USB socket

[bandit_287]

Anybody use their usb socket to play music from a usb drive? I can’t get my PCM to recognise them. I’ve tried two, they are quite old so not sure if that would make a difference. I’ve formatted them to FAT32 and still nothing. Any ideas? CD’s play mp3 fine and my iPhone plays it’s stored music via Bluetooth too. 

 

 

[Carmine]

Yes, using it without issue. 32GB Verbatim drive.   Win10 install files are still on the same drive and the PCM doesn’t care.

 

One thought - what bitrate are the MP3s?

[bandit_287]

I don’t know, would that make a difference? It won’t flick to usb when I have the usb drive inserted in the glove box. 

[zagamuffin]

have the same issue, tried it recenty and didnt work, was told i need some module but thought i had most of it all.bose,aux in, usb,pcm,nav, ???

does the version matter as im early 2012...

 

 

[bandit_287]

Mines the same. PCM, Bose, nav etc. The usb socket and aux socket are in the glove box. My cars a 65 plate. Very odd. 

[Stuart21UK]

I've only ever used a USB drive in mine, will be formatted to NTFS I think, wack the mp3, m4a or wma (?) files on it in folders, one for each album and all is good

USB socket used is the one in the glove box

63 plate 981 with Bose/PCM

[Jon61]

3 hours ago, bandit_287 said:

Anybody use their usb socket to play music from a usb drive? I can’t get my PCM to recognise them. I’ve tried two, they are quite old so not sure if that would make a difference. I’ve formatted them to FAT32 and still nothing. Any ideas? CD’s play mp3 fine and my iPhone plays it’s stored music via Bluetooth too. 

Your car is the same year as mine (65), and I've used one all the time I've had the car without any problems.

FAT32 should be fine. I doubt that the bitrate would be an issue.

If your USB stick is old, the only thing I can think is that it may not conform to the USB2.0 spec which is the minimum. I'd suggest trying a newer one if you have one.

There's a maximum of 10,000 files on the memory stick as well apparently, though I don't know what happens if you exceed it - I would suspect it just ignores the extra tracks, rather than ignoring the whole memory stick though.

I have a large capacity USB stick in mine which I leave there 'permanently', only removing it occasionally to update the files. The only slight annoyance I have is that whenever I plug the stick back in after updating it, the PCM seems to have to update its internal database of what's on the stick before it can use it, and sometimes this takes ages. It displays a message (at the bottom of the PCM screen I think) to say that's what it's doing though - otherwise I might have thought it hadn't recognised the memory stick.

[zagamuffin]

14 minutes ago, Stuart21UK said:

I've only ever used a USB drive in mine, will be formatted to NTFS I think, wack the mp3, m4a or wma (?) files on it in folders, one for each album and all is good

USB socket used is the one in the glove box

63 plate 981 with Bose/PCM

All I’ve read says fat32 so if your the only one here with it working and your on ntfs I think that’s worth trying out 

[bandit_287]

Thanks for the responses. I’ve just ordered up a 64g Vertbatim usb drive that’s usb 3.0. The two I’ve tried today are very old, probably usb 1.0 so I hope that’s why they’re not recognised. 

[Stuart21UK]

2 hours ago, zagamuffin said:

All I’ve read says fat32 so if your the only one here with it working and your on ntfs I think that’s worth trying out 

pretty sure all my USB are NTFS....worse case just reformat it again anyway

try a few different audio file types too would be my rec.

[Patt]

Slightly off topic - I've been using an old Ipod Nano for tunes.

My issue is the PCM won't let me play album after album.  It either plays any track in it's random way, or the tracks in alphabetical order.

As most of my albums are mixed together it spoils the whole effect, or I end up with the different version of God is a DJ one after another.

 

Do you peeps have the same issues using a HDD or better still a USB stick?

[entdgc]

25 minutes ago, Patt said:

Slightly off topic - I've been using an old Ipod Nano for tunes.

