USB thumb drive: music files

[Michael_D]

I know a lot of people use their phones for music playback. I do not, and do not want to start either..... I am not a big I-tunes fan either.

I use a 64 gig USB drive, and store lossless MP3 music files on it. I am a dinosaur and still buy CD's, then rip them.

One notable short combing of this system, is that I can't select a genre and hit shuffle. It appears the software relies more on playlists than file tagging.

If anyone else has figured out a good way to tag and store files on a thumb drive, including playlists, play share that with me.

 

[Billet1500 4x4]

I'm also less than impressed by the USB music functionality. I use a 64GB thumb drive to play music from. The drive has about 500 tracks on it. It recognizes all the files no problem. The problem I have is it doesn't remember anything after I shut the truck off, it's like putting the drive in for the first time every time the truck is restarted. It automatically defaults to track 39 and plays the track from the beginning I also have to press the shuffle option every single time other wise it plays the tracks in numerical order. Perhaps this is by design, I'm just judging by my last truck which always started playing exactly where it left off even if you move out of the media function and listen to the radio it also kept the shuffle function enabled. Posting here because you obviously use a separate drive for MP3 files versus playing music from your phone, bluetooth sound quality sucks and i don't want to have to plug my phone into the truck just to have good quality playback. Does your system remember where it was at after shutting the truck off, do you have to press the shuffle button after every restart of the truck?

 

[Michael_D]

I have roughly 5000 tracks on my thumb drive. 12 genre's. Currently, I have all songs selected and shuffle engaged. I can shut down and restart the truck and shuffle is still engaged. The same track that was playing will also continue playing after restart.

 

[troutspinner]

Like @Michael_D said, same situation here. My 14 however would never retain the shuffle setting. It was just a nuance I learned to live with, fortunately the 19 behaves as it should.

Maybe try and reformat your thumb drive and try again. When you reformat, give your drive another name as It will index based off that drive name/stores that database if you will.

Also, give it time to index. 500 songs shouldn’t take that long but just because it “shows up” on screen, the radio is still indexing the songs in the background so that they are voice recognizable and that takes some more time.

 

[metb4]

I'm also less than impressed by the USB music functionality. I use a 64GB thumb drive to play music from. The drive has about 500 tracks on it. It recognizes all the files no problem. The problem I have is it doesn't remember anything after I shut the truck off, it's like putting the drive in for the first time every time the truck is restarted. It automatically defaults to track 39 and plays the track from the beginning I also have to press the shuffle option every single time other wise it plays the tracks in numerical order. Perhaps this is by design, I'm just judging by my last truck which always started playing exactly where it left off even if you move out of the media function and listen to the radio it also kept the shuffle function enabled. Posting here because you obviously use a separate drive for MP3 files versus playing music from your phone, bluetooth sound quality sucks and i don't want to have to plug my phone into the truck just to have good quality playback. Does your system remember where it was at after shutting the truck off, do you have to press the shuffle button after every restart of the truck?

I have exactly that problem on my 8.4 non-nav. Except every once in a while (maybe one time out of 10) it remembers where it left off and continues playing on the next start-up. So I'm guessing it's a software bug that will be fixed. My Uconnect does have an available update; I'm waiting to take it into the dealer. I hope that will solve the problem.

 

[Billet1500 4x4]

I have exactly that problem on my 8.4 non-nav. Except every once in a while (maybe one time out of 10) it remembers where it left off and continues playing on the next start-up. So I'm guessing it's a software bug that will be fixed. My Uconnect does have an available update; I'm waiting to take it into the dealer. I hope that will solve the problem.

I'm running the 8.4 non nav, its fully updated, so i b.c. wouldntvget my Hope's up, sorry to be a debbie downer. I'm going to try the drive reformat. Or get used to track 39 always being first. Does your default to particular track #?

 

[metb4]

I'm running the 8.4 non nav, its fully updated, so i b.c. wouldntvget my Hope's up, sorry to be a debbie downer. I'm going to try the drive reformat. Or get used to track 39 always being first. Does your default to particular track #?

Yes mine always begins on the same track. Getting sick of it haha

 

[Billet1500 4x4]

Yes mine always begins on the same track. Getting sick of it haha

Lol it wasn't until about the 5th time it happened I was like this song again? Then I realized its like the movie ground hog day same song to start every drive.

 

[metb4]

Lol it wasn't until about the 5th time it happened I was like this song again? Then I realized its like the movie ground hog day same song to start every drive.

At least my track is not "I Got You Babe" haha. Nice lookin' truck by the way...

