Missing your in-car CD player?

[Davn]

The SE Infotainment code-base must be fundamentally different to that of the Trophy (due to the significant feature differences), hence the markedly different version numbers. So perhaps different software teams have written each code-base?

I would guess at a compiling error the switch is there but no function behind it. MG should be able to fix easily but think its very low on the bug fixes

 

[Rolfe]

That was my thought. Probably easy to do, but probably not something a lot of people are clamouring for and they'll have other priorities.

 

[Rolfe]

The SE Infotainment code-base must be fundamentally different to that of the Trophy (due to the significant feature differences), hence the markedly different version numbers. So perhaps different software teams have written each code-base?

Sounds plausible. It doesn't seem like it would be rocket science to fix this, but it would need someone to actually do it.

 

[Davn]

Sounds plausible. It doesn't seem like it would be rocket science to fix this, but it would need someone to actually do it.

True

 

[Rolfe]

As regards the error message when pulling a USB stick out of the car, the manual has this to say (on page 102).

Removing a USB storage device

Check and confirm that there is no data being accessed, then pull out the USB storage device.

Note: If any data loss or breach occurs whilst the USB storage device is inserted or being used, it will generally be unrecoverable, MG Motor accepts no responsibility for any data loss or breach.

That's all very well, but I have not been able to figure out any reliable way of getting the stick out without corrupting it. How does one "check and confirm that there is no data being accessed" for goodness sake? Simply stopping the USB track doesn't work. Switching to radio and letting the radio play doesn't work. Powering the car down doesn't work. Getting out and locking the car and walking away, then coming back and grabbing the stick as soon as you can after re-opening the door doesn't (reliably) work.

Answers on a postcard.

It doesn't actually matter because every time this has happened to me the computer has restored the USB stick without a problem with no loss of data that I'm aware of. And even if it did corrupt, then you should have the original file on your computer to restore it or copy to a new stick. It's just annoying. It's clear MG have realised that this is an issue, or that paragraph wouldn't be in the manual in the first place, but their advice is unrealistic and unworkable.

 

[siteguru]

If you have a USB stick with a "power/activity" LED then that would normally flash when the stick is being accessed. Not flashing = not being accessed.

 

[Rolfe]

Well, there's something I didn't know. The stick does have an LED which I hadn't noticed because it's faint, and it's generally obscured by the metal shield that covers the business end when it's out of the port, but which swivels round when it's in use. I swivelled it back to a 90-degree angle and then I saw the red light flashing.

It will be interesting to see just when it doesn't flash when it's in the car. So far I've failed to catch it at the right moment by chance.

You guys are a mine of information.

 

[NeFo]

is there any tech system that could just work with a 3.5mm jack that i can plug into an iPod Classic?

 

[Brianlescargot]

Don't all you lot have Spotify?

No, the sound quality isn’t very good!

 

[davz]

No, the sound quality isn’t very good!

That’s why I’ve got Apple Music, quality is excellent

 

[Rolfe]

is there any tech system that could just work with a 3.5mm jack that i can plug into an iPod Classic?

I plugged my iPod nano in using the iPod-to-USB lead, and the car ignored all the .m4a iPod files. I can't find the right page of the manual right now, but there is a short list of file types the MG4 will recognise and .m4a is not one of them. So if your iPod files are in .m4a format it won't read them.

It will read .mp3 files. What I have done is re-import the CDs I wanted into iTunes, but asking it to import them in .mp3 format. This has let me re-organise what I'm listening to, and tidy up the embedded text information at the same time. If you don't have CDs of the tracks on your iPod then I think you'll have to convert the tracks themselves to .mp3 format and go from there.

Here's where I ended up, with a folder on my computer containing all the tracks I wanted, named and numbered to keep individual works together so that they play in the right order.

That's the start of it, and currently it goes all the way to this, 319 tracks later.

