USB Music frustration

[SkyDog]

I'm a new Tesla owner and I've been frustrated with controlling how USB music plays. One of my main complaints is that when I switch audio sources and go back to USB, I have to search all over again for what I was listening to. For example I might be listening to an album by Wilco, but then I want to listen to the news so I switch to radio. When I switch back to USB via the touchscreen, it put me back on the USB landing page where I then have to scroll through my whole music collection to get back to where I was. In my last car (a 2013 Hyundai) when I switched back to USB, it would resume playing exactly where I left it before.

But I just found out that if I switch back to USB with the voice command "USB", it does pick up exactly where I left off before, so that makes me happy. The trick is to use the voice command, not the touchscreen.

My next big complaint with USB music is that if I listen to an album from start to finish, it just stops at then end. In my last car, it would have continued with the next album in the order I had it on my USB. I loved how that worked because I could pick a spot in my vast music collection and listen albums and artists sequentially from that point. But in the Tesla, it reaches the end of the album and just stops. The scroll wheel won't advance to the next album, and it won't even skip back to let me hear songs in the album I just listened to. My only option seems to go back to the USB landing page and search for something again. Does anyone know a trick to make this work better?

 

[Vicj]

As covered in many threads already, we have just about the least sophisticated USB player on the planet. The only thing you can do for the player stopping at the end of the album is to put the repeat function on. At least it will repeat. There's nothing that can be done about seamless playback, or losing your place when stopping for even a short amount of time.
I often find myself choosing to drive my 12 year old Mini instead of the Tesla, simply because of how annoying the USB player is.

 

[SkyDog]

As covered in many threads already, we have just about the least sophisticated USB player on the planet. The only thing you can do for the player stopping at the end of the album is to put the repeat function on. At least it will repeat. There's nothing that can be done about seamless playback, or losing your place when stopping for even a short amount of time.
I often find myself choosing to drive my 12 year old Mini instead of the Tesla, simply because of how annoying the USB player is.

But I did find a way for it to not loose my place when stopping - start USB music with the voice command "USB" - it's been working for me.

 

[SkyDog]

But I did find a way for it to not loose my place when stopping - start USB music with the voice command "USB" - it's been working for me.

Just to be clear, saying "USB" has resulted in the media player starting to play USB music exactly where it left off before, and this has worked in every scenario that I've tried in the past couple of days.

 

[Vicj]

I'll try it. If it works, one small victory. Yay.
If you figure out how to make it play continuously between tracks without a small pause, or how to not lose its place in the first place... let us know

 

[ElectricAnt54]

I'm a new Tesla owner and I've been frustrated with controlling how USB music plays. One of my main complaints is that when I switch audio sources and go back to USB, I have to search all over again for what I was listening to. For example I might be listening to an album by Wilco, but then I want to listen to the news so I switch to radio. When I switch back to USB via the touchscreen, it put me back on the USB landing page where I then have to scroll through my whole music collection to get back to where I was. In my last car (a 2013 Hyundai) when I switched back to USB, it would resume playing exactly where I left it before.

But I just found out that if I switch back to USB with the voice command "USB", it does pick up exactly where I left off before, so that makes me happy. The trick is to use the voice command, not the touchscreen.

My next big complaint with USB music is that if I listen to an album from start to finish, it just stops at then end. In my last car, it would have continued with the next album in the order I had it on my USB. I loved how that worked because I could pick a spot in my vast music collection and listen albums and artists sequentially from that point. But in the Tesla, it reaches the end of the album and just stops. The scroll wheel won't advance to the next album, and it won't even skip back to let me hear songs in the album I just listened to. My only option seems to go back to the USB landing page and search for something again. Does anyone know a trick to make this work better?

Even Tesla’s infotainment apps suffer from many of these issues such as not being able to remember at which timeframe media was paused when sources change. For these many reasons, I use my Apple phone via Bluetooth voice commands & am considering one of the behind steering wheel dash display which also support Apple car play.

 

[DadRS99]

Even Tesla’s infotainment apps suffer from many of these issues such as not being able to remember at which timeframe media was paused when sources change. For these many reasons, I use my Apple phone via Bluetooth voice commands & am considering one of the behind steering wheel dash display which also support Apple car play.

That is a great find…the USB trick.

So many other faults.

One new recent one is that if you have a boom box partition on the same drive as your music or even on a separate thumb drive drive it will no longer ask you to “change” from one usb to the other.

Only recognizes one until you take one out and insert the new one!! Tried with multiple usb hubs!! So annoying!!

 

[john8899]

The "USB" voice command is an extremely useful discovery. While the Tidal QR code still displays when I get in, as soon as the car wakes up, saying USB resumes playing where it left off. I wonder if there is some undisclosed voice command that will switch from the Tidal screen display back to a display of the USB folder that is playing?

 

[Kevy Baby]

Just to be clear, saying "USB" has resulted in the media player starting to play USB music exactly where it left off before, and this has worked in every scenario that I've tried in the past couple of days.

This is a great discovery - I hope it works in my car. I will give it a try.

I also wanted to add this (cross-posting from the Model 3 forum):

A workaround that shouldn't be needed, but what I have found works is if you leave Sentry on all the time (even at home and/or work, regardless of whether you actually need Sentry at those locations), it will prevent your car from going into a deep sleep and your call will remember where you left off on USB playback. You will take an energy hit, but if you are willing to make that sacrifice, it should work most every time. Really stupid that it would require this, but at least it works.

