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Playlists on a usb flash drive or HDD?

Discussion in 'Prius c Audio and Electronics' started by j_benj, Jul 18, 2012.

  1. j_benj

    j_benj Prius C Fan

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    I've been trying for a couple of days now to create playlists on a USB flash drive and on a USB hard drive to use in my Prius C. The head unit (nav) recognizes the playlists and lists them by title, but when I choose one it always says "no entries" as if its an empty list. I've tried m3u and pls format lists, neither seem to work, though they work fine on my PC and Mac when I plug the drives in.

    The lists were created on the drives themselves with no drive letters in the paths. The filenames in the playlists are "folderName/filename.mp3" but for some reason the stereo can't seem to locate the songs at all.

    Anyone have any ideas?

    Thanks in advance!
     
    #1 j_benj, Jul 18, 2012
  2. jabecker

    jabecker driver of Prii since 2005

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    I'm not sure with a flash drive, but I know that with an iPod the head unit indexes the songs, and until it's finished with that, playlists aren't available. You might try just leaving it plugged in for an hour or two and see if that works.
     
    #2 jabecker, Jul 19, 2012
  3. vindicator

    vindicator Junior Member

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    Were you able to use a USB hdd ? When I tried, I got a message that the USB connection could not supply enough power.
     
    #3 vindicator, Jul 19, 2012
  4. j_benj

    j_benj Prius C Fan

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    Yes I was but I used one of those splitter cables with the 2nd end plugged into a lighter socket USB power adapter so there was enough juice to run it.

    I figured out the issue with the playlists as well. It appears that the Prius likes Unix-style paths. The m3u playlists I was trying to use were formatted this way :

    folderName\fileName.mp3

    I changed the format to :

    .\folderName\fileName.mp3

    Presto! Playlists work on the HDD and the flash drive. The HDD is noticeably slower than the flash drive as expected. A LOT more "loading..." screens when waiting for lists to appear or songs to load. I'm likely going to be staying with the 32gb flash drive until I can find a good deal on a 64 or 128gb model.

    EDIT : in case anyone wonders, i used Notepad++ to pattern-search-replace the .\ onto the beginning of every line in my playlists.
     
    #4 j_benj, Jul 20, 2012
  5. ftl

    ftl Explicator

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    Looking at the files on the USB stick update for Entunes, the filesystem is some variety of embedded Linux. See this post for more info.
     
    #5 ftl, Jul 20, 2012
  6. j_benj

    j_benj Prius C Fan

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    That makes a lot of sense.

    Another strange thing I noticed was that the owners manual states that m3u playlists are not compatible with the stereo (don't know what type are actually supported).. yet they work for me. Bizarre.
     
    #6 j_benj, Jul 21, 2012
  7. Seer Snively

    Seer Snively New Member

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    Hey j_benj, what did you use to create your m3u playlists on your USB device? I pick up my new C4 later this week and was thinking about filling up a 32 gig USB stick for the ride. I've heard a few different things regarding play order, so I thought I'd create some playlists.

    I just wanted to know what software you used to create your m3u's, and if you know if any software creates it with the ./dir/filename.ext format?

    Thanks!
     
    #7 Seer Snively, Aug 6, 2012
  8. j_benj

    j_benj Prius C Fan

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    Hi Seer,

    That's exactly the setup I have going right now in my C3, 32GB USB flash drive.

    I used a program called MediaMonkey (Windows) to create the .m3u playlists - though you could easily use WinAMP to accomplish it. Despite the manual clearly stating that m3u's don't work, somehow they do just fine. MediaMonkey does NOT create the playlists with the proper formatting, though. After organizing the playlists directly on the flash drive with MediaMonkey, I had to open them in a text editor (I used Notepad++) and used a pattern search/replace to append "./" onto each line :

    directory\filename.mp3

    became :

    .\directory\filename.mp3

    Once I did that, the head unit recognized the playlists just fine. One thing you do have to be mindful of is that it takes a while for the stereo to index the entire drive if you have a lot of songs. The playlists will all display "no entries" on the screen until the indexing is completely finished. Mine took upwards of 5 minutes.
     
    #8 j_benj, Aug 6, 2012
  9. Seer Snively

    Seer Snively New Member

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    j_benj,

    You seem like my kind of guy. MediaMonkey and Notepad++. You wouldn't happen to be a SysAdmin like me, would you? ;-)

    Last year I switched from MediaMonkey to Foobar 2000, which I just tested. It also creates m3u's without the .\ to begin the line. A find and replace works, but is a PITA. Oh well, it's not like I have to do it every day.

    Thank you very much for the heads up. I take delivery of my C4 tomorrow, and I should have a USB stick ready for then.
     
    #9 Seer Snively, Aug 7, 2012
  10. j_benj

    j_benj Prius C Fan

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    LOL yes I'm an admin for several systems at my company as well as a developer. I also teach programming and technology classes at a local community college on the side... hypergeek here!

    I have Foobar but haven't had much occasion to use it except for the occasional format conversion. As much as I hate to admit it, I use iTunes for playback via AirPlay to my stereo :/

    Good luck with the C4! Post back here and let me know how it goes!
     
    #10 j_benj, Aug 7, 2012
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