 

[Billet1500 4x4]

At least my track is not "I Got You Babe" haha. Nice lookin' truck by the way...

same to you you got great taste. Originally I was looking for a white one, really glad I went with the billet silver, I think the color looks better in the shade than the sun but I really like it either way.

 

[metb4]

Yeah I love the billet silver. Ivory looks nice too, but silver all the way.

 

[Billy James]

I'm also less than impressed by the USB music functionality. I use a 64GB thumb drive to play music from. The drive has about 500 tracks on it. It recognizes all the files no problem. The problem I have is it doesn't remember anything after I shut the truck off, it's like putting the drive in for the first time every time the truck is restarted. It automatically defaults to track 39 and plays the track from the beginning I also have to press the shuffle option every single time other wise it plays the tracks in numerical order. Perhaps this is by design, I'm just judging by my last truck which always started playing exactly where it left off even if you move out of the media function and listen to the radio it also kept the shuffle function enabled. Posting here because you obviously use a separate drive for MP3 files versus playing music from your phone, bluetooth sound quality sucks and i don't want to have to plug my phone into the truck just to have good quality playback. Does your system remember where it was at after shutting the truck off, do you have to press the shuffle button after every restart of the truck?

I have the same problem. Every time I start the truck its like I just put a new USB drive in; this is not right. My 2012 Wrangler and 2015 Journey would accept up to 128GB drives and would remember the tracks and always resume where I left off. I have tried different drives, different formatting, more files, less files, different drive sizes and different drive manufacturers. Maybe about 1 in 10 starts it will actually resume where I left off. This is clearly a defect in the Uconnect system or a software bug. I really wish that this would get fixed. One of the reasons that I bought another FCA product was because the Uconnect systems were so good. This really disappoints me because I know how well the system worked in my Wrangler and my Journey. I have the occasional Uconnect reboot as well. VERY FRUSTRATATING!

 

[EK2Bird]

Are you guys using any particular type of drive or format? I always listened to MP3s off of an SD card in my 16 Ram, but this truck does not have card support, only USB drive. Would like to connect a drive to the port inside the center console and have it be available as a media type. Connected up my phone via Android Auto, but would rather listen to the music I have already purchased and not stream stuff.

 

[EK2Bird]

In case anyone is wondering, the format of a USB drive needs to be FAT32 in order for the system to recognize it.

 

[troutspinner]

In case anyone is wondering, the format of a USB drive needs to be FAT32 in order for the system to recognize it.

NTFS works as well.

 

[Michael_D]

I figured out a reasonable workaround. Create a bunch of playlists. Once they are created and saved on your thumb drive, the truck will find them. Then once the desired playlist is selected, you can either select continuous play or random. I do not use Itunes. I hate it. I used FooBar 2000 to create my playlists. I use this program mostly for fixing tags. It's fast, simple, and open source - so it's free. This was the first time I tried to make playlists with it, and it was pretty simple. When you do use it (if you chose to use Foobar), save the playlist as an M3U file and the U=Coonect will find them when you hit the "browse" button. The M3U file is simply a path that tells the audio player where to find the files (think of it as a list of hot links to the music files on the thumb drive).

 

[futuruss]

I tried to find info what format should be a drive and what kind music format I should use it? I plugged 1tb and it's not recognized it.

 

[Billy James]

I have the same problem. Every time I start the truck its like I just put a new USB drive in; this is not right. My 2012 Wrangler and 2015 Journey would accept up to 128GB drives and would remember the tracks and always resume where I left off. I have tried different drives, different formatting, more files, less files, different drive sizes and different drive manufacturers. Maybe about 1 in 10 starts it will actually resume where I left off. This is clearly a defect in the Uconnect system or a software bug. I really wish that this would get fixed. One of the reasons that I bought another FCA product was because the Uconnect systems were so good. This really disappoints me because I know how well the system worked in my Wrangler and my Journey. I have the occasional Uconnect reboot as well. VERY FRUSTRATATING!

I don't think I posted an update in this thread; but a software update from my Service Department fixed this. It has worked perfectly since then.

 

[TimFlex]

I use a Samsung 32GB Fit Plus thumb drive formatted in NTFS and it works great. I have about 8GB of music on there. As long as I leave the thumb drive in the truck, it remembers where it left off next time you get in the truck. Works better than the iPod mini I had in my '09.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07D7SX9NS

I use Media Monkey software to create my playlists and sync to it.

 

[moosem]

I don't think I posted an update in this thread; but a software update from my Service Department fixed this. It has worked perfectly since then.

Mine has the same problem, but it says the software is up to date. I think that’s probably incorrect though. I assume the dealer update is different than the over the air update? BTW mine also intermittently has very poor FM reception, and I have to switch sources back and forth and then it’s fine.