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USB thumb drive: music files

I was going to get the 12" myself cuz it looked cool but was afraid I'd end up wrecking as I'd be playing around with it too much instead of focusing on the road LOL

I see yours took about 4 weeks .. I'm hoping mine is similar since it is the end of the 2019 round-up
 
I did grab one of the SDs that stopped working and renamed it .. that didn't work for me.
I do know at least on my vehicle that there were complaints about a loose cable from the USB ports to the radio head unit. So if you hit some good bumps it may start working again .. LOL

I hope you guys get your music going again. Maybe the dealer can reset or update or dive in and see if it too is just a loose cable.
 
I am currently trying to use a 128 USB drive. So far , after much frustration I have gotten it to work, somewhat. For whatever reasons, not all of my music will work with the voice commands. I have to search by artist or folder. Same with songs, I can find a folder for instance "red hot chili peppers" and not all the songs are displayed, I have to hit "all songs" for them all to show, even though on the computer side everything is in a "red hot chili pepper" folder.
Now just yesterday, I added some music. Today on the way to work, not a single song or artist showed up in Uconnect. I just don't understand the inconsistent operation. For instance I have a folder for the artist "silversun pickups" it has three songs in it. I added one more to it yesterday and today Uconnect doesn't see it.
 
yeah, the system has to refresh itself (which it either doesn't do, or I don't know the sequence to make it do it - other than maybe a soft reset or something).

I'm going to add some songs and then try with power off and again with power on to see if either one will force the system to read the additional songs. I know my Durango did but it was fussy and I don't remember which way worked.
 
Some of this has already been said/written but I'm going to share my experience quickly just in case it helps someone else.

I got a 2019 Ram 1500 with the 12" Uconnect w/ NAV. I had a USB 3.0 thumb drive full of music which works to play music in another car (non-FCA). It did not read when I inserted it into the active RAM ports. Note that at least for me (based on the infotainment menu system) you can read USB from a phone on ports 1, 2 and 3 but can only read a USB stick on ports 2 and 3 - NOT port #1 (counter-intuitive).

Based on feedback from this forum I reformatted with NTFS (alleged to work/did not work for me). Still nothing.

I then reformatted in FAT32 using the free, open source tool guiFormat (does not install, just download it and run, very easy). Bingo! Once I dragged some music onto the newly formatted drive the Uconnect system saw the USB drive and the songs immediately. A good start.

I use MediaMonkey for my song management playlists so I deleted the random song files and tried syncing a playlist. It worked!

But the folder formatting was by album (MediaMonkey default) which might work for some people but was not what I wanted. My playlists are based on activity/mood, and I wanted to be able to browse the folders by something broader than album (like genre). I went back to MediaMonkey and changed the options for sync-->device. I used "\Music\<Genre>\<Artist> - <Title>" which drops all songs from a genre into a folder with that genre, and then the tracks are titled with file names "Atrist - song title". You could do something different but this works for me.

End results is that everything works great, songs, search, genres, playlists, album art, and auto-resume from where I left off after the vehicle has been OFF (note, the longest the vehicle has been OFF is ~24hrs...in my other car if you leave the car off for more than a few days it 'forgets' the place in the playlist....not yet sure if the Ram will do the same. This isn't really an issue for daily commuters but something to note).

I'm using a 64GB SanDisk USB drive (Amazon)but also confirmed this to work on a 32GB Samsung drive and a 32GB no-name drive. MediaMonkey has both a free and paid version and there are definitely other organization options but it worked for me so I figured I should share. Happy Labor Day everyone.
 
Good Job! .. and yes ALWAYS FAT32 .. it is what the system calls for .. NTFS might work if you are lucky :)

I used to use MediaMonkey -- I need to update it :)

I'm running a 320G SSD myself for fun.
 
Billet1500 4x4 said:
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?
Click to expand...
I had this problem on an older GMC Acadia. Seems the engineer did not know that when you remove the power to a USB when you turn off the ignition, the drive cannot remember where it last stopped, and must start over from scratch. If your starts at track 39, that is because that is the first track on the USB drive. It sound like your USB port is being powered down when you turn off the ignition and repoweres up the next time you start. The fix for the Acadia was to run a +5v wire to the USB port full time. Problem fixed. Hope this helps.
 
JoeMiner67 said:
I had this problem on an older GMC Acadia. Seems the engineer did not know that when you remove the power to a USB when you turn off the ignition, the drive cannot remember where it last stopped, and must start over from scratch. If your starts at track 39, that is because that is the first track on the USB drive. It sound like your USB port is being powered down when you turn off the ignition and repoweres up the next time you start. The fix for the Acadia was to run a +5v wire to the USB port full time. Problem fixed. Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
That's what I figured it was, same idea as pulling the drive every time you drive the truck. I had a GMC sierra before this and never had this problem. I have noticed the Ram only does it after the truck has been shut down for a decent amount of time. Say you stop for gas and the truck is only off for a few minutes while fueling up, when you start it back up it still remembers the track it left off on, let it set for 8 hours while at work and it resets. Almost like it goes into power save mode after a preset amount of time and shuts down power to the port. Just surprise I'm one of the few with the issue, I do have a pretty early build February 2018. Not a big enough deal to mess with, just a bit annoying.
 
