USB thumb drive problem

makes sense that a usb cd player would not work...but interesting store CDs also don't. so whatever the failure is, it is before the cd image and filesystem are differentiated and parsed.

 

coming to the same conclusions is a good thing. even if this manifests as a software failure, i think it may be because the software is housed in a failing piece of hardware that is not affected by a "firmware" update. think cold solder.
earlier you mentioned firmware vs software vs os. i am keeping that in the back of my mind...a good theory. those terms all hybridized and were trashed by marketing people decades ago. (i was and architectural microcoder - total dinosaur now). I have not kept up with how things tend to get organized now so i am trying to gather pieces of the puzzle to justify any conclusion i might come to. this is fun (though probably not for OP)

 

this has promise and worth trying. i do recall there was an issue with some sort of song info (i forget its name) being discontinued by toyota. OPs friend's truck may support that (maybe an older version of firmware?)
ugh...but it was working fine for OP without any updates and then it just stopped. did toyota do something over the air? yet another mystery. i admit it does feel content/softwareish but then it could be "X"ware in a failing piece of hardware.
lol. pro computer person in 80's as well.

 

I like that idea. upload JPEG pic to your head unit and see if that works.Having said that not sure if you can do that on that year truck. at some point they took that feature away, I think?

 

I just can't my wrap head around the whole 'bad music file' theory. The OP was playing music from a thumb drive, in fact multiple thumb drives, that had been working since forever. Same thumb drive, same music files. And it stopped working for some reason. That's not the same as it never worked and the thumb drive had corrupt or incompatible file types. When the files were cleaned/corrected it started working for the first time.
It's like saying you were playing a vinyl LP that you had played a 100 times on your turntable and one day it stopped playing. Same with other records that used to play. You put the records on someone else's turntable and they played, which is what the OP did by playing the thumb drives in a different HU. Would you suspect the records that still don't play on your turntable or the turntable itself?
I hope for the sake of the OP that one of these suggestions corrects the problem. It's good that people are involved and trying to help. And I'm definitely not saying that a theory that seemingly doesn't make sense will not be the solution. Abstract thinking is a good thing when everything else seems to fail.
But it's starting to sound like the OP has accepted that his HU is kaput and he's ready to move on.

 

another piece of info. relevance questionable but it is info.
I'm disappointed i did not get further with 64GB PNY stick. I am not trashing my 32GB stick for this.
OP claims 64GB was previously not a problem.

i did some tests. tags/song info on MP3s is displayed when recognized. FAT32.

My 32GB SanDisk stick with lots of folders of lots of MP3s, which i have not used in a long time, was recognized in audio app and works perfectly.

I can't get the audio app to recognize a 64GB PNY stick regardless of its content (empty or with mp3 on it) even if i reformat it to 32GB.
All my windows PCs are happy with the PNY stick (as well as other devices like DVRs) but long ago i had problems with it in older PCs.
i forgot to check my firmware version. i am 2018 audio plus SR5. (Silver Sky Metallic - hmmm )

i agree OP likely appropriately moving on and not enough tools for us to probe.
the real killer is things were working and then failed. power cycle fixed it for a while and then it failed hard.
betting donuts it is hardware related. taking the HU out (it's easy) and banging on it may not be ill advised at this point. cracked/cold solder possible.

 

Is there a way to do a factory reset?

 

https://youtu.be/ofb0n2HdMq4?si=y7qQ1R7u4R1lLWj1

1) Turn on ignition, but don't start the car.
2) Press and *hold* the APPS button on the radio while performing step 3 below.
3) Cycle the head lights 3 times (turn on then off the headlights 3 times)
- This activates a hidden service screen on the display, you can release the APPS button.
4) Press and hold the "INIT" button on the display until a dialog box appears with the text "Personalized data is initialized. OK? [YES] [NO]"
5) Select YES, and your radio returns to the factory settings.

 

Before you replace the head unit, do you have an old iPod lying around? There might be another way...

I have a 5g video iPod (2006) driving a non-JBL 2018 premium head unit via the USB port. I did replace the iPod's battery, and its hard drive with a two-SD card reader, so now I have a 120 GB library in the car, which is driven by the head unit and the steering wheel controls...

 

Actually almost the same setup I run (I have an old ipod and I swapped out the internal hdd for an sd-card). But his initial comments say that he was able to stream from his iphone, so I think he'd have the same results from an iPod.

 

OP stated in Post #1 that plugging his phone into the USB Port resulted in satisfactory results... So it appears that the head unit doesn't understand how to read the filesystem's music files, but can send / receive to an external device (his phone), so that's why I suggested the iPod, which is essentially "free" compared to swapping out a head unit and dealing with keeping all the steering wheel controls...

 

OP did you try this?

 

That’s something I did not think to ask. When the OP’s phone is plugged into the USB port and is playing music, is the music a streaming service or is he playing music files stored on his phone?

 

Instructions were shared in post #18 and he confirmed trying it in post #21

 

thanks, this post has legs,,,,,

 

Sorry I was out of town for a few days hunting with little to no cell coverage, so I'm just getting back to this.

I'm very confident at this point there is no issues with the USB drives, file names, or anything like that. I'm also pretty confident the actual USB port is fine since it took the update off that without any hesitation and will display the USB drives name quickly. To answer one of the questions, the music I play from my phone all resides on the phone, no streaming at all. I used my phone plugged into the port to listen to music the last 3 days with no problems, I did randomly try a USB drive a few times with no luck.

At this point I'm either going to move ahead and get a new truck a few years earlier than planned, swap out to an aftermarket head unit, or bite the bullet and pay for XM for 2 years just to get me by until I upgrade trucks. Unfortunately I don't think there will be a resolution to the problem with the exception of putting a bullet into the old deck if I swap it out.

Thanks again for all the help trying to fix this.

 

The plot thickens!
This is interesting to me because I had a similar situation with a laptop.
The OP states the HU will play files stored on his iPhone through the USB port. With the difference between an iPhone and a thumb drive being the iPhone is a powered device. Same thing with a CD player not working. Was the CD player battery operated or externally powered? I had a laptop (Dell) that would not recognize a non powered memory device like a thumb drive or external HD when plugged into a USB port. But I had an older external Seagate HD (I actually still have it) that required power to operate. When powered up and plugged into the same laptop it was instantly recognized. The laptop was short on RAM so I sold it to a guy I knew who fixed laptops to sell to college kids short on $$. I'm pretty sure he fixed the laptop by replacing an internal fuse that powered the USB ports.
It makes perfect sense. The thumb drive is not recognized in the HU USB port simply because the port is not providing the required voltage. Could it be a blown fuse or intermittent power problem. Is the USB port set up correctly i.e. data port vs charging port. Or it could be a thermistor in the HU. A resistor that heats up until it shorts then has to cool down enough to reset. I know the OP has got to be getting tired of this but it really does open up a whole new can of worms. Unfortunately is still points back to a HU hardware issue.

 

Hmm, the CD player is powered by the USB port. It does light up and load the disk as well as eject the disk, the name that comes up on the screen I believe is just "PLAYER" when plugged in. That all works and I can hear the disk spinning, but again it stays grayed out just like the thumb drives and you can't select it.

 

What about a used head unit exactly like yours,. They have to be out there from people that have switched to after market.

this may have been asked and answered, so many post here. Did you try your USB in another Tacoma with the same head unit?

 

the failing usb sticks were working fine when they suddenly stopped working in his HU. Perhaps intermittently at first, then solid failure. they still work fine in his friend's tacoma HU. That they work in some other head unit says the problem is not the USB stick.