USB music?

Made another unfortunate discovery. The trick of copying over part of the files and then inserting the drive into the prius to let it index and then copying rest of the files has nothing to do with the files structure on the thumb drive.

It's all about indexing and persistence on the Prius media system.

For instance, if I get the drive to the Browse ready state and pull it out and re-insert it, it comes back in the Browse ready state in a minute or so.

But if I stick another drive in there with anything even just a singe file and then put the previous one back in, it's stuck again and will never finish indexing even hours later. To get it back to browse ready, I have to delete half the files, stick it back in the Prius, let it index to Browse ready, then copy the rest of the files over and stick it back in the Prius. But if at any point I use another drive, the index state will be nuked and I'd have to start ALL over again.

The bottom line is I can never stick another USB drive in, not even a phone(probably), without blowing away the index and having to start all over again.

PITA!!

 

Really? For my 2017 PRIME Premium, I have been using USB switch with four USB inputs. I usually use it with thumb drives and one iPod mini. I can switch between any of those four inputs sources on the fly most of the times. Sometimes when the car does not make a good connection with USB source, I may have to re-start the Audio but that is rare. This makes very easy to swap drives and different "set" of mp3 files. For example, I can take one drive off and take it inside to add or edit the files, but I still have three USB sources remaining in the car.
I keep the switch and drives and iPod all stored in the center console out of site.

 

Found this on a search and am experiencing the same issue. 256MB drive with roughly 8000 files in a few hundred folders, all well within the limits posted in the manual for numbers and depth. It never finishes indexing or allow the browse button. It just plays files in some self-determined order that doesn't quite make sense.

Has anybody found a way around this? How many files can you add to the drive at once?

 

To sus out how the thing works, what I'd try first:
Start with a bare USB stick / fob / drive (whatever you have or call it) and put one song on it.
Make sure the car plays it. Than add song two. See which order the car plays the two songs.
Add third song. see witch order.
After you see a pattern forming - add a new folder with one song in the folder - see which order.
Rinse / Repeat / until you figure out how the car orders the data on disk.

 

I switched to a 128GB drive and this didn't seep to make any difference.
Then after many hours of on time and maybe a dozen power cycles - suddenly as if by magic - it finished indexing and offers browse. So, roughly 8000 files in a few hundred folders and maybe 4 folder depth and its working. Clearly this head unit has a mind of its own.

 

Did you fillup the old 256nb - - - I wouldn't want to have to dig through that units specs for read/write and or the map disks read / write specs either. For the amount of time I use both seems like over air is faster anyways.
Weather always takes a while to connect too.

 

Old thread! But a good one. I copied my music folder to a new USB and the browse function disappeared. So probably need to leave it alone for a few minutes to index. Works in the Highlander but seems to be stuck in the Prius. Seems I remember this happening with non mp3 files a long time ago but eventually loaded the browser.