New to the forum. Appreciate the resource. Does anyone know how MP3s on a USB drive are organized on the Jag system? I have a 2016 F-Type R and I don't understand how the songs are sorted. They don't appear to be sorted alphabetically by file name, or any of the IDT-3 tags that I can figure out. It's not a huge issue because I generally use shuffle but when trying to use the arrows to find a song, it's hopeless.

 

It's by date they are created on the USB device. Here's a thread on the same topic that may help you:

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/f...2/#post1302106

 

I have over 1000 mP3's copied to a Jaguar branded memory stick that came with the car. Works flawlessly.

Songs are in subfolders named after the Album, Albums are in folders named after the Artist. This file structure is ordered alphabetically by Artist when searching for a certain Artist/Album/Song on the Nav screen.

Now some songs that I copied to the stick later appear at the end of the list, so those may indeed be ordered by date. I suspect that since the initial 1000+ songs were all copied to the stick at once, they all contain the same date, thus they are ordered alphabetically by the name of the Artist folder. This might suggest that the sort sequence is date, then alpha.

When I have time, I'll move them all the stick, then recopy the entire lot back to the stick and see if that fixes the few stragglers at the back of the alpha listing.

 

If you selected them in alphabetic order for your copy, then that's how they copied over (i.e. if your view in Windows was already sorted and you copied them that way, then that's how they should land).

But as you've seen, anything after that initial copy goes to the end. Take a look at the thread I linked. At the very end of that thread, FTypeR AR posted an update with the program he used to edit the dates of the files. It might help you out as well.

 

Hi all,

I just picked up a 2017 F Type this afternoon and my Meridian system refused to recognize 2 different USB jump drives I inserted into the USB port. I immediately searched for any known issues and saw this thread.

When I read some people were tweaking their file's bitrate to 250 kbps and under and having success, that didn't make sense to me because that small of a difference in transmittal size shouldn't make a difference in a network but I thought I'd experiment and included music files with 128, 192, 256, and 320 kbps using both MP3 and M4A file formats but still had no luck.

So, I thought the issue might be an incompatibility between Meridian's operating system and the file system of my USB jump drive. You can format any USB jump drive using 3 different file systems:

1) NTFS
2) exFAT
3) FAT32

NTFS is the newer file system and most modern operating systems today default to this. FAT32 is a much older file system but I figured this might have an effect on the Meridian operating system so I reformatted one of my USB jump drives to the older FAT32 file system.

Success. Meridian instantly recognized my USB and everything played. I only included music files with 320 kbps as well. Just to see if the exFAT file system was compatible, I reformatted another jump drive and tried it. No luck.

So, it appears your USB jump drive must use the FAT32 file system, at least for 2017 F Types. Try this and see if it works for you. I rarely post on boards but thought other people might find this info useful. Good luck all!

 

Most car systems that read MP3 I have had expect FAT32 and a fixed bitrate (sometimes max of 192).

 

I wonder if 2017 and newer F Types now accept higher than 192 kbps files because all my music files are 320 kbps and I have zero issues so far.

 

I'm here from a 2019, and the answer seems to be no. It's highly likely my USB is too large, but I'm having a devil of a time figuring out specs and what the deal is.... years later.

 

2019 car here.

My 64GB USB 3.0 would not work in the Jaguar. Works fine in my Jeep. I copied the files to a 32GB USB 2.0 drive and it works fine in the Jaguar. Both were FAT32 file systems and all files were MP3 at 192K.

For reference The owner manual says not to go over 128GB USB drives and recommends 192K sampling . Doesn't mention USB 2.0 vs 3.0.

The album covers also display on the Jaguar unit, which is nice. My Jeep system will not do that.

 

I've seen posts from owners who claim USB 3.0 works but 3.1 doesn't. I use variable encoding on my USB 2.0 32GB stick and it works fine. The only anoying thing I've found is when I'm displaying the music info the track timers are shown in a pinkish colo(u)r (magenta?) and is difficult to read against the background, though some backgrounds are less unreadable than others. Why not black text?

 

Old thread but similar issue:

2021 F Type

Can I simply copy out my iTunes folder to a USB 3.1 memory stick?

Just ordered this:


Maybe it's too advanced for the 2021 system?

Hey, I'm FRED FLINTSTONE when it comes to tech

BEST !