My issue is the PCM won't let me play album after album.  It either plays any track in it's random way, or the tracks in alphabetical order.

As most of my albums are mixed together it spoils the whole effect, or I end up with the different version of God is a DJ one after another.

 

Do you peeps have the same issues using a HDD or better still a USB stick?

If there is no PCM solution to this then one way around this is to use a more complex naming structure for each track such as ALBUM-NUMBER-TITLE.mp3. There are many softwares that can auto rename them for you.

[Jon61]

I've just checked my USB stick - as I thought it's formatted as FAT32. The manual says FAT16 or FAT32 only, so you're lucky if NTFS works for you @Stuart21UK.

Mine is a 64GB Sandisk 'Cruzer Fit' one a bit like this one (Amazon link) - I like these because they are so small you barely notice them once they're plugged in. I don't get to use all of the 64GB though as at the bitrate I use for most of my MP3s, you hit the 10,000 track limit before you fill up 64GB. 

@Patt, I assume your music files all have proper artist, album & track names assigned in itunes before they're put onto the ipod? Also, this may sound like a daft question, but I assume you are using the ipod as an ipod (ie using the specific ipod interface to select music), rather than somehow using it as a basic USB storage device? The reason I ask this is that the native folder- & filenames used on an ipod bear no relation to the actual IDE track, artist, album etc tags (Apple's pointless attempt to stop people using ipods to transfer music to each other), so if the PCM was using the native filenames it would get completely confused.

My MP3s all have proper artist, album, trackname IDE tags, and I use iTunes to organise them on my PC, which means they are already organised in an artist-album folder hierarchy, but also handily it means that each filename is the track name prefixed by the track number. On the PCM, I never use the "Find music" or "Full text search" buttons to select music; I always use the "Track List" button, and then go one level up the folder structure to select a different album, or at a higher level select a different artist. The filename prefixes make sure that within one album the tracks are played in order. The one change I make to iTunes's file structure is that I also add a numerical prefix to albums within each artist, which ensures that the albums by any one artist appear in the list in the order I want (usually chronological) rather than alphabetic order - I do that becasue I sometimes select an artist and let it play through several albums consecutively. If you're not bothered about the order of albums, this isn't necessary, but the numerical prefixes for the individual tracks are necessary using this method to get the tracks in order.

The reason I select music this way is that I was finding that if I used PCM to search for music it was doing what I think you're finding - if you select by artist, it lumps all their tracks together then plays them in an order it chooses, meaning that for example when you have one song appearing on an album, a 'greatest hits' and a mixed compilation, you hear the same song umpteen times. I do also have some music transferred onto the hard disk, but I use the same "Track List" method to select them. for the same reason. I used to plug an ipod into previous cars but never use them in either the Boxster or Mrs61's Audi (which used SD cards rather than a USB stick) as I find native USB/SD devices more practical.

[bandit_287]

I’ve just tried the new 64g Verbatim usb 3.0 drive and it’s still not recognised. When I press media it just gives me the option of FM AM DAB OR CD. It wont give me the option to use usb despite the manual telling me to press media until usb is displayed and the hardware being installed in the glove box, it surely should allow me to choose AUX too as there’s that socket next to the usb. I’ve just re-set the PCM back to factory settings on the device but that didn’t make any difference. 

Any ideas?

[Jon61]

3 minutes ago, bandit_287 said:

Any ideas?

This is puzzling - but one question occurs to me: I assume you are putting some MP3s on the stick before you try it? I doubt if hr PCM will give you the option of switching to the USB input if there's nothing there to play.

If it's not this, then I can only think it's something to do with the files you are putting on there. Are they normal MP3 files that you can successfully play on other devices? If you want to you could email a few of them to me and I'll see if I can play them on mine (which I know will play MP3s from a USB stick).

[Carmine]

A PCM 3.0 manual that I found on-line states that the USB stick must be USB 2.0 - might that be the issue?

