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      12-16-2021, 04:20 PM   #1
SoCalM340i
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USB Thumb Drive for Music

Just wanted to share my thoughts on this. I had an old 6th generation iPod that worked perfectly in previous cars (C43 AMG, BMW 535xi) that is unable to be recognized in the 2022 BMW M340i, with iDrive 7.

I'm an Android guy, was contemplating getting a new iPod for $200 strictly to use it as my music storage device for the car, but decided to try and see if the USB thumb drive method of music storage and delivery would work.

Here to report that it does. All I did was copy all the Music files from the iTunes folder on my Windows Laptop, paste them into the USB thumb drive, then plug the thumb drive into the car. The music is all there, one can select by Artist, Album, etc. right from the touchscreen or steering wheel in the car.
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      12-16-2021, 10:46 PM   #2
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Same here. I have a minimalistic sized one that stays in the USB-A port.
In addition to the filtering you mention, someone here help me with my initial problem to get it to shuffle across all files even when put in sub-folders. The trick was to open by Titles, start playing from the list that is shown and activate the Random function.
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      12-18-2021, 08:29 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by G22b58 View Post
Same here. I have a minimalistic sized one that stays in the USB-A port.
In addition to the filtering you mention, someone here help me with my initial problem to get it to shuffle across all files even when put in sub-folders. The trick was to open by Titles, start playing from the list that is shown and activate the Random function.
Nice tip. I also noticed the USB drive works best when plugged into the port in the front cupholders as opposed to the port inside the center console. I also set a preset for it in the row of numbered buttons, say #5. It provides a nice shortcut versus searching for it on the menu.
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      12-21-2021, 11:37 AM   #4
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Another tip, song selection on the USB drive can be had via voice recognition. For example, "Hey BMW, play Paradise City" and the car will pull up the song on the USB drive. This thing works like a charm!
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      12-22-2021, 05:35 AM   #5
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This may be helpful but I've had this - the 512GB variant - in my car since for over a year now. It's tiny, has loads of space for its size and barely noticeable in the USB slot.

https://www.westerndigital.com/en-ie...CZ430-512G-G46

I also have one of these for charging - again it's compact and very handy.

https://www.hubauer-shop.de/en/dual-...412458285.html

There's a newer version available with USB A & C - it looks a little bulkier but the easy access USB C might be handy.
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      12-22-2021, 11:19 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by VictorRomeo View Post
This may be helpful but I've had this - the 512GB variant - in my car since for over a year now. It's tiny, has loads of space for its size and barely noticeable in the USB slot.

https://www.westerndigital.com/en-ie...CZ430-512G-G46

I also have one of these for charging - again it's compact and very handy.

https://www.hubauer-shop.de/en/dual-...412458285.html

There's a newer version available with USB A & C - it looks a little bulkier but the easy access USB C might be handy.
This is very helpful, thanks Vic. I didn't know WD/SanDisk made them this small. My current one is the standard size USB thumb drive, about 2 inches in length and the center console won't close because the USB drive is a little too long and prevents its closure. This will solve that problem, appreciate the tip!
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      02-07-2022, 04:08 PM   #7
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This SSD also works well in the USB-C port in the center console:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...0?ie=UTF8&th=1

I see all of the album art except a few (I have close to 1000 albums in flac format on that drive.) I initially assumed the corresponding jpg album art files for those albums were corrupt, but after I replaced them on the drive they're still not being shown , even after I delete and re-copy the entire album folder. I've even gone as far as replacing the original jpg files with different ones - still no success. iDrive evidently maintains some memory of what files were on a drive initially. Does anyone know of a way around this?
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      02-07-2022, 08:49 PM   #8
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Nice, 512 GB, now that's a lot of music. I ended up getting the 64GB PNY mini USB drive and it works like a dream.

I ended up copying all the music files from the iTunes folder on my laptop and pasting them into this PNY drive. I plugged it in to the car and it functions just like an iPod would, Artist, Album, it's all there.

However there are some artists/album's artwork that didn't make the transfer and I don't know why. Even though in iTunes each song has the correct album cover art displayed in iTunes, in some cases, this artwork will not show up on the screen of the BMW while playing. The good news is any recent music that I've purchased or downloaded from Amazon or iTunes and copied it into the USB drive will have the artwork show up as expected. Not sure how to correct the problem with the other ones.
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Last edited by SoCalM340i; 02-07-2022 at 10:23 PM..
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      02-16-2022, 08:34 PM   #9
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Are you guys getting your iTunes playlists to work with a USB drive? I’m trying to find a reliable solution.

Found out my old iPod doesn’t work in the car, and even my old iPhone 6 that I’m trying to use as a permanent music device does some goofy stuff. I guess it’s been working fairly well, but I find that sometimes my music is paused when I get into the car. I’d think an iPhone 6 would work perfectly, but maybe I’m doing something wrong?