RWS

 

You need to have the music in mp3 format, and some older model years, aren't happy if the bit rate is too high (above 320k or 512k, as I recall). But try it as you have it before going to the trouble to downgrade anything,

If the music is in your computer iTunes folder, in Apple format, you'll need to convert to mp3:
In the iTunes app on your PC, choose Edit > Preferences, then click General.
Click Import Settings.
In the Import Using pop-up menu, choose the format you want to convert songs to, then click OK to save the settings.
Select one or more songs in your library, then choose File > Convert > Create [format] Version.

I have a few thousand tracks on USB and generally tell the system to play them randomly. Beats streaming because I like everything that's played.
I also created some folders - like Pink Floyd - and put a duplicate copy of their songs inside. That way, if I'm in a Floydian state of mind, I can open that specific folder and play tracks by that artist. Or, an audio book.

 

Thank you !

 

Dunno about the need for MP3 format, I use a 64 GB mini USB 3.0 to play a mixture of MP3 and Flac with bit rates all over the shop and zero problems with any of them.
Some are even mixed between MP3 and Flac in the same folder and the Flac bit rates go well over 512k.
But the USB must be formatted as Fat 32 and not NTS.

 

This is important. Natively, Windows can't format anything over 32GB as FAT32, which is the only format the car will read. So if you have a 128GB stick it will, by default, be formatted as either NTFS or exFAT and the car won't be able to read it. There are plenty of safe, free, 3rd party formatting tools that will allow you to format partitions larger than 32GB as FAT32 (up to 2TB, which is the true FAT32 limit). I use "FAT32 Format" and it works flawlessly.

Also, these are semi-antiquated entertainment systems so they can be slow(er) when handling many files. I have over 21,000 MP3s on a 256GB stick (almost all at 320kbps) and while it plays them all fine, each time from a cold start it needs to build an index file (in case you want to use the shuffle function) and that can take up to 45 seconds or so. During this time, the entertainment system may be unresponsive to controlling the media (volume works but everything else does not) and may incorrectly report the number of files until this task is complete. I used to have about 16,000 songs on a 128GB stick and I would see the same degradation of initial performance until the index file is written. I would say anything under 5,000 or so songs shouldn't be an issue.

 

Thanks for the additional info.
And yes I meant NTFS not NTS and I now remember the USB I use for music is 32 GB not 64 and I used Windows to format it as FAT32.
I ain't no audiophile or computer whiz, I simply muddled through as best I could to get USB music working on the car!

 

According to my MY18 handbook the supported formats are MP3, WMA, WAV, AIFF, M4A, FLAC, AAC, AMR, LPCM and ALAC. No maximum bit rate rate is given, but a minumum of 192 kb/s is recommended for decent quality. "A higher bit rate is strongly recommended."

 

Thunderjet Racing, I have a 2021 F Type and use 64 GB USB sticks. All but maybe a half dozen songs were transferred from my CD collection, the others are MP3's that I bought from Amazon Music. I can tell you that a 64 GB USB holds a hell of a lot of songs so having one in the USB drive slot and another in the console gives me plenty of music. I've never been a big iTunes guy and since I have several hundred CD's I have a good selection to transfer to USB for automobile use.

The way I organize them is I make a folder by each artist and the number the songs starting with 01 and the song title. If I want to hear some Allman Brothers for example I just open up the USB source, go to that folder and either play all or start with song # 01. Of course the shuffle function also works.

I record them in FAT32 using a free program called Exact Audio Copy in FLAC WAV format. I believe that is the highest possible resolution. I would rather have a few USB sticks with as close to the CD source as possible than have more songs on one drive. I figure the Meridian Surround System needs all the help it can get. The program also captures the Metadata where available so I often get the album cover art on the infortainment screen when the folder is playing.

I also own a 2019 Mazda CX 5 but its audio system won't play a USB that is more than 16 GB. So I just keep one set of USB music drives in that car and another in my Jag.

 

THANK YOU !

OK, Got that far, now I have all those MP3 files in the iTunes library and other than to drag them one at a time, can't figure out how to MOVE them OUT of there, and into the flash drive.

I did copy a few albums, and found multiple copies- files of the same tune.

Sorted them by TYPE, deleted all but the MP3 version and still have mostly 3 copies of each file.

OOPS !


BEST !

RWS AKA FRED FLINTSTONE