[bandit_287]

Yes just regular mp3 files at a bit rate of 320kbps, I’ve tried putting a couple of albums on there and individual mp3 files but it’s not having any of it. I’ve reset the PCM to vehicle handover setting but that not done anything either. 

If I press media , it only gives me the options of FM AM DAB and when the phone is connected BT AUX. Nothing for USB or AUX, according to the manual it should give me the option to have JUKEBOX too but that’s not coming up either. 

Im wondering if there’s different versions of the PCM unit? I’ve only had the car a week so not sure, it seems a bit daft to have the hardware fitted if you can’t use it though. Maybe the PCM needs updating to the latest setting?

[bandit_287]

Weird update, I just plugged my ten year old Novatech 8gb usb (1.0?) which has a red LED on it and the light illuminated and the PCM flashed up USB connected at the bottom of the display in blue then disappeared and again I couldn’t select usb.  Maybe I do have to use usb 2.0 only and 1.0 and 3.0 are not supported. 

[Jon61]

I think there have been cases where a car 'forgets' some of the hardware that it has fitted, and needs to be recoded to get them to work again. There has also been at least one case recently where someone's 981 seemed to have a version of the PCM that according to the brochures was never offered (see thread linked below). Prompted by that thread, does your car have satnav @bandit_287?

[bandit_287]

Just now, Jon61 said:

I think there have been cases where a car 'forgets' some of the hardware that it has fitted, and needs to be recoded to get them to work again. There has also been at least one case recently where someone's 981 seemed to have a version of the PCM that according to the brochures was never offered (see thread linked below). Prompted by that thread, does your car have satnav @bandit_287?

Yes it’s got sat nav. I clicked version and it’s 4.76, not sure if that’s the version of the PCM or just the sat nav software. 

[Carmine]

3 minutes ago, Jon61 said:

I think there have been cases where a car 'forgets' some of the hardware that it has fitted, and needs to be recoded to get them to work again. There has also been at least one case recently where someone's 981 seemed to have a version of the PCM that according to the brochures was never offered (see thread linked below). Prompted by that thread, does your car have satnav @bandit_287?

If you can't see the Aux input via PCM then the above might well explain it all. The Aux input should always be visible, whether or not something is connected to it.

[Jon61]

Forgot the link to the other thread in my previous post, which may not be so relevant if your satnav is working - the other case I was thinking off didn't have jukebox because even though it had PCM it didn't have satnav (even though the brochure seemed to say that wasn't on available option). Anyway here's the link in case there's anything relevant in there:

 

[Jon61]

23 minutes ago, Carmine said:

If you can't see the Aux input via PCM then the above might well explain it all. The Aux input should always be visible, whether or not something is connected to it.

It's not quite as simple as that. Once you're in 'Media', on the 'Option' screen, there's a 'Set Media/Aux' setting where you can either tick or untick the Aux in setting. If it's unticked (as mine is, because I never use the Aux In jack), you won't see 'Aux' when you cycle through the inputs or press the Source button. But you're right that if you do have the Aux enabled on that settings screen, then you do get offered Aux even if there's nothing connected to it. The USB input is only offered however if there is a USB device connected.

And, although it's probably bad news @bandit_287 as it seems to confirm that you have got some sort of problem with your PCM, I've just tried using a USB 3.1 memory stick (one of these) in mine, and as I expected, it does work and plays MP3s from it, so I would have expected your Verbatim drive to work.

[bandit_287]

 Very odd. I think I’m going to have to take it up to the OPC to have a look. It’s weird how the Novatech usb led lights up and the message displayed usb connected but hen doesn’t give me the option to select usb on the pcm. 

Seems I’m not alone with this issue though, @zagamuffin has the same. 

[Stuart21UK]

sounds like the PCM options or system is at fault...

Are you local to anyone else who uses a USB drive in their 981?

I'm in 'LU7' and happy to meet up somewhere if not too far to help out and save a visit to OPC (possibly)