Either way, a USB drive seems like a better solution assuming the playlist thing works.
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      02-16-2022, 10:13 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BMWM.D. View Post
Are you guys getting your iTunes playlists to work with a USB drive? I’m trying to find a reliable solution.

Found out my old iPod doesn’t work in the car, and even my old iPhone 6 that I’m trying to use as a permanent music device does some goofy stuff. I guess it’s been working fairly well, but I find that sometimes my music is paused when I get into the car. I’d think an iPhone 6 would work perfectly, but maybe I’m doing something wrong?

Either way, a USB drive seems like a better solution assuming the playlist thing works.
I've encountered the same experience with my old iPod as you have. Apparently, current BMW software (like iDrive 7) doesn't support "old" Apple products like the old iPod and maybe some older iPhones. Glad to hear your iPhone 6 still works with the car.

The USB is a great way to connect the songs you have on iTunes directly with the car with great sound quality and ease of use. Unfortunately, it doesn't import the playlists. The only options I've seen are the following:

Search
Artists
Albums
Titles (Song)

It'd be great if 'Playlists' were a fifth choice, but it's not there.
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      02-17-2022, 03:58 AM   #11
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Not iTunes created (Android user) but the playlist I created my self and put on the root of the USB memory is available under the search option.
(I just created a text file x.m3u which lists the mp3-files with relative addressing to the files which are put in album-folders.)
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      02-17-2022, 09:33 AM   #12
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Thanks guys. I’m going to play around with a USB drive. Using my old phone as an iPod seems to be working pretty well, but I guess I’ll see if it remains glitchy.
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      02-17-2022, 12:17 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by G22b58 View Post
Not iTunes created (Android user) but the playlist I created my self and put on the root of the USB memory is available under the search option.
(I just created a text file x.m3u which lists the mp3-files with relative addressing to the files which are put in album-folders.)
+1. I can verify that this works. In my case all files are flac but that’s of no consequence. My music files on the USB drive are organized as ArtistA/Album1/Song1.flac and so on. The corresponding entry in the playlist file is exactly that, i.e.,

#EXTINF:123,ArtistA - Song1
ArtistA/Album1/Song1.flac
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      02-27-2022, 09:20 AM   #14
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Thumbs up Playlists!

Quote:
Originally Posted by SoCalM340i View Post
The USB is a great way to connect the songs you have on iTunes directly with the car with great sound quality and ease of use. Unfortunately, it doesn't import the playlists. The only options I've seen are the following:

Search
Artists
Albums
Titles (Song)

It'd be great if 'Playlists' were a fifth choice, but it's not there.
I use a 64GB USB MicroSD adapter to keep my entire iTunes library available in the car. If you want your iTunes playlists available as well, you can export them from iTunes into m3u format and then edit them with a text editor.

You'll need to adjust the path/folder names to match the folder hierarchy in use on your USB.
I use a separate Playlists folder at the root of the drive for playlists in and keep all the actual music files in a Music folder (also at the root).

Below Music folder I use \Artist\Album\Song_filename similar to how iTunes organizes...
I also use MP3Tag software (highly recommended) to help keep everything consistent and organized.

If everything is setup correctly, Playlists work great and are available/searchable via ID.
There is a bit of manual work involved if you frequently update them but the end result is worthwhile!

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      02-27-2022, 11:05 AM   #15
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So has anybody found the fix for the seemingly random missing album art problem?

I was able to access my playlists, so that’s all good, but a bunch of my music is missing it’s album art. I downloaded a program that allowed me to resize the art (which I thought may be the problem), and it’s there; it just doesn’t show up in the car.

I did find there’s a “memory” in the head unit, so maybe that’s the issue. I found this to be the case when trying to resolve an issue with repeat artist listings. Slight spelling differences were causing them to show as different artists, but even after fixing that they’d still be the same in the car. I had to delete the offending tracks, then stick the USB back into the car without them. Once it saw they were gone, they were cataloged properly once reloaded to the USB. A little weird.

Anyway, if anyone has any real fix for the album art, let me know.
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      02-27-2022, 02:30 PM   #16
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Try this..

Quote:
Originally Posted by BMWM.D. View Post
So has anybody found the fix for the seemingly random missing album art problem?

I did find there’s a “memory” in the head unit, so maybe that’s the issue.

Anyway, if anyone has any real fix for the album art, let me know.
Yes, the head unit indexes each USB device that's plugged into it.
Have you tried cycling through 6-7 different USB stick/devices before plugging back in your original with all the updated art?

I've found that seems to help with any adjusted artist names/sorting, and may help with the missing Album Art as well.
I think it's related to how ID indexes and caches.

