Anyone tried the USB port with a flash drive

[theenico]

So I have a 1LT with the connectivity and cruise package. It has the USB port in the upper glove box.

The owner's manual says that the radio can read either .wma or .mp3 files off a flash drive. Well I bought a flash drive and just threw a few .wma format songs on it to test it. The radio will read the tracks, but it just continues to scroll through the tracks and won't start playing anything.

Has this happened to anyone else? Am I doing something wrong?

 

[theenico]

Eureka!

I figured it out.

I ended up having to delete all the .wma files and reload the flash drive with .mp3 files. Once I did that, it worked fine.

Long story short, it appears that the radio does not support .wma files on a flashdrive. This type of file may work when played from a Microsoft supported device such as a Zun, but I do not have one to try.

 

[Sonic]

Good to know! Thanks for reporting the solution.

 

[theenico]

More updates. I have been talking to the owner's manual group and the tier 1 for the radio. Here are some tips for using a thumb/flash drive to play music through the USB port.

-It will support both MP3 and WMA files.

-It will not read anything with a compression rate higher than 320Kbps. (This turned out to be my issue as my compression rate was much higher)

-It will not support more than 16G of file memory. As an example: I have a 32G flash drive, but it only has about 8G of music on it right now so it works just fine.

 

[Danny5]

Probably has to do with number of files since the radio ignores folders. I like being able to arrange music by folder. Oh well...

If this radio is anything like my Camaro, you must use FAT32. NTFS will not work.

 

[Danny5]

Double Post

 

[theenico]

NTFS is definitely not supported.

 

[jlslatton]

-It will not support more than 16G of file memory. As an example: I have a 32G flash drive, but it only has about 8G of music on it right now so it works just fine.

I believe the manual said something about the NUMBER of files rather than the total size it would read. Something like 2K songs I think. Don't remember.

Actually here's what the manual says:

Connecting and Controlling a USB Drive

The infotainment system can only play back .mp3 and .wma files from a USB drive.

Only the first 2,500 songs are recognized on the device. When a device is not supported, the message “No supported data found. You can safely disconnect the device” appears.

 

[theenico]

I know what the manual says.

The above information is from the tier 1 supplier for the radios. I've been working with them and the owner's manual group to get the manual corrected. Currently, it is vague and does not have complete information.

 

[jlslatton]

So you're saying the manual is incorrect about the number of songs it reads? What is the correct limitation then? And how have you come about this information? Testing?

 

[theenico]

So you're saying the manual is incorrect about the number of songs it reads? What is the correct limitation then? And how have you come about this information? Testing?

The manual is correct about the number of songs, but it is misleading because depending on the length of the song and its compression rate, you can hit the 16G limit before hitting the 2500 song limit. What I'm hoping is that they'll revise the manual to show not only the number of songs, but the memory limit, and the compression rate limit.

By doing so, it would keep more less tech savvy people (such as myself) from experiencing the same difficulties I did.

I've already posted where the info came from, but to reiterate, I work for GM and have been talking to both the owner's manual group and the tier 1 supplier for the radio about this issue. The supplier is where the memory and compression limit info came from.

 

[Mike-NH]

Wait, you're working with the radio supplier? Can anyone contact them? I ask because I'd love to discuss the (admittedly minor) issue of the album name not updating while playing my iPhone tracks on random...

 

[jlslatton]

The manual is correct about the number of songs, but it is misleading because depending on the length of the song and its compression rate, you can hit the 16G limit before hitting the 2500 song limit. What I'm hoping is that they'll revise the manual to show not only the number of songs, but the memory limit, and the compression rate limit.

By doing so, it would keep more less tech savvy people (such as myself) from experiencing the same difficulties I did.

I've already posted where the info came from, but to reiterate, I work for GM and have been talking to both the owner's manual group and the tier 1 supplier for the radio about this issue. The supplier is where the memory and compression limit info came from.

Yeah, that seems like pertinent information they should include in the manual Thank you for the additional clarification. Who is the supplier, if you can answer?

 

[Sambuca]

Registered to say thanks for this! :banana: I didn't even think about formatting my usb stick to fat32. It's been quite a few years since I've HAD to use that.

 

[gsxr1000]

my plan when is when i can find some 2gb stick for cheap get 5 or 6 of them and lable the sticks with dif. music/mixes and just swap them out since to folders and it is a pain scrolling through song....

side note it sucks that neither usb nor cig lighter stay hot while car is off to charge my phone... come on chevy that was one thing i hated about imports is cig lighter turning off with key now chevy is doing it to damn it

 

[pljenkins]

You guys are doing better then I am! I have a 4GB Maxell USB thumb drive that I cannot get to work to save my life. I've gone so far as to bitwipe the entire drive and used Panasonic's SD Formatter to format it to FAT32. Put ONE song on the thing that was MP3 encoded at 128Kbps, shoved it into the USB port, it comes back with "no valid files". The only thing I've gotten to work in this thing is my Creative Muvo 1GB MP3 player. Even my Ipod Shuffle (legacy) doesn't work.

(rant)Not quite sure what the point of the USB port is, at this point. Clearly it's not designed to be compatible with anything. I've wasted $10 and a day of my life that I'll never get back thanks to this. I'd love to know if there's something else I can do to make this work. I REALLY don't want to go on a treasure hunt to find what USB thumb drives work and what ones don't. (/rant)

P.

 

[theenico]

Unfortunately I'm not very tech savy. I hadn't heard of FAT32 before this thread.

After having my initial issues, which turned out to be having my music in too large a file size, I reripped a bunch of my music at 320kbps. Then I just bought a generic flash drive (didn't reformat or anything) and dragged my new smaller MP3 files to it on my laptop. It works fine now.

 

[dumpsterj]

i have tried 2 types of ZUNE and none of them worked

 

[EZcheeser21]

my plan when is when i can find some 2gb stick for cheap get 5 or 6 of them and lable the sticks with dif. music/mixes and just swap them out since to folders and it is a pain scrolling through song....

side note it sucks that neither usb nor cig lighter stay hot while car is off to charge my phone... come on chevy that was one thing i hated about imports is cig lighter turning off with key now chevy is doing it to damn it

True, I didn't think about all the scrolling. I just ordered three 8GBs.

Good deal: $8/each

Newegg.com - Kingston DataTraveler 101 Gen 2 8GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive (Red) Model DT101G2/8GBZ

 

[inm]

Just reporting that iPods work via the USB, and great, I might add!

Testing working with both a 6th generation iPad Nano 8GB, and a 4th generation iPod Touch 64GB.