USB Music Not Working

[khoon]

Commish, glad you’re deriving value from this thread. Hope it works out for you. I took the car to the Paramus NJ service center and they were pretty ambivalent about the issue - they suggested I write to Tesla and request a SW fix (that and the tooth fairy will resolve all my issues).

 

[wbhokie]

Holy crap, this thread surprised the hell out of me. I had no idea you could use those USB ports to play music, I thought it was all Bluetooth based! Finally I can stop fooling around with TuneIn to make all my playlists...

Well you can't make playlists from your USB either, just pick songs. Been requesting playlist support for years and still no luck from Tesla, but you can use the USB for media at least. Still, it is a nice alternative to streaming.

 

[khoon]

So, I tried using a PNY 126GB Flash Drive and guess what? It works! Evidently, the issue is with the SanDisk 256GB drives that throws the Tesla system off. I am disappointed though that the Tesla system only allows you to stage/play your songs alphabetically. I tried to force the play order by numbering the songs 01..n but it still plays the songs in alphabetical order. Another issue is that it does not remember where a track was left off or which folder I was in. When you restart the car, the USB music starts back up from scratch! What a shame that a car with so much automation lacks such basic music playback capabilities!

 

[gbrgbr]

if you pause the player before you get out of the car, usb music will be where you left it the next time you get in, even days later. you don't have to start "from scratch"

 

[Megapsychotron]

So, I tried using a PNY 126GB Flash Drive and guess what? It works! Evidently, the issue is with the SanDisk 256GB drives that throws the Tesla system off. I am disappointed though that the Tesla system only allows you to stage/play your songs alphabetically. I tried to force the play order by numbering the songs 01..n but it still plays the songs in alphabetical order. Another issue is that it does not remember where a track was left off or which folder I was in. When you restart the car, the USB music starts back up from scratch! What a shame that a car with so much automation lacks such basic music playback capabilities!

Look at my post on structuring USB music files and see if that helps. The Tesla software is quite particular and does not follow ID3 tags when it comes to numbering order.
I'm using a Samsung 128 GB USB 3.0 thumb drive with about 68 GB of music on it, and USB never resumes play (even with pausing it as gbrgbr reports). It seems to have to re-cache the music files every time I start the car, which takes anywhere from 10 seconds to 3 minutes. Your PNY drive works flawlessly to resume? How much music do you have on it? Does it seem to have to cache first before playing music?

 

[GPinzone]

For the people who say their USB works, what format is the USB drive? FAT32 or exFAT?

 

[wbhokie]

FAT32. If you want to format above 32GB with Fat32 you need to get an external tool or use powershell

Just google formatting usb fat32 above 32gb and you will find answers.

 

[khoon]

if you pause the player before you get out of the car, usb music will be where you left it the next time you get in, even days later. you don't have to start "from scratch"

So far, the pause feature hasn’t worked for me but i’ll keep trying it.

 

[StellarRat]

A huge USB drive is going to take a long time to read. I'm bit shocked that anyone would need a drive larger than 64 GB for their music since that is probably about 1000 albums worth of 128-bit MP3's. Anyway, whatever the case, the car needs to read and store the entire directory to list all the files on the drive. Obviously the more you have the longer it's going to take and it's not a straight one to one on read time in all cases. Sometimes it's an increasing curve on time as the number of files increases. That is true with any computer, car or otherwise. One thing you could try is petitioning the drive into two smaller drives where one is closer to the actual size of the music you have and the other is the surplus space you're not using. Of course, you'd have to recopy your music to the smaller partition after the change. I haven't tried this on my USB key, but it is a standard practice on PC's.

 

[Knightshade]

A huge USB drive is going to take a long time to read. I'm bit shocked that anyone would need a drive larger than 64 GB for their music since that is probably about 1000 albums worth of 128-bit MP3's.

If I wanted low-quality mp3s I'd just use slacker

 

[sduck]

if you pause the player before you get out of the car, usb music will be where you left it the next time you get in, even days later. you don't have to start "from scratch"

Nope. Doesn't make any difference here.

