Observations on the Entune system with a flash drive

Regarding Entune is there away to access a USB port off of the rear of this unit so I can put a plug in my glove box ? I'm surprised it doesn't have one there !

 

Do you need it for power only, or also for music?

 

Bumping this old'ish thread to comment on what I found on my 2017 Taco with the JBL Entune system. Basically, in a nutshell, the 9,999 file max is bogus, IMO.

I am using a 32GB USB stick (which is actually a tiny 32GB nubbin' that's hard to remove!), and many of the songs are not visible nor are they able to be searched and found. It's as if they are completely void of the system despite existing on the drive. Total amount of data: 23.7GB with 4,251 files and 2,539 folders...of of which should be within spec of the Entune system.

Out of 4,251 songs, it's hard to tell which ones were missing while driving/playing music, and doing an in-depth analysis would be time-consuming. Overall, I noticed that the random-song mode would play the same artists over and over more than others, so that first raised my suspicions. Secondly, when I asked the voice command to play "artist The Chemical Brothers," it found a song by Snoop Dog, and it started to play. Huh!? Is this Siri??! Repeating the request again and speaking clearly, it always went to the same song by Snoop Dog! Then I asked for "The Crystal Method," and it "low-chimed," indicating not found. Searching for each aforementioned artist revealed no results in the artist or songs menu list! All ID3 tags are proper and exist for both artists.

So I pulled out the USB, reformatted it clean, and dropped in one folder (and one album) of the same songs I wished to play before by The Crystal Method. In other words, 11 files and 1 folder. After the couple-second delay, the USB drive became available, and all songs could be played just fine! Furthermore, all menus and lists contained the song titles and the artist's name itself.

It's got to be a bug of some sort.

 

My observation is ... no ogg. WTF?

But, my phone can play them just fine so I keep the music on the device and use BT. No wires needed.

 

A couple of days ago, I submitted a ticket to Toyota in regards to this error. They replied back to request that I followed up via phone. So I just got off the phone with Toyota Customer Service. The rep that helped me reached out to a techie on the phone who said to "downsize to an 8GB USB drive" and test again. After some clarifying questions, it was stated and confirmed that 8GB was the max size for the USB drive. We mutually agreed that this limitation was not outlined in the manual.

OP, could you update your post with this new information?

 

That “techie” doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I have a 64GB Sandisk Ultra Fit that is almost full. No issues whatsoever. It did take some time and research to find a tool that would format a drive that size as FAT32 in Windows, but once I was able to do that all is well. Also, my files are organized in folders (artist) and subfolders (albums), so I’m not sure if that helps as well.

 

my ultra fit scan disc 128 works just fine, the organization is what SUCKS

 

Hmm. Well, it seems like disks larger than 8GB should work then.

Right-click > Format > FAT32 (default)? Is that not good enough?

That's how mine is organized as well. Well, I guess I will reformat, reload, and try again. Puzzling...

 

I have a 64GB that lives in the USB port. I dragged and dropped my complete iTunes library and everything works perfectly. I also keep my picture files for the startup and display off screens I there in case I ever feel like changing them again.

 

I thought it worked perfectly as well...at first. Then by happenstance, I noticed that certain artists/albums/songs could not be found (as mentioned in my original post). You have no issues like this?

Well, as for me, I have reformatted the drive as FAT32 (as I did before), but this time I chose the "non-quick" low-level format method. After about an hour, the drive was done. I will reload my entire library on there again and see what happens.

 

Download the formatting tool from here...
http://www.verbatim.com/index/search.php?words=fat32+tool

Windows will only let you format 32GB or smaller with FAT32. If it’s larger than 32GB Windows will format with EX-FAT or NTFS. Entune cannot read either of those.

Low level formats are only needed if you suspect a drive is bad, which might be the case, otherwise quick formats are all that is necessary. If you have a different flash drive, try the same process you currently are using and see if it duplicates the problem you’re having. I have had flash drives that were just bad. In a previous vehicle I had a flash drive that would cause my head unit to reboot and then it wiped out my files. A different drive with the same files, loaded using the process had no issues whatsoever.

 

I use the SanDisk Ultra Fit 128GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive in my 2016 with JBL without any issue. Files are organized in folders by artist->album->songs. All files have complete ID3 tags. Music is searchable by genre, artist, or album on the radio interface.

 

Not sure what's going on with my Entune system, but I definitely am NOT able to retrieve, view, and play all MP3 files on a properly formatted (even "low-leveled" it) 32GB drive. Tried locating a song by artist, album, and then by song title with no success. The mp3 file is indeed saved in the drive.

 

Was wondering if I could do this. Been using a 128G thumb drive on my motorcycle for a couple of years. Organized using folders. Artists, albums, etc. I’ll give a try this afternoon.

 

Going to try this also. Great way to carry most of my music library.

 

I have around 110gb of music. I opted to split my library between 2 64gb drives due to the limitation of 9,999 files per drive. (i have around 12,000 total song files). No problems so far.

You guys running 128gb drives who are having issues with some files not showing up.... Could thatbe why? Exceeding the max file count??

 

There is nothing audiophile-grade about Taco equipment. Spotify's 30+ million songs and BT = solution.

 

No problem using my 128 stick. Same one I use on my motorcycle and haven't noticed any issues. I'll check to see how may files I have on it, but it's a shit ton.

 

It really isn't a solution.

 

What about the album art image files? Where are those gen'd from and what are the parameters for them? We got this sorted yet?