Michael_D said:
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.
Click to expand...
 
I'm confused; appears some folks can play music from USB flash drive and some can't? I ripped music using Windows Media Player in MP3 format to flash drive. Radio can't read? What am I doing wrong? My last truck, a Tundra, I simply copied music files straight onto thumb drive and it worked fine. Tried that for the RAM, didn't work either?
 
I have a 64GB USB stick with thousands of songs on it in different folders. I have no trouble playing any of the songs, I can use voice commands to play an Artist, Song or Genre. When I restart the Truck it always starts playing the last song I was listening too. However after about .30 seconds it restarts the song from the beginning. I don't like that feature. Overall everything works as one would expect it to.
 
Tom Gross said:
I'm confused; appears some folks can play music from USB flash drive and some can't? I ripped music using Windows Media Player in MP3 format to flash drive. Radio can't read? What am I doing wrong? My last truck, a Tundra, I simply copied music files straight onto thumb drive and it worked fine. Tried that for the RAM, didn't work either?
Click to expand...
Windows formats drives to NTFS by default. UConnect does not work with NTFS. You need to format your drive to FAT32. You may need to download a format tool for FAT32 like the HP USB tool: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/hp-usb-disk-storage-format-tool/. It sounds like formatting is your issue.
If your UConnect does not remember your drive and where it left off (after you get it working); then you need a software update. The early UConnect software would read and play USB drives; but would not "remember" them. Mine would have to re-read the entire drive and would not resume where I left off until I had the dealer flash the software update.
 
Tom Gross said:
I'm confused; appears some folks can play music from USB flash drive and some can't? I ripped music using Windows Media Player in MP3 format to flash drive. Radio can't read? What am I doing wrong? My last truck, a Tundra, I simply copied music files straight onto thumb drive and it worked fine. Tried that for the RAM, didn't work either?
Click to expand...
I saw your other post also about ripping straight to flash. You might want to rip to your computer hard drive and then use the sync feature of windows media player to create your USB (after you format the USB to FAT32).
 
Billy James said:
I saw your other post also about ripping straight to flash. You might want to rip to your computer hard drive and then use the sync feature of windows media player to create your USB (after you format the USB to FAT32).
Click to expand...
Thanks, I'll give it a try tonight.
 
Billy James said:
Windows formats drives to NTFS by default. UConnect does not work with NTFS. You need to format your drive to FAT32. You may need to download a format tool for FAT32 like the HP USB tool: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/hp-usb-disk-storage-format-tool/. It sounds like formatting is your issue.
If your UConnect does not remember your drive and where it left off (after you get it working); then you need a software update. The early UConnect software would read and play USB drives; but would not "remember" them. Mine would have to re-read the entire drive and would not resume where I left off until I had the dealer flash the software update.
Click to expand...
To format the flash drive to FAT32 I put in computer and right click, and will have pick list?
 
I have a 19 Laramie w/12" screen. I decided to rip a lot of my CD's using Windows Media player and FLAC. I used an old 16 g 2.0 USB drive formatted to Fat32 as a trial and it worked well with the radio so I ordered a Sandisk 128 g 3.0 mini USB drive. When it came the format options were exfat or NTFS, I chose exfat and no bueno. The radio saw the USB but couldn't read it so I formatted to NTFS and it reads the music fine. Plays great as well.
I ripped to my computers hard drive and then transferred the files to the USB drive.
Trucks build date - 2/19
 
RJS said:
I have a 19 Laramie w/12" screen. I decided to rip a lot of my CD's using Windows Media player and FLAC. I used an old 16 g 2.0 USB drive formatted to Fat32 as a trial and it worked well with the radio so I ordered a Sandisk 128 g 3.0 mini USB drive. When it came the format options were exfat or NTFS, I chose exfat and no bueno. The radio saw the USB but couldn't read it so I formatted to NTFS and it reads the music fine. Plays great as well.
I ripped to my computers hard drive and then transferred the files to the USB drive.
Trucks build date - 2/19
Click to expand...
Sooo much conflicting information on the topic:(
 
Tom Gross said:
To format the flash drive to FAT32 I put in computer and right click, and will have pick list?
Click to expand...
Yes, you should have an option for format. But some Windows versions do not have FAT32 as a format option for larger drives; so you would need an add on tool like HP USB to do the format if yours does not have FAT32 as an option.
 
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