 

[Megapsychotron]

So recently, while my 3 was getting it's windshield replaced, I had a 2014 Model S as a loaner. Using my same USB thumb drive, the Model S flawlessly resumed USB playback every time I got back into the car. It even remembered my last USB position when I switched audio sources. It took longer to cache when I inserted the thumb drive; a good 10 minutes to read about 69 GB of music. But then it remembered and never needed to cache it afterward. The loaner appeared to have recent software.
So hopefully this bodes well for a fix for our 3s in the future.​

 

[GPinzone]

Did you connect your phone to the S loaner? The Model 3 seems to want to use the Bluetooth preferentially over the USB.

 

[Megapsychotron]

Did you connect your phone to the S loaner? The Model 3 seems to want to use the Bluetooth preferentially over the USB.

No, I didn't connect it at all. In my Model 3, I also never playback music from the phone.

 

[SVDNN]

For whatever its worth, I have been using slim profile Sandisk 128 Gb 3.0 USB with approx 125Gb FLAC files (about 5000) in both Model S P90DL for few years and in new P3D+ without reading uses. Also does not seem to take long for the files to be read in either car when take out and replace USB... seems only a few minutes and maybe quicker in M3. My folder structure fairly simple - each album is a subfolder with some multiple disk albums in lower subfolders. Do not know if that matters regarding speed of upload.

But certainly can confirm the difference in ability to recall prior USB music selection point when returning in car (MS does, M3 does not). However, you can go to "recents" to recall USB played album, but not isolated track plays. USB is immediately recognized on start up and usable (does not need to redownload files). But as mentioned above, media input in M3 on startup seems to always go to bluetooth (even without phone around) when USB was on when leaving car. Assume this will get fixed at some point with software update, but imagine a low priority despite its annoyance.

For those interested...Recently bought, copied (already formatted FAT32) and use another new Sandisk Ultra Fit128 Gb USB 3.1 purchased over the counter at BB for about $32, which also available thru A leading online vendor. Works just fine...

Hope the info helps...

 

[GPinzone]

No, I didn't connect it at all. In my Model 3, I also never playback music from the phone.

That could be a reason why it doesn't work for me and many others. I should experiment by turning off "Media audio" for the Tesla on the phone's Bluetooth settings.

 

[Shizzrock]

So USB option doesn't have random playback?

 

[CuriousG]

So USB option doesn't have random playback?

Not on the Model 3. Don't know if it's available in v9 though.

 

[S3XY]

That could be a reason why it doesn't work for me and many others. I should experiment by turning off "Media audio" for the Tesla on the phone's Bluetooth settings.

I already tried this and it doesn't make a difference. It still wants to default to the phone most times. Although, I have to say that since I installed 36.2 it does resume the USB more often than it used to. It's still hit or miss but a little better. Could just be a coincidence so ymmv.

 

[khoon]

Look at my post on structuring USB music files and see if that helps. The Tesla software is quite particular and does not follow ID3 tags when it comes to numbering order.
I'm using a Samsung 128 GB USB 3.0 thumb drive with about 68 GB of music on it, and USB never resumes play (even with pausing it as gbrgbr reports). It seems to have to re-cache the music files every time I start the car, which takes anywhere from 10 seconds to 3 minutes. Your PNY drive works flawlessly to resume? How much music do you have on it? Does it seem to have to cache first before playing music?

The music resume function didn't work with the PNY drive either. It appears to want to cache the music after I stop playing it. The Delivery Center guys too were clueless about how to make it work. I'm disappointed that the Tesla SW guys couldn't figure out a way to support basic music interface functionality! Don't know why they didn't just follow the industry norm and allow their customers to use USB or iPods to play music - leave alone basic features like shuffle play or the ability to prioritize the play order within a folder. Hope they're monitoring these forums and provide a SW upgrade to remediate the dysfunctional music capability. Love the car but detest the constraints they're imposing....