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Any way to browse large music volumes on the 12" uConnect?

NewToRAM

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I used to be able to browse my old iPod Classic 160gb from the Sync2 system in my 2013 F150 FX4 and browse by artist name, song, Album, etc and display the album art along with Gracenote info. Not surprisingly my old iPod Classic isn't supported on my 2019 model Laramie with the 12" screen. Is there any way to do something similar from my uConnect system? The closest I've come is to play music on my phone using CarPlay which offers 1/1000th of the capability of my old Sync2 setup it seems. I really miss the functionality form the Sync2 in this regard and hoping there's another way to do it my new RAM.
 

PedalMonk

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I just posted this in my thread. Thought it would help you.

OK Folks. I have a solution!

All you need to do is buy a tiny usb flash drive, load up your music and that's it! Everything works. I the SanDisk 128GB Ultra Fit USB 3.1 Flash Drive - SDCZ430-128G-G46 for $18.99 from BestBuy today. Just ask them to price match with Amazon.

So what doesn't this do? If you love Android Auto (which I hate) then you may not like this route, but honestly, I can't see how this isn't superior to both bluetooth and AA.

It works fantastic and I'm really happy with it. BTW, I bought the above flash drive because it is super tiny and people don't notice it when walking by the truck. It's also fast and it supported USB 3.1.
 

Turin

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All you need to do is buy a tiny usb flash drive, load up your music and that's it! Everything works.
Well, sometimes... The UConnect software has an undocumented limit on the number of folders it supports. I'm not sure what that limit is but it's pretty low. If you organize your music as <artist>/<album>/<track> you'll have problems with missing songs. I had better luck with <artist>/<album> - <track> but was still missing some songs. Too many one-hit wonders, I guess. The simplest thing to do is to flatten everything into a single folder.

The limit is a PITA because I can't just sync my USB drive with my PC.
 

PedalMonk

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Well, sometimes... The UConnect software has an undocumented limit on the number of folders it supports. I'm not sure what that limit is but it's pretty low. If you organize your music as <artist>/<album>/<track> you'll have problems with missing songs. I had better luck with <artist>/<album> - <track> but was still missing some songs. Too many one-hit wonders, I guess. The simplest thing to do is to flatten everything into a single folder.

The limit is a PITA because I can't just sync my USB drive with my PC.

I just plugged in my usb drive with 60GB of music. I have it as <artist>/<album>/<track> and no issues. I have about 8000 files and 645 folders. So far no issues. Also, there are 3 USB ports avaialable, so worst case, break it up into two USB drives :)
 

Turin

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I just plugged in my usb drive with 60GB of music. I have it as <artist>/<album>/<track> and no issues. I have about 8000 files and 645 folders. So far no issues.
And it sees all 8000 files? Interesting; must be a difference between the 12 and the 8.4 NAV.
 

Turin

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Do you know how I can see how many files the uconnect system sees?
There should be options to browse by artist, album, or song. If you pick songs (i.e. everything) there should be a bit of text that says something like "track 1 of 1234."
 

Billy James

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I have 10,498 songs in MP3 format on a 128 GB Samsung Fit. There are 607 artist folders. Sorted by <artist>/<album>/<track>. As far as I can tell, every one of them is available on my UConnect 8.4 no nav. I haven't had any problems at all.
 

PedalMonk

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There should be options to browse by artist, album, or song. If you pick songs (i.e. everything) there should be a bit of text that says something like "track 1 of 1234."

OK, so I can't count exactly how many songs I have because I also have cover jpgs and log files in most folders. What I can tell you is that I have 7363 files showing on my usb drive. When I plug it into my uconnect system, it shows 5322 songs. That's 2000 file difference. I have 661 folders and if I add up approximately 2 extra files per folder, that gets me to 1300+ out of 2000. So not sure about the last 700 files or so. It does seem like some cover art is missing but I've had my collection a long time and it could be how they were burned in the early days. I'm 47 and have been burning MP3's since the late 90's.

OK, onto the better news. I just tested out FLAC files and they play!!! Now I have the long task of re-burning all of my CDs to FLAC, but I am excited!!!
 

Neurobit

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I just plugged in my usb drive with 60GB of music. I have it as <artist>/<album>/<track> and no issues. I have about 8000 files and 645 folders. So far no issues. Also, there are 3 USB ports avaialable, so worst case, break it up into two USB drives :)
Same here. I have thousands of songs on a 128GB thumb drive playlist and can browse and see all the artists, songs, etc in their respective folders. The key is how you format the thumb drive. I‘m on a Mac and used a dedicated program to copy the playlist from iTunes to the drive. Zero issues (well, when the USB port is working that is, but that’s a different story).
 

PedalMonk

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I figured out how to count just the mp3 files. The count matches what I have on the Uconnect system.
 

NewToRAM

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Thanks, I ordered the same drive you suggested. I'm anxious to see what the navigation for the drive looks like.
 

NewToRAM

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I bought the same tiny drive suggested above but in 256gb. I tried NTFS but had missing folders and files. My library is very large, something over 20,000 songs and not even sure how many folders. The UConnect 12" reads the drive fine but the Browse functionality shows A-E, and 1,2,3 and nothing more. Total folders it sees is 122 and maybe 5,000 according to UConnect. Maybe it takes a while (hours) to build the index? I tried FAT32 format with 2048 block size with the same results. Suggestions?
 

PedalMonk

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I bought the same tiny drive suggested above but in 256gb. I tried NTFS but had missing folders and files. My library is very large, something over 20,000 songs and not even sure how many folders. The UConnect 12" reads the drive fine but the Browse functionality shows A-E, and 1,2,3 and nothing more. Total folders it sees is 122 and maybe 5,000 according to UConnect. Maybe it takes a while (hours) to build the index? I tried FAT32 format with 2048 block size with the same results. Suggestions?

A few questions...

Why are you using NTFS?
Also, why are you using fat32 with 2048 block size? Shouldn't use be using 32K? Have you tried with 32K?

As for me, I have no issues with 5082 files and 214 folders. This is a mixture of FLAC and MP3. I also did not format the USB flash drive, just left it as whatever it came with(I'm guessing it is formatted with fat32).
 

PedalMonk

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Also, do you have any root folders before teh artists? Meaning do you have something like usb_drive/music/artist/album/song or do you have usb_drive/artist/album/song?

If you have anything before artist, delete that folder. and put all artist in the root directory.
 

NewToRAM

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There was a folder at the root level (mediamonkey) however removing that made no difference. I can now see artists thru "T" and 1,2,3 …. Of approximately 15,000 files I can see just below 12,000. Not sure what to try next as I've used NTFS and FAT32 formats and Windows file copies as well as from MediaMoney. MediaMonkey produced better results but still not quite there.

Also, do you have any root folders before teh artists? Meaning do you have something like usb_drive/music/artist/album/song or do you have usb_drive/artist/album/song?

If you have anything before artist, delete that folder. and put all artist in the root directory.
 

raminuk

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hi

i too have this problem. my drive is as i got it fat 32 and if i put the artists in folders.... a-j , k-p etc i can see more and more, but not everything. i have a usb ssd at 480gb all WAV direct cd rips

puzzled
 

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