Car stereo won't recognize all folders on my USB flash drive

[Gosu42]

Hey everyone, I just signed up here.

 

First post and I already got a problem - seeking for help.

 

My car has a Kenwood KMM-BT305 stereo that worked great until today. I use it for hands-free calling and listening to music from an USB flash drive (SanDisk Ultra Fit 32GB - FAT32) and nothing else. Yesterday I copied some more music to the drive and deleted some old folders. When I did that in the past and plugged it back into the stereo it would usually scan the whole drive next time I start my car,  which takes about 3-5 minutes sometimes. This time it immediately started playing where I left off. Unplugged, replugged, same thing. Tried changing the folder manually, but there are no other folders in the list. Not even the ones that I didn't touch at all. Only the one that was last playing.

 

 

What I tried already:

- checked the file / folder limitations provided by Kenwood - I'm waaay below those limits

- re-formatted the drive (FAT32) and copied the music onto it again

- updated the stereo's firmware (just to be sure)

- used factory reset in stereo's menu

- used hardware reset button on the backside of the removable display

 

 

Additional Information:

- there are only mp3 and jpg files on the drive

- the deepest folder is 4 levels deep

- there are no hidden files or folders except "System Volume Information" which I can't delete (well, I could but I didn't yet)

- all folders are there and accessable, as well as the music inside. Tested on Linux and Windows.

 

 

I really don't know what else to try. It just doesn't seem to scan for new files when starting, and I didn't find any option to force re-scan.

 

Any idea what to do next? I could try to trigger the scan with a different drive, but I really don't want to switch the drive again since it's working fine.
 

PS: I don't want to use Bluetooth and my Phone as an alternative.

 

Thanks in advance!

[Shimejii]

Can you try it with songs you KNOW work? And then test to see if the new music files are causing the issue?

[OhioYJ]

I've run into a few weird issues with USB drives and radios. My first recommendation is run fatsort on the drive.

 

I did a writeup here, it's on a 370Z forum, sorry for the external link.

 

Next I've seen some weird issues if the files have "correct" creation dates, or have missing data here. 

 

Lastly you can try running MP3diags on your music files to make sure there isn't problems with your files themselves. 

[Gosu42]

8 minutes ago, Shimejii said:

Can you try it with songs you KNOW work? And then test to see if the new music files are causing the issue?

I will try, though the folders that are not new and were on that drive before formatting don't work anymore either.
 

2 minutes ago, OhioYJ said:

I've run into a few weird issues with USB drives and radios. My first recommendation is run fatsort on the drive.

 

I did a writeup here, it's on a 370Z forum, sorry for the external link.

 

Next I've seen some weird issues if the files have "correct" creation dates, or have missing data here. 

 

Lastly you can try running MP3diags on your music files to make sure there isn't problems with your files themselves. 

I'll try that as well and report back, thank you

 

I also just now used another flash drive with one of the folders that's not working on my usual car music drive.

Worked fine. When I switch back to the first drive I'm back locked into that one folder. I might try and see what happens when I delete that folder.

Maybe it then recognizes the other folders.

[OhioYJ]

2 minutes ago, Gosu42 said:

I also just now used another flash drive with one of the folders that's not working on my usual car music drive.

Worked fine.

This leads me to believe it doesn't like the nested folders, or more likely fatsort will solve the issue. 

[Gosu42]

I tried some more stuff:

 

- fatsort didn't change anything

- deleting "System Volume Information" folder under Linux didn't change anything

- MP3 Diags didn't find any errors with the files (and they work properly on Clementine and MusicBee too)

- re-formatted again (this time on Linux and with a newly created msdos partition table)

- copied over the folders without the one that I was locked into

 

Now the radio just displays "READING" as it would when it scans a new drive.

But it didn't finish after 10+ minutes which is way longer than it normally takes.

 

I might have to temporarily switch to Bluetooth until I (or one of you) got more ideas. 

 

[Gosu42]

I finally fixed the drive now.

 

Here's what I did:

• Copy the content to my Laptop
• overwrite the whole drive with zeros using dd on Linux. 
• switched back to Windows and formatted again, this time as "full format" (untick "quick format" in the formatting dialog)
• copied over the backed up files

Step 2 is kinda dangerous, if you are not careful you can wipe the wrong drive and destroy your OS. That's also the reason why I didn't specify this step in more detail. If someone needs a more detailed explanation I can write it up later, just let me know.

 

Car radio scanned the drive for a few seconds, working fine now. 

 

Note:

I also left out one folder that contained an unusual character "ÿ" so I'm not 100% sure if the new format procedure fixed it or if it just really disliked that one folder. The manual of the radio states that it might not correctly display unusual characters, so it seems to have a limited charset.

 

But I'll definitely check that last bit and edit this post as soon as I know for sure.

 

EDIT: It actually was that one folder with the "ÿ" character. I guess UTF-8 support is too much to ask in 2021... *sigh*

 

Thanks for all your ideas  

[carbonunit]

So, I had the same problem.  I pulled my flash drive in my Kenwood KMR-M328BT to add some music to it.  When I plugged it back in suddenly half my files wouldn't play.  Search wouldn't scroll through the file system either.  After hours of trial and error it turned out to be this.  Queensrÿche.  The darn "ÿ" screwed the whole thing up.  I changed it to a regular "y" and low a behold everything went back to normal....    So if anybody is having issues.  Don't use non regular characters in your file and directory naming.