MG ZS EV USB Music Folders

[MichaelJHunt]

Anyone found a way around this or reported it to MG yet?

One would assume the the OP has reported it to his dealer. Whether that has gone up the line to MG is another matter.

 

[DrTom]

I have reported it to both my dealer and MG.

Response from MG was "Contact your dealer"

MY dealer was not happy with MG's response and replied "As for the USB music, I’m disappointed with MGs response but will continue to make inroads to their Aftersales dept to understand what over the air updates comprise and when these updates will be available."

As said before, should be an easy fix with over the air updates.

Still no fix or work around as I know.

Definitely a backward step and very frustrating.

 

[Lestrade]

In my case I had on my apple Mac-mini Media Server External hard drives, my collection of music all in their respective folders showing also on my networked Windows PC as a list of folders. In each named folder is the list of tracks from 1 to whatever in mp3 or 4 format and a jpg or png of the album artwork.
I had read of issues people were having so I just did the simple method.
I formatted a new SanDisk USB drive 32mb as Fat32 and dragged and copy/paste each of the chosen folders. When I stuck it in slot it showed up in the infotainment as connected USB and when expanding the player, it showed all the albums by artwork cover with all the buttons to control the playback. Every single album has its cover artwork and I have full control from steering column. In terms of all the albums being listed in alphabetical order...for me I have the random play selected as I love all of my music so having to play just one specific album is not important to me especially as I can drive from one end of our island to the other in the time it takes to play 4 or 5 tracks. No Friday afternoon M25 Jnc 19 to 27 car park shenanigans for me anymore.!!!!

Don't know if this will help anyone......

 

[N2STY]

In my case I had on my apple Mac-mini Media Server External hard drives, my collection of music all in their respective folders showing also on my networked Windows PC as a list of folders. In each named folder is the list of tracks from 1 to whatever in mp3 or 4 format and a jpg or png of the album artwork.
I had read of issues people were having so I just did the simple method.
I formatted a new SanDisk USB drive 32mb as Fat32 and dragged and copy/paste each of the chosen folders. When I stuck it in slot it showed up in the infotainment as connected USB and when expanding the player, it showed all the albums by artwork cover with all the buttons to control the playback. Every single album has its cover artwork and I have full control from steering column. In terms of all the albums being listed in alphabetical order...for me I have the random play selected as I love all of my music so having to play just one specific album is not important to me especially as I can drive from one end of our island to the other in the time it takes to play 4 or 5 tracks. No Friday afternoon M25 Jnc 19 to 27 car park shenanigans for me anymore.!!!!

Don't know if this will help anyone......

This is useful information but I am right in saying you use a HS and not ZS?
The new ZS has a different Entertainment System and the HS is similar to the old ZS where this worked

 

[Lestrade]

This is useful information but I am right in saying you use a HS and not ZS?
The new ZS has a different Entertainment System and the HS is similar to the old ZS where this worked

Yes...HS. Wasn't aware of the differences but can now see where the frustration for some emanates from.

 

[enjoylife]

I have reported it to both my dealer and MG.

Response from MG was "Contact your dealer"

MY dealer was not happy with MG's response and replied "As for the USB music, I’m disappointed with MGs response but will continue to make inroads to their Aftersales dept to understand what over the air updates comprise and when these updates will be available."

As said before, should be an easy fix with over the air updates.

Still no fix or work around as I know.

Definitely a backward step and very frustrating.

Thanks for the update. Very frustrating indeed.. lets hope MG addresses this basic thing quickly.

 

[Vinny1966]

Technology should move forwards; not backwards. I enjoy listening to full albums and it’s very frustrating and dangerous searching for tracks. MG, get this sorted.

 

[Zeez]

There is a app called poweramp in the play store for android auto you can control it all from car screen here is a vid look at about 1m15sec for a idea

Cheers. Poweramp is great, does the job. Have ditched the USB option.

 

[Gadget Geek]

There is a app called poweramp in the play store for android auto you can control it all from car screen here is a vid look at about 1m15sec for a idea

Why didn't I know about this app before? It is brilliant. Thanks for posting.

