MP3 files on USB thumb drive - some are missing

[83XLT]

I've had this issue before with removable media. Sometimes it's that the filename is too long or has characters that the device doesn't understand. Not sure what the naming parameters are for the bronco.

Also...is it possible that some of your 757 are duplicates?

Sponsored

 

[Scott R Nelson]

I've had this issue before with removable media. Sometimes it's that the filename is too long or has characters that the device doesn't understand. Not sure what the naming parameters are for the bronco.

Also...is it possible that some of your 757 are duplicates?

Zero duplicates. I don't even know how you could get two copies of the same file unless they are in subfolders. There are no subfolders on this USB thumb drive. Of the 20 identified files that don't show up, the names are totally normal. Nothing stands out to me compared to the files that show up.

 

[Scott R Nelson]

Having given up on figuring out why so many files don't show up, I decided to just listen to what's there for a while. When I plugged it in this morning, it showed 1075 files. It seems to have found roughly half of the lost files.

I wish I could talk to whoever is in charge of quality control at Ford in this area, if there even is such a person. They don't seem to be very good at finding the cases where their software is broken.

 

[Mushin]

After extended use USB flash drives can get data corruption and the file allocation table may be messed up or the actual files.

Beyond that it could also be file names. File types, mp3 bit rate for individual files.

All in all there far too many possible causes to make if easy to nail down. Especially if you are not a PC Tech or IT person.

I am an IT expert and in this case I would simple by a new flash drive, load all the songs I want and then be done with it. With the cost of flash drives etc now being what they are this is the most efficient fix and what I would do for any customers etc.

Also... if it is data corruption, the drive etc, it will get worse so... also not worth trying to figure and fix since the problem will most likely co e back.

Thanks for whichever moderator moves this to the correct forum - too many for me to easily figure it out.

To begin with, I have a Base Bronco with whatever stereo comes with that configuration. I don't use a cell phone for music, preferring to put it on a USB thumb drive instead. The one I've been using for almost a year showed 747 files on the screen in the Bronco, but actually has 757 files on there when viewed on my computer (I just figured this out). Don't know which ten are not recognized. The reason I mention this is that I went to a lot of bother to put over 1200 MP3 files onto a new USB thumb drive, but when I plug it in it shows only 946 files on there. Where are the 250+ missing files?

Is there some simple way to figure out which files it doesn't recognize? Normally I have it randomize things so that the songs aren't played in alphabetical order. I suppose I could make a list of what's on there, alphabetically, then go through them in alphabetical order and check off the ones it misses, then go back to a computer to figure out what the stereo doesn't like about those files. I'll eventually do that if I can't find the answer any other way.

Is this a known issue that has been discussed before? If so, would some kind soul include pointers to the thread?

 

[Mushin]

This probably has nothing to do with Ford. I would not try to pin this on them in any way.

Having given up on figuring out why so many files don't show up, I decided to just listen to what's there for a while. When I plugged it in this morning, it showed 1075 files. It seems to have found roughly half of the lost files.

I wish I could talk to whoever is in charge of quality control at Ford in this area, if there even is such a person. They don't seem to be very good at finding the cases where their software is broken.

 

[Scott R Nelson]

The thumb drive in question is a new one from a package of ten that I've been using for years. This particular one hadn't been used yet. I don't see any way to blame data corruption for it.

And I already mentioned that I couldn't see anything at all different about the file names, bit rate, or ID tags of the files. I've never called myself an IT expert, but I did spend 40 years in the computer industry.

 

[Mushin]

Not to get into a credentials pissing match but if you have 40 years in the computer industry then you would realize that it is more likely than not a issue with files the flash drive etc.

File corruption, bad files etc can occur for any number of reasons. The simple act of removing a flash drive from a system can lead to corruption. Again, making the leap to blaming Ford just is not fair or logical at this point.

Again there are just too many possible causes or reasons that files are not appearing. However since I also saw that some files came back bases on what your said in another post this is classic of corruption, Bata files, or a bad drive.

Every time a dive is used or inserted into a device changes to the drive can occur. For example window may try to repair something, or a section of the drive might get recovered or even locked out. Plug that same drive into another device and it may work fine or even other parts may not work.

Again too many variables. Look at how much time we have put into replies here. .. in the same amount of time you could have dropped files onto another flash drive and been done.

If the problem still occurs it is probably the source file.

When I had this same problem. On my camaro, Durango, daughter kia sol.. we just loaded files on a new flash drive and moved on. If one of the fonts didn't work we downloaded it new or ripped it new and moved on.

