USB Music frustration

[DadRS99]

Yup. For some reason the voice USB command stopped working this weekend?? And now prob 50% of the time I have to unplug the drive, count to 10, then plug back in to be recognized. . The frustration continues.

At least the sound quality is great once it plays! 320 AAC for me

 

[TunaBug]

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"

I've had that since 2022.12 (2022.8 did not exhibit that problem in my car). Whenever I lose access to the SSD with my music I also lose the thumb drive in the glovebox that does dashcam. I just reboot the car and if works again for a day or three. Then rinse and repeat.

 

[Vicj]

I put in a service request for both issues, the glovebox one not recording sentry events, and the armrest ones not recognising data. They canceled the service service request, telling me they're aware of the issue, that they're related, and that it will be addressed with an update... someday.
I am so sick of this sh** with my Tesla.

 

[ianc]

If you want the USB voice command to continue working, take your car off wifi and don't go past 2022.12.3.2!

Ask me how I know... :-(

 

[Vicj]

I don't care about the voice command thing. I just want the crap that's supposed to work on our cars to work correctly, without worrying about what they'll screw up with every update.

 

[ElectricAnt54]

I don't care about the voice command thing. I just want the crap that's supposed to work on our cars to work correctly, without worrying about what they'll screw up with every update.

To get updates less often (and possibly avoid bugs) There is a setting in the car to be on the standard track for being considered to be eligible for updates. Try reverting to that setting if you opted for “advanced” (something like that) which indicates you want the latest updates ASAP. Other than that, you can always opt for a car by another company which means far less software updates which means less risk for a bug & more stability but also means you are not likely to get new features.

 

[Vicj]

Already own an ID4 as well.

 

[ianc]

"you are not likely to get new features."

If what we're getting lately are 'features', I think I can do without them...

 

[john8899]

I'm on the standard track for updates, and I still received the buggy firmware (2022.12.3.6) that disables voice control to resume playing USB after the car has been parked for awhile. They need a third option -- a six-month delay in getting firmware updates. By that time, all the newly-introduced bugs will have been identified.

 

[Vicj]

I agree. An update that actually is an update, not one-step forward, two-steps back, option. I like my Tesla more than the ID4, but I WILL say this for VW. No buggy software (at least that I've experienced), and you consistently get MORE range than was advertised. That range may not be greater than Tesla's, true, but your never worried about the accuracy. Otherwise, I'll take the Tesla. I could live with the "optimistic" range that suckered me into buying one, but the software issues, and the continuing issues that creep up at every update, are unacceptable in my view.

 

[BitJam]

Sure, this is annoying and frustrating but it's more of a bell and whistle issue rather than something fundamental. Tesla excels at: power train, safety, and autopilot. For me, these are the important things.

I know there is a lot of griping about autopilot but the Out of Spec Reviews channel has objectively tested all the various autopilot-like systems and found Tesla's to be far ahead of the others:

I live in a small rural town. AP does over 80% of the driving for me and this makes my life easier.

I think most of my automotive music needs/desires are solved with Spotify (although it is far from perfect) but it's not clear to me that this is worth $20/month ($10 for Spotify and $10 for Tesla premium connectivity). OTOH if the usb player worked decently (say like Strawberry née Clementine née Amarok) then I would use it almost exclusively.

 

[Kevy Baby]

Sure, this is annoying and frustrating but it's more of a bell and whistle issue rather than something fundamental. Tesla excels at: power train, safety, and autopilot. For me, these are the important things.

This isn't some fancy gizmo: we are talking a very simple functionality within the car that has existed in the car world for quite some time. My last car was a 2013 Ford Taurus with an entertainment system that has been around since the late 2000's and that USB playback control was pretty lacking. But it was still better than what I started with in my Tesla in 2019 and the Tesla USB music control just keeps getting worse. THAT'S what were talking about in this thread.

I know there is a lot of griping about autopilot...

That is irrelevant in this thread (and personally, I like AP).

I think most of my automotive music needs/desires are solved with Spotify (although it is far from perfect) but it's not clear to me that this is worth $20/month ($10 for Spotify and $10 for Tesla premium connectivity). OTOH if the usb player worked decently (say like Strawberry née Clementine née Amarok) then I would use it almost exclusively.

Good for you: it isn't for me (and most people who want to use USB for their music). Pretty much every music service's algorithms suck for selecting music IMO. Also, any streaming (or Bluetooth) is quality hobbled. I want clean, lossless music and currently the only way to get it is through use of a USB drive.

 

[Kevy Baby]

Yup. For some reason the voice USB command stopped working this weekend??

Okay, so it wasn't just me.

 

[Kevy Baby]

If you want the USB voice command to continue working ... and don't go past 2022.12.3.2!

... I still received the buggy firmware (2022.12.3.6) that disables voice control to resume playing USB after the car has been parked for awhile.

I don't think this is a firmware version issue: I am on 2022.12.3.2 (and haven't updated for a couple of weeks) and the voice command stopped working for me over the weekend. It has to be something on Tesla's servers (voice commands are processed back at the mothership, not natively in your car).

 

[Horatio Alger]

Tesla tech gave me this voice command to switch audio source to USB and it works the same as the "USB" command did before they broke it.

"Change audio source to USB"

Incidentally, I'm told that

"Switch to USB"

should also work but I haven't tried it yet. It seems Tesla wants us to use more words when talking to our cars!

 

[TunaBug]

Tesla tech gave me this voice command to switch audio source to USB and it works the same as the "USB" command did before they broke it.

"Change audio source to USB"

Incidentally, I'm told that

"Switch to USB"

should also work but I haven't tried it yet. It seems Tesla wants us to use more words when talking to our cars!

If that's what they're doing then I don't have a problem with it. Granted, I don't have any songs named "You Ess Bee", or know of restaurants/stores by that name, but still, just saying "USB" has bothered me from a design standpoint as being fundamentally vague.

It makes sense to me that the commands are verbs followed by object. Should "Wild Horses" be "Navigate to..." or "Play the song called..." or...?

I wish Tesla would just have a screen that displayed all of the voice commands. I don't mean a pretty page written by a doc writer. Instead just a dump of whatever grammar is currently loaded into the recognition engine. Don't even try to describe them: just telling me that "change audio source to %s" is enough to figure it out. ETA: Something like that would make these changes discoverable. My problem isn't that they changed it from "USB" to "Switch to USB": the problem is that there's no freakin way to find that out.

 

[john8899]

Switch to USB works.

 

[BigNick]

Me: "USB"
Tesla: USB not found. Navigating to USA. You have arrived at your destination.
Me: $*@#!
Tesla: Command not found.

 

[GCS2022]

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?

Tesla support indicates there is a "fix" coming in patch 2022.16. In the mean time you can recover your last playback point *most of the time* by using the car's voice commands. Unfortunately, one of voice commands posted on the forums was recently broken... Here is the list of what still works as of June 3, 2022 on my 2022 Model X... Even with this trick the command might fail, at which case you have to manually find your location. Still, it's better then nothing and is a life saver for us who listen to unabridged audio book who's file length can be hours...

Works:
Voice "Switch to USB"
Voice "Change audio source to USB"

NO LONGER Works:
Voice "USB"

 

[BitJam]

FWIW usb audio is working much better for me with 2022.16.1.1. I haven't used it enough to know for sure but so far it has been surprisingly reliable. IIRC Tesla has a problem/regression with mounting usb devices which made usb audo a giant pain (I may have heard of that in this thread). That seems to be fixed now.