USB Music - cover art

[MaskedRacerX]

Has anybody tried experimenting with ways to store the cover artwork? Since Tesla has managed to so thoroughly mess up their interpretation of other tags, I wonder if maybe they show artwork but it has to (for example!) be stored as the booklet artwork (instead of cover) and only shows if stored as 192x192 pixels or somesuch, Or maybe in a sidecar file with a special filename that we haven't figured out.

I knocked around a little with this. I'm a software dev, hahaha, I kind of enjoy debugging things like this ...

Anyway, I tried several different combinations of size, format, art-meta-types, etc., no luck. I'm assuming it isn't a compatibility issue, but that they've completely disabled the art fetch / art display code.

 

[Battpower]

I knocked around a little with this. I'm a software dev, hahaha, I kind of enjoy debugging things like this ...

View attachment 717094


Anyway, I tried several different combinations of size, format, art-meta-types, etc., no luck. I'm assuming it isn't a compatibility issue, but that they've completely disabled the art fetch / art display code.

Did you have any ideas why they might do this intentionally?

 

[TunaBug]

I knocked around a little with this. I'm a software dev, hahaha, I kind of enjoy debugging things like this ...

Semi-retired dev here. Things like writing python scripts to copy my main music library into one suitably mangled for my car is fun. Generating 50-bazillion mangled copies of artwork to try them out is acceptable, but actually sitting in the car stepping through songs to see which one worked...not so much.

 

[MaskedRacerX]

Did you have any ideas why they might do this intentionally?

From what I've read on the forum: the USB function was pre-loading album art / generating indexes, and using the car's internal storage on the ECU/MCU - and like any flash storage, the it has limited writes, so early generation cars were actually having their ECUs fail.

There's also some talk about the core media player code being sourced from a 3rd party, so they lack the code, resources, expertise to make a change to how the art/indexes are handled , so they basically just re-config'ed the USB media function to not cache/store/fetch the album art.

It's a pretty easy solve - you know, assuming it's __any__ concern - but at this point, most folks are assuming that the next major OS update is close enough to where they're not concerned about that one media function being disabled, and I'm definitely hoping we get it resolved when that new version drops.

 

[Battpower]

talk about the core media player code being sourced from a 3rd party

I hadn't picked that up, but sounds quite possible. I mean why else would they leave it broken for so long? If it really is just a plug-in 3rd party module, you'd think they could have found an alternative.

The emmc deal didn't make much sense to me if the artwork resides on usb. Surely, no different from pulling the artwork over the internet?

 

[Merrill]

Unfortunately I do not think this will ever get fixed, it cannot be that hard to bring back the album art. Not a priority and it has only be broken for close to 1 year.

 

[Frank99]

The scuttlebutt at one point was that the MP3 player started life as freely licensed (3 clause BSD or some such) code found on the internet, and was quickly massaged into Tesla’s software architecture. Until it caused trouble, then the troublesome bits were removed until there weren’t many bits left which is where we find ourselves today.
I sometimes consider putting together a half dozen people as an Internet project to replace the current Tesla code. It would require finding some way (explicit, implicit, or under the table) to get Tesla support. I really wish auto companies would recognize that electronic user interfaces are not their area of expertise, and loosen their grip on them.

 

[Gauss Guzzler]

Most systems will create an optimally structured index file on the fast cache memory for responsive browsing and since the album art was formerly included in the browsing UI it's almost certain that they rescaled/reformatted all the art to include in this cached index as well. Then the UI can simply use the same index file data/art for both browsing and playing.
Surely they could fetch the art for each song directly from USB at the same time they fetch the music but it would probably require a new routine to be developed. And it might not be so simple - if you put a huge art file on a huge flac file on a slow USB stick it's easy to imagine how some timing issues could arise. Plus they don't really care - only a small portion of their customers are old enough to even remember what MP3's were, nevermind have access to a device with a USB port.

 

[TEG]

It may take having Elon wave his magic wand someday and say "put some people on it" to make it get fixed. If it doesn't bother him, maybe not much hope.
I gather he probably doesn't listen to USB music in the car.

 

[TunaBug]

The reason I asked if anybody has experimented with tags is that the other functionality seems to so thoroughly mis-use tags that it would be consistent (in a perverse way) if they supported album art but in a way that we haven't discovered yet. But it's just speculation on my part.

The reasons that I have seen (reducing eMMC wear, bugs in upstream source drops, etc) all seem to be speculation. Plausible perhaps, but speculation nonetheless. It could just as easily be a stupid off-by-one error somewhere that is preventing artwork from showing, or a typo (maybe it's looking for "xover.jpg" instead of "cover.jpg" . It's always fun to troubleshoot code you've never seen, but if you haven't seen it then it's just a nerd version of pin the tail on the donkey. (But still fun, no?)

It seems reasonably obvious that fixing it isn't a priority, but probably nobody with any insight into their bug triage process is going to be posting openly.

 

[tomas]

I’ve used USB audio since 2012. There used to be issues with art display, re-indexing, loading errors, and other things that were all related to tagging and folder organization. Since Tesla never gave us a manual, many on this forum did copious experimentation with tagging, file structure, devices, etc. much documented in old threads that you’d have to search for.

Believe it or not, many of the early bugs got fixed! For example, resume got broken for a while, then got more or less fixed. Over the last few years, they’ve hardly touched except to remove the art.

Re: your lack of trust in some of the intuitive diagnosis from this forum… you are correct that you can never really tell til you’ve seen the code, but some of us who have software backgrounds, have had Teslas for almost a decade, and have debated with other wise folks on this forum have made pretty darned educated guesses. If your doctor says “I’ve seen this before” do you say “won’t buy the diagnosis til you dissect the body?

 

[TEG]

I am so glad that the dreaded "Loading Error..." got solved long ago. That was so frustrating. It wasn't just loading a track but it could fail in the middle of a song with that error.

 

[Mr X]

It has literally been a year and this still isn't fixed.


Bugs me every single day

 

[MP3Mike]

There are reports that album art is back in 2021.40:

ok as I said even I didn't believe it at first

v2021.40 release note, installed yesterday.
and a couple screen pics just taken, incl a recording of BBC radio play with album art I added to the files (so I know this is my audio file on USB not from other streaming source), plus another random mp3 file

 

[Smithy02]

I hope so, still waiting for 2021.40, like Mr X this bugs me every time I drive the car!

S02

 

[St☰v☰]

It has literally been a year and this still isn't fixed.


Bugs me every single day

If it was iPhone related, Elon would have probably fixed it by now. After all, you see the phone system that received the new sentry system viewing option, not android..

 

[WilliamG]

If it was iPhone related, Elon would have probably fixed it by now. After all, you see the phone system that received the new sentry system viewing option, not android..

Not quite true. Artwork hasn’t worked properly from iPhone BT playback for quite a while now. Often it just shows the musical note.

 

[St☰v☰]

Not quite true. Artwork hasn’t worked properly from iPhone BT playback for quite a while now. Often it just shows the musical note.

It was a joke... a joke...

 

[WilliamG]

It was a joke... a joke...

Oh I know. But you know, not all is roses in iOSland (thus the italicized “quite” to indicate you’re almost right!).

 

[TEG]

still waiting for 2021.40

Those of us in FSD beta don't get to see the new things from the main "branch".
( Currently on 2021.36.8.5 )