What quality control would you expect Ford do? You can't guarantee support of used created media no matter what and they sure as heck can't waste labor on such a benign problem.

 

[Headsong]

Sorry for your trouble, Scott, but you opened the door for me. I got discouraged when it couldn't read my iPod and assumed that it wouldn't read anything else either. But I did just copy some files over to a thumb drive and son of a gun they're playing on my Bronco lol. So now I can just decide which ones I want to have with me and do some file transfers. Thanks for the tip that you didn't intend LOL.

 

[bravely]

Thanks for whichever moderator moves this to the correct forum - too many for me to easily figure it out.

To begin with, I have a Base Bronco with whatever stereo comes with that configuration. I don't use a cell phone for music, preferring to put it on a USB thumb drive instead. The one I've been using for almost a year showed 747 files on the screen in the Bronco, but actually has 757 files on there when viewed on my computer (I just figured this out). Don't know which ten are not recognized. The reason I mention this is that I went to a lot of bother to put over 1200 MP3 files onto a new USB thumb drive, but when I plug it in it shows only 946 files on there. Where are the 250+ missing files?

Is there some simple way to figure out which files it doesn't recognize? Normally I have it randomize things so that the songs aren't played in alphabetical order. I suppose I could make a list of what's on there, alphabetically, then go through them in alphabetical order and check off the ones it misses, then go back to a computer to figure out what the stereo doesn't like about those files. I'll eventually do that if I can't find the answer any other way.

Is this a known issue that has been discussed before? If so, would some kind soul include pointers to the thread?

Look at the extensions. Could be not all songs are mp3 format.

 

[Scott R Nelson]

Look at the extensions. Could be not all songs are mp3 format.

Absolutely every single one of the songs is a .mp3 file. I ripped most of them myself directly from CDs.

 

[ANTNY]

I had a problem like this with mp3s downloaded from Amazon that would not show up on my Scion's oem head unit, but would play fine on the Kenwood in my Frontier. Same thumb drive used in both players. I (losing a bit of quality) simply re-encoded those files and then all was good.

 

[Squatch]

Absolutely every single one of the songs is a .mp3 file. I ripped most of them myself directly from CDs.

Try reformatting the USB drive. Maybe it's not in exFAT?

To people saying this isn't Ford's fault:

• Maybe not, but if OP sees all the files on a computer from the same USB drive, then it sure seems like the fault or failure is on the side of the hard/firm/software Ford put into their Bronco
• Vehicle manufacturers love proprietary crap. It makes them feel special and they can keep everyone from modifying their vehicles.
• So, rather than use existing solutions to play an old as ffff-ord file format, they had to reinvent the wheel(probably still a bunch of "borrowed" code).

I've had Sync systems in Fords since 2010 and it has consistently had problems with filenames, mixed bitrate files, and folders. I think the most consistent fix was reformatting the USB drive--if all other things were fine. The older ones really hated long file names and special characters. You said you didn't have any duplicates but it could be that it is indexing the files by something other than or fractional bits of the filename and that is causing problems. Last resort "fun" could be to wipe it; format(exFAT); normalize bit rates and v1 tags; and rename the files in only letters, numbers, and underscores.

Edit: reformat with a DOS friendly drive name just to be extra ridiculous

 

[AZ_Liberty]

Bronco will also find and play .wav files, they don't even have to be .mp3. I threw around 80 albums of songs onto a thumb drive for my last trip. Drive had my 24 bit WAV masters on it from my last album and it found those as well.

This is a puzzle.

 

[da_jokker]

Didn't read all the post, but some other possible suggestions...

Verify the Tag info in the missing songs. There are multiple versions and I found that some devices read one version and other devices rated different version. There are free Tag editors (as well as in windows you can right click and adjust some right in the properties page)..... Compare the tag information from one of the missing songs to that of one that shows up and see what the difference is are.

Another would be try using something like audacity to re-encode the file. It will sort out and licensing issues or audio stream corruption.

 

[Scott R Nelson]

Didn't read all the post, but some other possible suggestions...

One of the important points that you apparently didn't read about is that the first time I stuck the USB drive in my Bronco it came up with one number of songs, then I took it out, checked a bunch of stuff, put it back in and it came up with a different number of songs. More than before. If I haven't changed a single thing on the USB drive and it gets a different answer, clearly it's the programming in the stereo that has something wrong with it.

I'm about 2/3 of the way through all of the songs, at which point I'll start fiddling with it again. For now, I'm not concerned about the songs that it seems to have forgotten about.

Sponsored