usb read issues

[bradyb]

When I first got the car 2 yrs ago I had few issues with it. It seams in the last few months or so that this problem has show itself more and more. The problem is the head unit reading the usb.

1) everything is organized in genre/artist/album >mp3
2) 32 gig thumb drive formatted fat32
3) no extraneous files

Problem(s)
1) HU will not recognize device ( usb) on start up -keeps searching
2) sometimes while playing the usb it freezes or loses the drive
3) sometimes reports the usb as an unrecognized device
4) after freezing will not recognize the usb port at all until after a lengthy restart

I'm thinking there is a lose connection someplace and that is causing the issues im having problem is that it happens to one usb drive more than the other, but the issues happens to both.

really weird....

dont want to take it to the dealer b/c the last time I took my car to the dealer they broke the windshield and damaged other components and refused to take responsibility for their actions. more on that issue later....

 

[QCTLG]

bradyb,

I was having the EXACT same problem as you with a 32GB and even worse on a 64GB stick.
I have had "0" problems since using a 16GB drive.
This has been over a year now!

My opinion is the bigger the drive the worse the problems.

Good luck

 

[bradyb]

bradyb,

I was having the EXACT same problem as you with a 32GB and even worse on a 64GB stick.
I have had "0" problems since using a 16GB drive.
This has been over a year now!

My opinion is the bigger the drive the worse the problems.

Good luck

I've considered that. However I have a 260GIG SSHD that Ive had 0 problems with. However its been a while since ive had it in the car.

Think I might just burn some dvds

 

[homeofstone]

Scan the drive for viruses and corrupt files.

 

[pipedream]

Sorry to dredge up an old thread but I was having a lot of difficulty getting my PNY 32GB USB stick to read every time in my 2009 3.8 Genesis w/Tech.

- it couldn't be a compatibility issue as essentially all USB sticks are the same
- it seemed that some people were having success with > 32GB drives so it couldn't be a size issue
- I thought it was the number of files, but reducing from 2500 songs to 100 songs made no difference

As an IT guy, I know that not all FAT32 settings are the same so I played around with formatting with different cluster sizes to see if that would fix the issue and so far so good. Most format utilities will default to a 4096 cluster size or smaller, which is great for maximizing space on a drive and reading small (<1MB) files but horrible for reading large files (ie MP3 files)

NOTE: Try at your own risk, I am not responsible for anything that goes wrong with your USB stick or vehicle blah, blah, blah. This should be 100% safe however.

1) Attach and backup your USB storage device to your computer

2) Download Fat32 Formatter (or similar utility): http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/guiformat.htm

3) Run guiformat.exe (should be safe, several sites recommended it, as always scan files with antivirus before running)

4) Select the drive letter for your USB storage device

5) Set allocation unit size to 32768 (VERY IMPORTANT!)

6) Set volume label to GENESIS

7) Untick Quick Format

8) Reverify all settings and click Start

This will take 45 minutes to a couple of hours depending on the size of your drive. Quick Format may work as well, did not test.

9) Once completed, copy all music back to USB drive

This should make the drive read more reliably and improve read times. It made a world of difference to mine. My files load almost immediately in which it used to take 5 minutes or more to load and sometimes not at all (Unkown USB device, love that broken English!)

 

[Rob]

I know this has been rehashed on multiple threads but I found something quite interesting that relates to this topic. Over the last several months I've tried everything to get my music on a usb stick to play properly and nothing worked. The suggestion above about reformatting with the FAT32 formatter made the most improvement but songs still cut out unpredictably, hung up at the end, or simply kicked out the whole usb device and started over.

Then I had to preview some music for flaws that would only be played back on SD card. So I took one of those old SD to USB adapters like you buy at Walmart and played the SD card through the USB port on the Genesis. It made good use of time I had to spend driving anyways and also allowed me to play it on something other than the laptop used to download and make the recording. It never malfunctioned even once. So I got to thinking, why not try my own personal music? Some is ripped, most is downloaded and just as easy to put on a SD card as a USB stick. After several weeks of listening its a HUGE improvement! Rarely it will hang at the end of a track and repeat the last part, but a simple nudge forward of the DIS button will bump it to the next track. And that has only happened on uncommon situations like leaving the song playing when shuttiing off the car and resuming playback on startup, or after rewinding back through a song. With the USB stick it would hang 10+ times in a single song, but during normal playback with the SD card it has never once ejected, skipped, hung up or malfunctioned except as noted.

I have no idea why this works differently but if any computer experts or audiophiles have some input it would be interesting to hear. Perhaps it can help someone else who may still be having the same problem or maybe point to a reason why some USB's work great and some don't. Btw, the car is 2009 3.8 with tech package and the SD card is a Micro Center 4GB generic card.

 

[bishaudio]

I'll have to try the SD card idea. Currently the main issue I am having with a 32gb USB it seems to have duplicate files that won't play. So I have to skip over them and select the second copy for it to play. I turned on my hidden files on the computer and I don't see anything. The duplicates look like this. They have a "._" before the title.


any ideas?

 

[amartz]

Try it in something besides Windows.

 

[bishaudio]

I have a mac.

 

[Carls Bad]

Sorry to dredge up an old thread but I was having a lot of difficulty getting my PNY 32GB USB stick to read every time in my 2009 3.8 Genesis w/Tech.

- it couldn't be a compatibility issue as essentially all USB sticks are the same
- it seemed that some people were having success with > 32GB drives so it couldn't be a size issue
- I thought it was the number of files, but reducing from 2500 songs to 100 songs made no difference

As an IT guy, I know that not all FAT32 settings are the same so I played around with formatting with different cluster sizes to see if that would fix the issue and so far so good. Most format utilities will default to a 4096 cluster size or smaller, which is great for maximizing space on a drive and reading small (<1MB) files but horrible for reading large files (ie MP3 files)

NOTE: Try at your own risk, I am not responsible for anything that goes wrong with your USB stick or vehicle blah, blah, blah. This should be 100% safe however.

1) Attach and backup your USB storage device to your computer

2) Download Fat32 Formatter (or similar utility): http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/guiformat.htm

3) Run guiformat.exe (should be safe, several sites recommended it, as always scan files with antivirus before running)

4) Select the drive letter for your USB storage device

5) Set allocation unit size to 32768 (VERY IMPORTANT!)

6) Set volume label to GENESIS

7) Untick Quick Format

8) Reverify all settings and click Start

This will take 45 minutes to a couple of hours depending on the size of your drive. Quick Format may work as well, did not test.

9) Once completed, copy all music back to USB drive

This should make the drive read more reliably and improve read times. It made a world of difference to mine. My files load almost immediately in which it used to take 5 minutes or more to load and sometimes not at all (Unkown USB device, love that broken English!)

any idea on how to go through a similar process on a Mac?

I can't even find "Allocation Size" as a setting or description under Disk Utility in Mac.

Your problem seems to exactly mirror mine.

Thanks so much!

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