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USB mp3 issues + cool tip for reading :)

45K views 42 replies 15 participants last post by  thatai1996 
#1 · (Edited)
***FIXED, See note below***


With so many media options in my new Limited I was thrilled that one of my options was a usb stick. I picked up a 128gb usb3.0 flash drive (I have a lot of music) with the intention of loading it up and just leaving it in the car permanently. A simple, clean and convenient solution. Or so I thought.

For whatever reason the Entune system will not recognize most of the files. I can load up 5K songs but only 15% of them will show up. Sometimes entire artists/albums are missing other times only 1 or 2 songs from an album will show up. I have NO issues with connecting an iPod via usb.

Some relevant info:

Files are .mp3
Ranging from 192kbps to 320kbps (both constant and variable rate)

I've tried two different ways of uploading songs to the flash drive based (based on some feedback I've seen online)
1.) Simply drag/drop my album folders to the drive (maintains folder structure)
2.) Drag/drop songs directly from iTunes. (results in files only, no folder system)

So far, I have not been able to figure out what is causing the files to not appear in Entune. Some poking around lead me to a thread where someone suggested it may be large album art files. Not too sure about that, some of things that aren't showing up have standard 600x600 art files.

Can anyone point me to a solution or barring that, how to get in contact with a Toyota engineer. Unfortunately, these types of question are over the head of the guys at the dealership.


As promised...

Here is the cool tip:

Did you know that you can sync the seat/mirror memory to a particular key fob? So, when you unlock the car the seat/mirrors will automatically begin to move into your position. This is extremely helpful for instances where one driver is considerably taller/shorter than the other.

Here's how to do it -

Record your driving position to button “1” or “2” before performing
the following:
Carry only the key you want to register, and then close the driver’s
door.
If 2 or more keys are in the vehicle, the driving position cannot be
recorded properly.
Check that the shift lever is in P.
Turn the engine switch to IGNITION ON mode.
Recall the driving position that you want to record.
While pressing the recalled
button, press and hold the
door lock switch (either lock
or unlock) until the buzzer
sounds.
If the button could not be registered,
the buzzer sounds continuously
for approximately 3
seconds.

***
Alright...I finally figured it out...

I remember reading that there was a file limitation of 500 files per folder. This is the issue.

When you drag over songs from iTunes it does not keep the folder structure intact. Instead, it just copies over all the songs/filenames. The car then uses the metadata (tagging) to do the indexing. BUT it's only reading the first 499 files. My usb sticks had zero folders and 1,000+ files.

I was able to solve this by making folders (Music 1, Music 2, etc) and moving <500 songs into each folder.

If you drag/drop songs from iTunes than you will have to use the above method. If you just drag/drop from your folder structure, you should be fine. As long as no folder (including the root) has more than 500 files in it. I'm not sure about the max # of FOLDERS you can have though...I'll let someone else test that
***
 
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#2 · (Edited)
Same problem here. 1098 songs on a 32gig usb stick. (tried 2 different ones) It only shows 499 songs. Go to play songs then select all songs or random all songs and with the audio display full screened it will tell you how many songs it see's. Such as playing song 58/499 or 103/499 something like that. See how many songs it sees.
I wonder if for some reason 499 is the max. Got on Toyota's entune site the other day and there was a contact number for support. Ive been thinking about calling but never have the time.

All mine are in the root of the usb with everything tagged properly.
If I put 4 or 5 of the songs I know thats not showing on a different usb then they work fine. If I remove the music from the usb and reformat then move all 1098 songs back some that did show up no longer shows up and some that didnt show up now shows up. Seems to be random. Again I wonder if 499 songs is all it will see.

Phone number and hours
http://www.toyota.com/entune/support/da/#

let me know what you find out please.
 
#11 · (Edited)
ugh.

So I decided to just leave my old 30gb iPod classic in the car because 4gb is not enough.

Guess what?

The voice recognition doesn't work. Apparently this 4gb indexing limitation is also screwing up the ability for the system to access the artist/album/song info for the voice recog. I can access all the files via the main screen but isn't the whole idea of the voice recog to keep my eyes on the road?

Here's what I'm experiencing:

"Play artist Beck"
"No artists available"

"Play album Sea Change"
"No albums available"

So f'n frustrating.


Can anyone verify that they are having this same issue? Please let me know how many files/storage is on your device and whether it's working or not.

I read the manual and it says that if you are having a problem accessing music via voice recog you should reduce the number of files on the device. Brilliant solution!
 
#12 ·
Greetings... long time listener, first time caller...

I've had my Black on Black Platinum for about 3 weeks now :clap:.

I started with a slow 64GB stick maxed out (about 59GB), and had no problems (other than the long initial index).

I then upgraded to a 128GB stick (formatted exFAT) that is USB 3 (not important, except that it loaded from my NAS box much faster!) with all my music on it (about 70GB), and (much to my surprise) have had no issues with playing or searching :dunno:.

It doesn't seem like it's a size or track limitation. I would guess that it is either a formatting issue, a file issue, or possibly a directory structure issue. Mine are probably mostly 128-320K CBR, and my files are arranged in an artist/album file structure, but I will try some experimenting and see if I can replicate a problem.
 
#13 ·
How are you sure that all 70gb are showing up? Just want to be sure you aren't just doing a cursory search and assuming that it's all there. Poke around and open some albums up to see if all songs are there. Double check that all artists are being displayed. On first blush it looked like mine was working too...until I started to dig around.

