usage price tag).
• You can use a voice command to switch to USB and it will pick up where you left off the last time you were in the car
  • I use "Switch to USB"
  • "U S B" (you have to have very definite space between each letter)

 

[hohjoe]

Thanks for the info. I'll try the "Switch to U S B."

I did learn I can't say "Set fan to 3" and I have to say "Set fan to.......3." If I don't pause it tries to set the fan to 23.

 

[Kevy Baby]

Thanks for the info. I'll try the "Switch to U S B."

When doing the "Switch to..." you don't need to worry as much about spacing out the "USB" letters. For me, it was only when saying JUST "U S B" (which may not work any more from some readings here)

 

[hohjoe]

Well, that didn't work. When I say "U S B" I receive an error "Unrecognized command" or something similar.

I did select the USB from the menu and told it to play a song and it did, but I found out the song was from somewhere other than my USB drive.

 

[PianoAl]

I am finding that I can use one or the other but not both simultaneously.

Can you elaborate? Do you mean it won't save dashcam clips if you're listening to music?

I have the same setup but haven't noticed problems.

 

[Kevy Baby]

Well, that didn't work. When I say "U S B" I receive an error "Unrecognized command" or something similar.

I did select the USB from the menu and told it to play a song and it did, but I found out the song was from somewhere other than my USB drive.

I believe I read in another thread that "U S B" no longer works. But I can attest that "Switch to USB" still works (at least as of yesterday). There is another command that works, but I cannot recall what it is.

But also know that when you use this voice command, it only starts replaying the song: it does not return the interface to that folder. Another shortcoming of the abysmal USB Music UX.

 

[hohjoe]

I believe I read in another thread that "U S B" no longer works. But I can attest that "Switch to USB" still works (at least as of yesterday). There is another command that works, but I cannot recall what it is.

But also know that when you use this voice command, it only starts replaying the song: it does not return the interface to that folder. Another shortcoming of the abysmal USB Music UX.

This works, although I just said "Switch USB" and it starts at the last song that was playing which is what I wanted.

 

[electrons4u]

As of SW Update 2023.6.8 today, "Switch to USB" still works but as @Kevy Baby said, "... when you use this voice command, it only starts replaying the song: it does not return the interface to that folder." Better than nothing but still lame. If anyone has a direct line to Elon, please tell him so he can direct his developers to clean this up. This is 1,000 times more important to me than synchronized lights, and I'm not the only one.

 

[Kevy Baby]

As of SW Update 2023.6.8 today, "Switch to USB" still works but as @Kevy Baby said, "... when you use this voice command, it only starts replaying the song: it does not return the interface to that folder." Better than nothing but still lame. If anyone has a direct line to Elon, please tell him so he can direct his developers to clean this up.

Don't hold your breath. Other than fixing the pregnant gaps between tracks, the USB music experience has mostly got worse over time.

 

[electrons4u]

Don't hold your breath. Other than fixing the pregnant gaps between tracks, the USB music experience has mostly got worse over time.

Have you found any way to send screenshots, videos, or textual feedback to anyone at Tesla that can do anything? The local Service Center couldn't tell me. When I was complaining about phantom braking last November the rep said via the Tesla app, "I will send this up my avenue as well to get it in front of engineering." What did I expect at the time? Zero. What have I heard since then? Zero.

BTW, do you know how to take a screenshot of the Tesla screen and have that saved to your USB stick? It sucks to have to use a smartphone or other camera, since the car is a computer with a screen and every computer I've had for the last few decades has been able to take a screenshot. I've read Tesla can do it remotely, so of course the capability exists - for them. It would be great to have a voice command like "Screenshot to USB".

Does Tesla just lurk here and on Reddit, Twitter, etc. to find out what the problems are?

Like Supercharger location voting, maybe they could do issues voting so they see what bugs (unintentional pun ) owners the most.