 

[N2STY]

BTW it's only £2 right now for full unlock version

Poweramp Full Version Unlocker - Apps on Google Play

Unlocks Poweramp - Powerful Music Player for Android

play.google.com

Free trial

Poweramp Music Player (Trial) - Apps on Google Play

Powerful Music Player for Android

play.google.com

 

[FrankieJ]

So, if you are using the usb socket for car play, do you need a USBc stick with your music on for that socket?

 

[Gadget Geek]

So, if you are using the usb socket for car play, do you need a USBc stick with your music on for that socket?

If you are using CarPlay or Android Auto, the music comes from your phone. No need for a separate USB source.

 

[Gadget Geek]

Why didn't I know about this app before? It is brilliant. Thanks for posting.

Since installing Poweramp, I found out that VLC player on my phone also plays through Android Auto and it has all my playlists on it.

 

[FrankieJ]

If you are using CarPlay or Android Auto, the music comes from your phone. No need for a separate USB source.

If you want/have music on your phone, which I don’t! I’ve always used a usb stick

 

[N2STY]

I would just make a copy onto sd card then you have both

 

[Nickel]

Any further developments on this?

Just took delivery of our new ZS this weekend and have run headlong into this problem.

I'd much rather use a USB stick, because then it stays in the car and is available whoever is driving and whichever phone they have.

 

[Pauli363]

Its crap to be honest. Makes the whole USB facility pretty useless. Ive stopped using it completely now.

 

[Nickel]

Its crap to be honest. Makes the whole USB facility pretty useless. Ive stopped using it completely now.

It does seem to be. Goodness knows how anyone could play classical music on it. !st movement of a Beethoven symphony, then 1st of some Mozart, etc., etc. until you came round for teh second movements... ;-)

However, I may have a workaround. I will report back once I've tried it.

 

[Nickel]

OK, so the workaround seems to be functioning. Something similar was suggested early on in the thread.

Here's what I've done:

• At first, I thought tracks were being displayed in alphabetical order of filename, but they aren't. They are being displayed in alphabetical order of the Title field in the ID3 metadata
• So, the first step was to use MP3tag software to modify that field to include Artist, Album and Track No.
• You need to be brief, or you won't be able to read key data for a later step. The player only displays the first 14 characters of the field and doesn't scroll any more.
• I changed the Title field of each track to: "Artist/Album/Track No/Track title" Suppose I'm loading Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water from the album of the same name. (Yes, I am that old... ) I change the Title field to (e.g) "S&G/Bridge/01 Bridge over Troubled Water."
• Now when the sort is done, the player will group all Simon & Garfunkel (S&G) tracks together, then group all tracks on the Bridge album together, sorting them into track number order. (You need the track number to have the leading zero as this is a pure alpha sort, so would otherwise order as 1,10,11,2, 20,3,4 etc.
• Placing your USB in the car, you now have a potentially huge list, ordered into Artist, Album and the correct track order. Still exceedingly difficult to use.
• The final step is to scroll through the list of tracks and mark every "01" track as a favourite. Now tap the little button that puts the track listing into Favourite mode.
• Presto, you now have a list of all albums on your USB stick, grouped by Artist. Tap your choice, and the album will start playing at track 01. If you want to change track, put the list back into Title mode, and the other tracks on the album will be close at hand.

Is this ideal? Of course not - there should be a proper sort and selection facility in the player. But I gather that MG are far from the only marque with players that behave like this.

Is it a faff to do? Up to a point. It's work for the customer that should be unnecessary.

Does it take a long time? No. Using MP3Tag's batch editing ability, the Convert Tag->tag function and a suitably crafted format string to utilise what info your files carry, it's quick enough. Once I'd sorted what I was doing, I could edit an entire album in less than a minute.

So, if anyone's interested, that's what I did. I'm happy that I now have a selection of my favourite albums in the car, and I can choose what I want. I'll top the stick up as I feel te need.

If anyone has any questions, I'll do my best...

 

[JCFlippen]

Thanks for your efforts. My head is spinnng so I think I will have to stick to Planet Rock and 60s Gold. Still looking for my old iPod!