(Except in my case, my car won't keep Sentry on: it kicks it off every time I put it in gear and I have to manually start Sentry EVERY time I park my car. I am currently working with Service to find the root cause and getting this corrected.)

For background, it USED to be that as long as I woke my car up (such as by turning on environment) before going out to the car, it would remember the USB playback position. But starting with 2022.4.X, this "functionality" disappeared.

 

[Kevy Baby]

Well, the above does work. But I have gone back to keeping Sentry on at all times. It remembers not only the playback position, but also the page on the screen as well.

You know: how it SHOULD work without needing to resort to trickery.

 

[john8899]

Well, the above does work. But I have gone back to keeping Sentry on at all times. It remembers not only the playback position, but also the page on the screen as well.

You know: how it SHOULD work without needing to resort to trickery.

Thanks for an even better solution. Now only one click is needed to get to what should work: touching the track that's playing to switch the display from "Songs" to the track list of the folder of the playing track.

 

[markc2]

So you could get the USB music to work from the "console" usb ports? I haven't got our model 3 yet, and I was looking foward to using a usb stick for a bunch of my music.

 

[ElectricAnt54]

So you could get the USB music to work from the "console" usb ports? I haven't got our model 3 yet, and I was looking foward to using a usb stick for a bunch of my music.

Model 3 & Y built after 11/2021 lack data capable USB-C ports in center console. This means no usb flash drives or game controllers work via those ports. The ports can recharge devices. The model Y has one data capable port in the glovebox. I assume the same is true for model 3. Some people buy a large storage device for the glovebox and set it up to handle tesla DashCam & music. Some get usb hubs in glovebox and plug-in multiple storage devices. TParts makes a replacement center console module for model 3 & Y which gives the car two data/power capable center console usb-c ports. This is what I did & it works great in my 2022 Model Y as of 4/16/2022. Other people replace their car’s usb module after finding used Tesla OEM data modules from cars prior to 11/2021.

 

[markc2]

Model 3 & Y built after 11/2021 lack data capable USB-C ports in center console. This means no usb flash drives or game controllers work via those ports. The ports can recharge devices. The model Y has one data capable port in the glovebox. I assume the same is true for model 3. Some people buy a large storage device for the glovebox and set it up to handle tesla DashCam & music. Some get usb hubs in glovebox and plug-in multiple storage devices. TParts makes a replacement center console module for model 3 & Y which gives the car two data/power capable center console usb-c ports. This is what I did & it works great in my 2022 Model Y as of 4/16/2022. Other people replace their car’s usb module after finding used Tesla OEM data modules from cars prior to 11/2021.

Thank you!!!

 

[TunaBug]

So you could get the USB music to work from the "console" usb ports? I haven't got our model 3 yet, and I was looking foward to using a usb stick for a bunch of my music.

Yes. But my M3 was built March 2021...it has all of the 2021 improvements and none of the removed features from after that. USB data, radar, passenger lumbar...got it. If my car ever gets totaled, and Tesla keeps making the current configs, I would be looking for a used Q1-21.

I would look into getting the TParts unit. Or go to the Tesla EDC, try to find the part number for the console hub that has data and see if that can be ordered through your SC.

 

[markc2]

Note
For some vehicles manufactured after approximately November 1, 2021, the center console USB ports may only support charging devices. Use the USB port inside the glove box for all other functions.


a little how to from Tesla on how not to screw up the video recording of Sentry mode would be nice. I know some have posted some really good ways here, but it would be wonderful if Tesla would take care of this with a nice description.

 

[BitJam]

My next big complaint with USB music is that if I listen to an album from start to finish, it just stops at then end.

A partial solution for this is to dump a bunch of song files into one folder and then use the folder view to navigate to them and play them. The songs are ordered by filename so I prepended "01." to songs from the first album and "02." to songs from the 2nd album and so forth. The files originally started with track numbers so this worked.

If Spotify were free then I would just use that instead. Even with the "USB" voice command, playing music from USB on the Tesla is a big pain in the neck.

 

[Vicj]

For those of us WITH data supporting ports in the center armrest, is anyone else having issues with the car no longer recognizing your USB device? I was having to re-plug it in every time I started the car, now even that doesn't work. Just doesn't recognise that anything is plugged in. Saying "USB" just brings up an error messege that says "cannot perform this function"

 

[BitJam]

For those of us WITH data supporting ports in the center armrest, is anyone else having issues with the car no longer recognizing your USB device? I was having to re-plug it in every time I started the car, now even that doesn't work. Just doesn't recognize that anything is plugged in. Saying "USB" just brings up an error message that says "cannot perform this function"

Yes, same problems here. It's very frustrating and has caused me to look at other options. If Tesla had a decent UI for usb music then I would put all of my music on a usb stick and be done with it.

 

[ElectricAnt54]

For those of us WITH data supporting ports in the center armrest, is anyone else having issues with the car no longer recognizing your USB device? I was having to re-plug it in every time I started the car, now even that doesn't work. Just doesn't recognise that anything is plugged in. Saying "USB" just brings up an error messege that says "cannot perform this function"

The 2022..X series of tesla firmware introduced a bug which causes the infotainment system to. Not detect plugged in usb devices after a while. Only solution is to unplug them all…wait 20 seconds…plug them in again. I hopefully 2022.16.X fixes the issge