I have a number of CDs that I would like to transfer to USB drives to play in my Ram. I understand MP3s should play on the Ram. So far I have not been successful at getting MP3s to play over a USB drive. Apple car play works fine so I don’t believe there is anything wrong with the truck. So has anyone been successful at transferring music from a cd to USB and have it work on the Ram?
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Music On USB Ports
- Thread starter Mill4570
- Start date
Billy James
Ram Guru
It works like a charm. Format your USB drive to FAT 32. There are several threads on this. In short; format to FAT 32, organize by folders for ARTIST, then ALBUM, with the songs from each album under their respective folder. You can copy or drag and drop from your hard drive to the USB, but I usually use the Sync function in Windows Media Player.
You cannot just transfer the files from a CD to the USB and expect them to work. You should "burn" the CD using Media Player or whatever media program that you use on your computer. Then you will transfer the MP3s that you "burned" to the USB.
You cannot just transfer the files from a CD to the USB and expect them to work. You should "burn" the CD using Media Player or whatever media program that you use on your computer. Then you will transfer the MP3s that you "burned" to the USB.
Don't do this! The UConnect system has a limit to the number of folders it can read. It's easy to exceed the limit with an ARTIST/ALBUM/TRACK structure. Even ARTIST/ALBUM-TRACK didn't work for me. The drive will work but you won't be able to see/play all of the tracks. From what I've read on the forums here the limit seems to be higher on the 12" system than on my 8.4" w/NAV but there's still a limit that's low enough to reasonably bump into. (I don't know about the 8.4" non-NAV — the limit there might be different as well.) You'll need to flatten the structure to ensure that you don't hit the folder limit and can see everything.
Billy James
Ram Guru
I'm curious as to what that folder limit may be? I have over 500 artist folders each with multiple albums and I have no problems whatsoever. Every one from A to Z is available and the UConnect Voice command never fails to find an artist or song when I call it out.
Me too. It's not documented anywhere that I could find so sussing it out is a matter of time-consuming trial and error. I was far more interested in all my music being available than working out the specific limit. I also had a mix of file types and wasn't sure which ones the system supported and which it didn't, which complicated matters. Presumably there's an independent limit on the number of tracks as well, but my experience has shown that you'll probably hit the folder limit first.
It's easy to think the system is showing everything until you happen to try to play a track that you know is on the drive but it can't find. For me having just artist folders (450-ish) was enough to hit the limit and result in missing tracks. The only way to be certain that the system sees all the tracks is to know exactly how many songs are on your drive, which means counting them from the computer you used to load the drive. Once the truck has had a chance to index everything (which takes a while) go to the list of all songs and compare the number of tracks it sees to what you got from your PC. It's advisable to change the volume name whenever you change the contents of the drive to ensure that the truck sees it as a "new" drive and rebuilds the index instead of using any cached data it might have.
silver64
Ram Guru
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I have a micro usb drive that I have used since i go this truck and occasionally i get a message on screen that the drive inst recognized. It usually will see it if i pull it out of the usb slot and plug it back in. Anyone know why this happens?
Billy James
Ram Guru
That happens to mine sometimes after I use the Bluetooth for a phone call. The Bluetooth interrupts the USB1 output and it sometimes doesn't pick back up after the call.
Ronkartz72
Well-Known Member
I have a USB with over 4,000 songs on it and haven't had any issues with it. The only thing I don;t like is if you put it on shuffle and get out, it starts back at 1 on the count and winds up playing some of the songs you already heard.
