SYNC and USB thumb drives

Sparty92

Member
Jul 30, 2007
430
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Detroit Burbs
Hey,

So I have an '11 GT with SYNC, and I have a question about the USB port in the armrest for playing music.

I bought a standard PC/Mac USB thumb drive...8GB...and loaded about 700 songs from my iTunes onto it. I did a straight copy, so some are MP3s, some are AACs...whatever.

When I go to play the songs, like speaking "play all"...it sometimes says "Bad Media" (I think) after playing a song...and then there will be a pause as it goes to find another song. If I watch the display, I can see the "bad" title/artist show up for a split second, then goes away. If I speak "play track" by that artist, it will play. Using the "next track" button on the steering wheel will sometimes get a song that plays, or the message "bad media" as it searched for something it likes.

Basically, it's kinda flakey. If I tell it to play artist "Van Halen" it will play all the tracks that I have by VH, but if it's just playing random music, it might skip over one of those songs because of "bad media."

Now, if I do Bluetooth streaming to my iPhone 4, it works like a champ, but you can't call out specific tracks/artists/genres using the streaming option.

I might try connecting my iPod shuffle to the USB port and see what happens there.

Just wondering if any of you guys (girls?) have had this experience with your SYNC and USB port/drive.

:shrug:
 
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It will work with the iphone all the time as I believe the phone has already decompressed the media file and sends the finalized format to the radio it is expecting to receive.

From your drive though, you are sending the compressed media to the radio. I don't have the car yet so I'm not sure on the specific mp3 types it deals with. My first guess is that it is having an issue with AAC files. If that's not the case, I bet you have some mp3/AAC files that have been encoded as Joint Stereo as opposed to Normal Stereo. Most things these days have no problem with Joint Stereo, but I could see where a factory headunit may.

Those are only guesses...but I would look into it.

Also, does your car have the Nav option?
 
this is from the mysync website


SYNC works with most popular media players equipped with a USB connection, including iPod*, Zune, Plays for Device players and "MOST USB DRIVES". SYNC also plays audio files on most USB storage drives.

Supported audio formats include MP3s, AAC, WMA and WAV.
 
My car does not have the Navigation option.

That said, my USB drive DOES work for the most part...it's just if you're "playing all" and let it go, it will not always play the next track. But if you specifically tell it to play that track, it will. It's odd.

I tested it again today by telling it to "play genre rock"...and song after song played without a "bad media" message being displayed.

Oh well. I should read up on SYNC. There's a million things I'm missing out on I'm sure...
 
Hmmm that's interesting...actually, are you copying these from a mac on to the flash drive? I know when I do and open the flash drive up in a PC there are always a slew of hidden files that mac puts on there, makes me wonder if the "play all" command tries to open these. Plus, I think these hidden files have the same filename as the audio file itself (could be wrong, it's been a while since I've encountered it) and the next button may try to load the wrong file first.

Of course, if you did this from a PC none of this would pertain :p

You can use voice commands with the iphone streaming, you'll just have to use the voice command feature of the iphone and not sync.
 
I use an 8GB flash drive in my Mustang & it works great. Plays everything correctly. However, I use Windows media player for all my music, so that may be part of why it works so well.

Can you plug your iPhone into the USB port?
Perhaps you can use voice commands with it directly plugged in????

If it works like that, then you iPod shuffle should work equally well. Let us know what works.
 
I will try to plug in my old iPod shuffle....have not tried that yet. Lately I told SYNC to "play genre ROCK"...and it plays/skips perfectly. Maybe it needs time to figure out the next song's metadata or something...who knows.

The bummer of my iPod shuffle is that it sits on a little "base" when it is charging/plugged in. It could get bumped/dislodged if I throw something into the armrest. Worth a shot, I suppose.

Anyone know how much battery is sucked from your phone (iPhone 4, specifically) when you do bluetooth streaming? I have avoided that for the most part because I don't want it to eat the battery if I can find another way to listen to music.

Thanks!
 
I use the Bluetooth Audio to play the music, as I've heard that Sync gets confused if you plug it in via the USB and have the Bluetooth connections. But, if that stops working you have to crawl under the passenger kick panel and find the fuse box and pull fuse #3 (on the '11 anyway).
 
OK SParty...here's the answer, but it requires some computer skill.

I have all my files on the computer in a folder...when I click on the folder and they files open, you can go to view "details". Then the files come up. If you click on the properties of each one, there is a DESIGNATED spot in the properties for TITLE, ARTIST, GENRE, etc. You can go in there and type the correc info in accordingly. Problem is when you download the music and it's not "described" the right way, this will happen. Now, when I speak the artist genre, etc, the right music comes up.

Hope this helps.
RC
 
OK SParty...here's the answer, but it requires some computer skill.

I have all my files on the computer in a folder...when I click on the folder and they files open, you can go to view "details". Then the files come up. If you click on the properties of each one, there is a DESIGNATED spot in the properties for TITLE, ARTIST, GENRE, etc. You can go in there and type the correc info in accordingly. Problem is when you download the music and it's not "described" the right way, this will happen. Now, when I speak the artist genre, etc, the right music comes up.

Hope this helps.
RC

Hey,

I'm using iTunes, and all of my music has the track, title, artist, genre, etc. called out already. If I just call out a genre when using SYNC, it works like a champ. All songs in that genre play flawlessly.

It's really only when I say "Play All" and/or "Shuffle"...that sometimes I get the message "Bad Media." It will briefly show the "bad" track/artist and just repeat the "bad media" message. But if I specifically call out that "bad" track/artist, it will play it.

It's rather baffling.
 
If you're on a Mac then it's probably what I mentioned earlier. Go toss your thumbdrive in a PC, go to tools -> folder options -> Then the view tab i think, scroll down and enable view hidden files if it isn't clicked already.

Now access your thumbdrive, you will see all those extra hidden files. Just delete em off and give it a shot..doesn't hurt anything as they are just references for Spotlight in OSX. That will be a pain in the ass everytime you want to put songs on it so check out the below link and hopefully that will fix it for you. There are progs you can download as well...one called TinkerTools and a few others. I'm just not a fan of installing stuff that messes with system variables for free haha.

macosx - How do I stop Mac OS X from putting hidden .Trashes and .Spotlight-V100 folders/files on USB drives? - Server Fault

EDIT: Even if you do the above on your thumbdrive, you will probably need to do a quick format on the thumb drive and add the songs again as the hidden files will still be there...disabling spotlight from searching it won't remove the hidden ones it's already put on there just prevent it from adding anymore. If that's too much of a pain, clear em off from a PC.