USB Issues

[ToyotaFan63]

Had my 21 plate Corolla 2.0 GR Sport for nearly a month now. Loving every minute. However, I've always been used to playing cd's in my previous cars and obviously this isn't an option on the latest model. I bought a 128GB "Integral" USB stick, solely for the purpose of playing music. I downloaded tracks onto it from my computer by copying cd's from Windows Media Player 10 and the stick shows that the music is on there. 

In the car there is the USB port under the dash as usual plus someone has left an adaptor with the vehicle which connects to the 12 volt socket in the centre box between the seats. This has a USB Port plus a USB "C" port. 

Despite using either dash port or the box port, the screen shows that both the USB and USB 2 symbols are greyed out. No matter what I do, the car does not recognise the USB stick at all. My neighbour has a 1.8 GR Sport and has had no trouble with their USB stick.

My questions are therefore...

Are the tracks on the stick in an incorrect format despite being MP3's? Should I borrow my neighbour's USB stick and try that? Do you think there is a fault with the car itself? Could there be a problem with the USB stick itself?

I've looked on the forum for assistance, but there doesn't seem to be anything specific to what I am asking. I don't want to use the USB port for charging yet as I haven't tried the phone (still charging it in the house - yes, I know - old school!).

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

 

 

[Sooty]

The stick could be too big for the system.

Try an 8GB stick that is formatted as FAT32 or EXFAT.

Car systems can NOT read NTFS formatted sticks as far as I know.

 

[AndrueC]

I have a 32GB FAT32 formatted stick somewhere in the car. The only reason I don't use it is that the car doesn't support shuffle by album and whilst you can work your way through the stick album by album in alphanumeric order (almost as good as a proper shuffle) if the power is interrupted  (eg; by a service) it restarts from the first album. This makes it pointless having more than a certain number of albums on the device.

So these days I use bluetooth to stream music from my phone using the excellent Rocket Player which does support shuffle by album. The only glitch here (there's always something) is that occasionally the infotainment unit decides it can't read track information so no artwork and no track or artist information until the next time you switch the car on.

[ToyotaFan63]

3 hours ago, Sooty said:

The stick could be too big for the system.

Try an 8GB stick that is formatted as FAT32 or EXFAT.

Car systems can NOT read NTFS formatted sticks as far as I know.

 

I've checked the properties of the USB stick on the computer. It is formatted as EXFAT.

[the brace]

The car will recognise only sticks up to 32Gb.

[oldcodger]

1 hour ago, the brace said:

The car will recognise only sticks up to 32Gb.

If thats the problem, before buying a smaller Stick, try partitioning  your 128Gb one down to under  32Gb and then copy a couple of tracks over to see if it works.

 

 

[Red_Corolla]

A 128Gb Sandisk stick works fine for me when formatted in FAT32. I'm not saying exFAT won't work because I haven't tried it, but it's not mentioned in my PDF owners manual (page 434).

It's a common misconception that FAT32 file systems are limited to 32Gb. That's actually a limitation of the Windows formatting tool, which they've never bothered to lift since the days when anything larger than that was too much for the human mind to conceive. A linux or Mac based machine will be able to format all of your 128Gb stick in FAT32 just fine.

[ToyotaFan63]

Thank you for all the advice. This gives me a few ideas to try...

[ToyotaFan63]

Thank you for all the advice. This gives me a few ideas to try...

[ToyotaFan63]

UPDATE!! Thanks to you guys I managed to reduce the size of the stick by partitioning it, which let me convert the format to FAT32 and voila! music in the car. Cheers!

[Red_Corolla]

2 hours ago, ToyotaFan63 said:

UPDATE!! Thanks to you guys I managed to reduce the size of the stick by partitioning it, which let me convert the format to FAT32 and voila! Music in the car. Cheers!

Good to hear you made progress. You didn't really need to shrink the partition, it just has to be formatted with FAT32. If you're stuck with Windows, there are ways around the limitations of the built in formatting tool. For example, there's a very good tool called Rufus that you can download for free and it will do the job for you. 👍

[ToyotaFan63]

On 10/23/2022 at 2:39 PM, Red_Corolla said:

Good to hear you made progress. You didn't really need to shrink the partition, it just has to be formatted with FAT32. If you're stuck with Windows, there are ways around the limitations of the built in formatting tool. For example, there's a very good tool called Rufus that you can download for free and it will do the job for you. 👍

I'll bare that in mind for next time!. Thank you.