I typically resize all of my album art to 500x500 but read that ID supports larger (600x600).
You might also confirm the album art is attached to the music file as "front cover" for any affected tracks.
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      02-27-2022, 05:50 PM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BMWM.D. View Post
So has anybody found the fix for the seemingly random missing album art problem?

I did find there’s a “memory” in the head unit, so maybe that’s the issue. I found this to be the case when trying to resolve an issue with repeat artist listings. Slight spelling differences were causing them to show as different artists, but even after fixing that they’d still be the same in the car.
Yes, the head unit definitely has memory tied to the USB stick ID - which is unique for each stick. I don’t know exactly how albums are identified in iDrive, but I suspect that the number of songs and the track length of each of those songs are used. Once an album is associated with ‘no album art’ (my expression) it can be very difficult to get iDrive to associate that album with art that is subsequently added. Make sure the album art is not too large - I’d suggest no larger than 600 x 600 and less than 250 kB in file size. When I tried to supply album art that initially was problematic and not being displayed, the system was so stubborn and ignored the updated art. I had to change the length of some of the songs (by adding several seconds of silence - by using Audacity) in order to get it to treat the modified album as a new addition to the USB stick and catalog it with the updated album art. Simply changing the track filenames or the album name tag for each song file in that album (using Foobar, for example) did not cause the album to be recognized as a new addition to the USB stick - and thus the updated album art was still ignored. Even deleting the album, plugging the stick back in for re-indexing, taking it out and copying back the offending album with updated album art using a different album name didn’t work. It is a very stubborn system, but I suppose that’s the tradeoff for the speed with which new albums on the USB stick are identified and cataloged.
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      02-28-2022, 09:06 AM   #18
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Thanks guys. I had already reduced the size of all album art to 500 x 500. It seems that more is now displayed now for some reason. I erased my USB (except 1 artist), put it in the car, then went back and reloaded everything. Last night I noticed some of the missing art was now there. Some; not all.

I’ll keep messing around. It would be cool if all of it would show up.
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      03-01-2022, 10:12 AM   #19
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Options...

Quote:
Originally Posted by BMWM.D. View Post
Thanks guys. I had already reduced the size of all album art to 500 x 500. It seems that more is now displayed now for some reason. I erased my USB (except 1 artist), put it in the car, then went back and reloaded everything. Last night I noticed some of the missing art was now there. Some; not all.

I’ll keep messing around. It would be cool if all of it would show up.
Do you have any other USB sticks laying around that haven't been plugged into the car yet?
If so, try copying your library over onto it and see if the album covers will display on the new device when plugged into the car.

I can also 100% confirm that cycling about half a dozen USB drives (with media files on them) through the IDrive before plugging your original stick back in will reindex that USB and should show the updated album art for you.
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      03-01-2022, 10:33 AM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ctbimmerfan View Post
I can also 100% confirm that cycling about half a dozen USB drives (with media files on them) through the IDrive before plugging your original stick back in will reindex that USB and should show the updated album art for you.
Do small-capacity USB sticks (1 GB, say) work for this? I have a bunch of those but nothing larger.
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      03-01-2022, 06:10 PM   #21
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Nope, doesn't matter...

Quote:
Originally Posted by partialresponse View Post
Do small-capacity USB sticks (1 GB, say) work for this? I have a bunch of those but nothing larger.
Those should work fine.
I keep several smaller USB drives of various sizes around for this exact purpose (each with a couple of songs on them).
Just plug each one of them in and select a file to play... cycle through all six of them before plugging the larger USB back in with your whole music library.

You can tell it's re-indexing or re-cataloguing when the Search by Artist or Title is grayed out in the iDrive interface... those options light up and become available as iDrive completes its indexing process.

Good luck!

EDIT: Found the original thread/post I found when I was first having this issue...

Last edited by ctbimmerfan; 03-04-2022 at 04:43 PM.. Reason: Added link...
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      10-18-2022, 10:58 AM   #22
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ctbimmerfan View Post
... ctbimmerfan
I can also 100% confirm that cycling about half a dozen USB drives (with media files on them) through the IDrive before plugging your original stick back in will reindex that USB and should show the updated album art for you.
Hi ctbimmerfan, I tried to use your trick to persuade my car that I have updated 2 favorite lists (and added 7 songs). I prepared 8 thumb drives, all of the same model but gave them different names when formatting. Put a short MP3-file on each. Actually the same song but I changed the file-name on each and played a few seconds from each of these 8 drives before connecting my updated drive.

That didn't do it. Still the same content from the old playlists.
I then changed the name of the updated playlists. Now the new name of the playlists are shown, with the old content !

Any suggestions for the next trial? Did you use different songs
on your "replace the cache drives"? Did you have many files on them?
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