The numbers in the second column are completely irrelevant (they're the numbers of the tracks on the original CD, put there by iTunes), and the MG4 plays the tracks in the alphanumeric order of the third column, the track title. I have simply renamed the files (first column) to match this, for ease of finding the tracks in the folder. (This has to be done in this folder, after the files have been copied from the iTunes Media folder, to avoid terminal confusion of iTunes.)

Sure, it would be nice to have a couple of levels of folder recognition so that it would be simpler to find what you want on the car's screen rather than scrolling down hundreds of tracks, and that would also avoid having composer's name and the name of the work scrolling at the start of every track (you'd just need the number, to keep the tracks in order), but I'm not finding this a huge deal.

I found that once I had the protocol sorted (see the OP) and one work imported to the USB stick and playing, I was a happy bunny. Other works can be added when you feel like it.

Sure, I've got an iPod stuffed with all this stuff and more, which the MG4 won't condescend to read. Which is annoying at first, coming from a Golf which would read the iPod. But you can't listen to everything at once, just do it a bit at a time once you have enough on the USB stick for your initial listening requirements. Navigating the iPod on the Golf wasn't exactly a walk in the park either.

 

[Jymbob]

Reading with interest and not a little surprise. Our MG5 Excite (pre facelift) definitely supports MP3s in nested folders. We have one folder for the kids' audio books, another for my wife's preferred artists, and my one with the real music in it

 

[Rolfe]

The Trophy seems to support nested folders as well, although I'm not sure how many layers. Consensus above is that it's probably a bug in the SE software, not deliberate malice. However, it's probably not a bug that's all that close to the top of the priority list - if they even know about it.

Until and unless they fix this with a software update it is what it is, and we have to get round it somehow if we want to use the system.

 

[BishiBoshi]

Don't use the crappy apple software, just rip the tracks with another external tool that can also extract the song names and info from CDDB/FreeDB and rename the files for you. Plenty of free ones about if you look.

 

[Rolfe]

I knew somebody would be along to say something like that sooner or later. Fine. Give us a step by step explanation of how to do it and I'm sure we'll all be very grateful. Failing that, we use what we know.

 

[BishiBoshi]

https://www.freac.org/ it was even updated this year

Integrated CD ripper with CDDB/GNUdb title database support

The integrated CD ripper will convert your audio CDs to files on your hard disk. It supports all of the formats available for regular audio file conversion. fre:ac can query the CDDB/GNUdb online CD database to find artist and title information prior to ripping. No need to enter track names manually.

Plenty of youtube tutorials on how to use with a quick search i.e.,

In case that's not powerful enough to re-tag the file correctly in all cases then you can use this: Mp3tag - the universal Tag Editor (ID3v2, MP4, OGG, FLAC, ...) I actually used this software 15-20 years ago or whenever I last ripped a CD xD

 

[Rolfe]

Thank you, that's kind and helpful.

Although given the way the SE's software is set up, there's always going to be a need to edit the filenames somehow, I think.

 

[BishiBoshi]

You're very welcome.

 

[siteguru]

As I've mentioned previously, MP3Tag has a tool that will rename files based on metrics you define (e.g. reading from tag data, so you could set up a filter based on Artist-Album-Track.mp3)

 

[Rolfe]

I remember you saying that. I'm thinking that's more likely to be useful for others reading the thread, as I'm pretty much sorted doing it the way I worked out. I'm making quite a lot of individual changes to the track information that I don't think would be handled by any automatic system. However, for people who just want to get these tracks in order on a USB, yours is probably the way.

I'm cross-referencing with the complete texts of the operas, adding additional text from that, altering the artists' names to correspond with who is actually singing on the track in question (as opposed to the generic list of two main leads, conductor and orchestra which appears on every track regardless) and just basically fiddling.

Consider it detailing for audio nuts. (I'm the sort of person who will take the car through a car wash, but who gets ratty if the embedded text says "Astrid Varnay" when I know that the soprano who is actually singing on that track is Gré Brouwenstijn. I'm also annoyed by the person who did the GraceNotes text for most of the stuff I like having a habit of Capitalising Every Single Word.)