Thanks for reporting in.
 
#16 ·
A long hour-long commute this afternoon gave me time for me to try playing enough songs to make me sure that the system recognizes all 7,683 tracks that it reports.

While I do have a small handful of tracks showing up under "unknown artist", most do not, and sort under the proper names. If ALL yours are showing up there, I would suggest looking at the tagging for them.

Although the system allows you (and most of us prefer to) keep an organized file/folder structure for artist/albums/tracks, it is the MP3 tags that drive the indexing and recognition for the system.

If you are on a PC, a free program like "mp3tag" can help you see what's going on (and allow you to make bulk changes). If you are on a Mac, I'm sure similar programs exist, but I am not familiar with them. Of course, if your iTunes content is DRM'd, that's a whole 'nother problem.

Hope this helps.
 
#17 ·
Thanks for following up.

Really glad you're problem free.

Meanwhile, this type of shit really pisses me off. The CS rep just spew out a canned response that turns out to be incorrect and I'm left dangling.

I'm on a Mac. My files are tagged appropriately. I've tried 6 times to correct this. I know it's not the tagging because some files that don't show up one time will show up another. The only pattern I can seem to find is that files seem to be recognized in the order in which they were added to the USB drive. So, the first albums that I add will always show up.

I think I'm going to need to call back and escalate to a someone who isn't reading a troubleshooting screen.
 
#25 · (Edited)
I haven't had much experience in organizing and tagging my music. I've always let iTunes do it and half the time, I lose music, especially since I subscribed to iTunes in the cloud. (iTunes Match). I've decided to export my tunes as mp3s and I would like to make a USB stick to work in the HL. I would just use an iPod but Entune does not play nice with a connected iPod and a Bluetooth iPhone at the same time. I'm also interested in what apps (mac os x) would be best for organizing the music and tagging it once I export it. I could also use a virtual PC on the Mac. I can save to FAT32 or ExFAT (for large USB sticks). I think this is going to be a big undertaking. I'm guessing I have about 10,000 tunes total. Obviously, I don't have to have them all on a stick for the Highlander.

P.S. I have some of my music in Amazon Cloud and also in Google Play. Of the three (including iTunes) is the best for exporting?
 
#28 ·
Alright...I finally figured it out...

I remember reading that there was a file limitation of 500 files per folder. This is the issue.

When you drag over songs from iTunes it does not keep the folder structure intact. Instead, it just copies over all the songs/filenames. The car then uses the metadata (tagging) to do the indexing. BUT it's only reading the first 499 files. My usb sticks had zero folders and 1,000+ files.

I was able to solve this by making folders (Music 1, Music 2, etc) and moving <500 songs into each folder.


If you drag/drop songs from iTunes than you will have to use the above method. If you just drag/drop from your folder structure, you should be fine. As long as no folder (including the parent folder) has more than 500 files in it. I'm not sure about the max # of FOLDERS you can have though...I'll let someone else test that :)
 
#30 · (Edited)
You are the man:thumbsup::clap::thanks:
I finally got all the music to show up.

Ok so I had all my music on the usb stick and very few of them in folders and only 499 was showing up. I made 4 folders on the root of the usb stick and called them 1,2,3 and 4. I put roughly 250 songs in each folder for a total of 971 songs.
Put the usb back in the highlander. Gave it a couple of minutes to look through everything. Then I went to songs and selected random and it showed 971 songs. In the past it would only show 499. Done some Looking through at songs that was not showing up the last times and now they all seem to be showing up.

I have racked my brain trying to solve this problem and you solved it for me :thanks:

I call for this to be a sticky
 
#29 ·
Hey all, this may or may not work. I have a 2010 Sequoia and it wouldn't read some of my MP3's. I read on another thread that the MP3 tag information was causing the issue with not reading. So I downloaded "Mp3tag" editor and removed the tagging. Downloaded the new untagged songs and they all played. For some reason, some of the tagged MP3's play and some don't. I didn't bother taking the time to determine the differences but it worked for me. Give it a try.
 
#32 ·
#33 ·
Still looking for a way to play via USB a simple playlist of mixed songs in a pre-numbered order (eg 01 Song by Artist A, 02 Song by Artist B, 03 Song by Artist A again etc).
I have music on my USB organized in folders, first by artist, then by album. I can play random songs from the entire collection, just from a particular genre, or just from a particular artist.

If you want to play songs in a particular order rather than a random order, name them alphabetically in the order you with them to play. Deselect 'random', play the first song, and the rest will follow. You can do this my appending a 001, 002, 003, etc. to the beginning of the song title.
 
#35 ·
128 gb user:# of Files limitation from manual?

Below are the limitations from the 2014.5 camry manual

Items related to standards and limitations are as follows:​
• Maximum directory hierarchy: 8 levels​
• Maximum number of folders in a device: 3000 (including the root)​
• Maximum number of files in a device: 9999​
• Maximum number of files per folder: 255
HAVE YOU CHECKED THAT YOU HAVE MORE THAN 9999 songs?

The total of that many files times 5mb/mp3 is around 50GB, so if the manual is correct it may still have missed half your files...

I recognize the difficulty of checking this out....

From the using the audio system link on this page:
http://www.toyota.com/owners/web/pa....portlet.action=processRequest#Owners-Manuals

http://www.toyota.com/t3Portal/document/om/OM33A83U/xhtml/OM33A83U_0018.html?locale=en
 
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