[MJBradley1967]

The mp3 albums I have are on a micro USB stick. A few of them had album art I didn't like so I reset their album art using tag&rename, but the bimmer still shows the old art, plus one album that it doesn't show an album cover at all.

Any way to force it to reset just the mp3 tags, or whatever it sees? Having the USB stick out for extended periods does nothing, it doesn't even forget what song it was playing the last time.

Filesize of the jpg doesn't seem to matter, a lot of them have 1200x1200 with no problem. It's just the ones I changed.

[cellarrat]

I have album art for maybe half of my collection on the USB drive. No rhyme or reason that I can tell

[TurtleBoy]

Unfortunately it caches the USB sticks so you need to use multiple different ones until the cache is overwritten. I used five in addition to the stick that has my music on. I put two songs on sticks one thru five and then then put each of them in and play a song. I then put my norm usb drive in and all is good.

[TurtleBoy]

Originally Posted by cellarrat

I have album art for maybe half of my collection on the USB drive. No rhyme or reason that I can tell

What is the size of your art? If it is too big it will not be displayed, I always keep it 600 x 600 or smaller but not sure what the max is.

[MJBradley1967]

Originally Posted by TurtleBoy

What is the size of your art? If it is too big it will not be displayed, I always keep it 600 x 600 or smaller but not sure what the max is.

The new covers are large, but like I said, a lot of the others are large as well, and they show up fine. In fact, I'd say half of the 333 albums on there have 1200x1200 (give or take) images attached.

I will try downsizing the problem cases and see if it helps.

But half the issue is getting the player to recognize changed album covers.

[TurtleBoy]

Originally Posted by MJBradley1967

The new covers are large, but like I said, a lot of the others are large as well, and they show up fine. In fact, I'd say half of the 333 albums on there have 1200x1200 (give or take) images attached.

I will try downsizing the problem cases and see if it helps.

But half the issue is getting the player to recognize changed album covers.

Follow the procedure I posted above and you should be okay.

[MJBradley1967]

Originally Posted by TurtleBoy

Follow the procedure I posted above and you should be okay.

Tried the smaller cover art, no difference.

I also tried multiple, different brand USB sticks like is mentioned here:

Originally Posted by Tag

Just ran across this thread and figured I'd share for those having USB indexing issues. One method that I've found to work without resetting all of your vehicle data is to basically flush the cache by connecting multiple USB drives.

• All USB drives should be made by different manufacturers or else iDrive may think you're reconnecting the same USB drive again. For example, if you have two Lexar USB drives that are identical or even of different seizes (i.e. 8GB & 32GB) it will think it's the same drive, because the drive ID will be the same and it won't know any better.
• I use five different USB drives not including the drive that I'm trying to flush the cache on. You maybe able to get away with less, I just don't know the cap on drive caching.
• Make sure all USB drives are formatted as FAT32 or NTFS. Copy a single audio file on each drive.
• Plug in one USB drive at a time, wait until it reads the drive and then play the single audio file for a couple of seconds.
• Remove the USB drive and repeat with the rest of the USB drives, this will basically force it to flush the drive cache.
• Afterwards connect the drive that has all of your music, iDrive will re-index it from scratch and get rid of duplicates, etc.

But it still won't forget the original USB, what song it was playing and any of the album art changes.

[TurtleBoy]

Originally Posted by MJBradley1967

Tried the smaller cover art, no difference.

I also tried multiple, different brand USB sticks like is mentioned here:


But it still won't forget the original USB, what song it was playing and any of the album art changes.

Was not referring to the smaller art cover, that was in response to another poster. The multiple USB stick procedure that I posted works fine for me and will work for you, go to 6 if it doesn't work with 5 but I'm sure it will.

[MJBradley1967]

Originally Posted by TurtleBoy

Was not referring to the smaller art cover, that was in response to another poster. The multiple USB stick procedure that I posted works fine for me and will work for you, go to 6 if it doesn't work with 5 but I'm sure it will.

The most I can do is three, with the main one being the SanDisk ultra-fit, another SanDisk that the BMW won't recognize (this one is identified as an HDD by my laptop ), a generic USB stick and a USB-SD Card adapter setup I used in my last Jeep. 3 out of 4 are recognized by the BMW.

Another place the Jeep was superior. It recognized changes to the albums and art immediately, without a lot of fooling around.

[TurtleBoy]

Originally Posted by MJBradley1967

The most I can do is three, with the main one being the SanDisk ultra-fit, another SanDisk that the BMW won't recognize (this one is identified as an HDD by my laptop ), a generic USB stick and a USB-SD Card adapter setup I used in my last Jeep. 3 out of 4 are recognized by the BMW.

Another place the Jeep was superior. It recognized changes to the albums and art immediately, without a lot of fooling around.

Okay, that is why it didn't work for you. You need to use at least 5 since that is ow many it caches. Pick a few cheeps up at Walmart and you should be good to go.

[cellarrat]

Originally Posted by TurtleBoy

What is the size of your art? If it is too big it will not be displayed, I always keep it 600 x 600 or smaller but not sure what the max is.

All different sizes. I doubt that is the problem but it really isn't worth chasing down. Just odd.

[MJBradley1967]

Originally Posted by cellarrat

All different sizes. I doubt that is the problem but it really isn't worth chasing down. Just odd.

Same boat for me. I check a bunch of the attached cover art (not for all 333 albums) and found many 1000x1000 and 1200x1200, not to mention various other sizes above 600x600.

At the moment my problem seems strictly about the BMW not resetting the library, or tags, or whatever. I'll see if I can find a couple more USB sticks, but there are other sites and posts that say using 5 didn't work for them in this regard.

[cellarrat]

Originally Posted by TurtleBoy

Okay, that is why it didn't work for you. You need to use at least 5 since that is ow many it caches. Pick a few cheeps up at Walmart and you should be good to go.

You seem to be suggesting that the car copies the contents of the usb onto a disc in the car and retains it (and the images) unless you do the 5-drive override.


Do I follow you correctly? I was told by the dealer there was no disc in the car (but honestly I have little faith in what they tell me on such things).

[TurtleBoy]

Originally Posted by cellarrat

You seem to be suggesting that the car copies the contents of the usb onto a disc in the car and retains it (and the images) unless you do the 5-drive override.


Do I follow you correctly? I was told by the dealer there was no disc in the car (but honestly I have little faith in what they tell me on such things).

That is correct, it caches the information of what is on the disk (not the contents as far as I know) that is why when you make any change to the contents of a USB drive you have already used must use the multiple disk trick to clear out the old index in order to have things look/work correctly.

There obviously is storage in the vehicle, it is a computer. What he is probably referring to is the user accessible storage space, that was removed starting with MY20 or 21.

[oldguy00]

Somewhat off topic, but what music service/site do you use to get your mp3's (or flacs?)? Thx!

[MJBradley1967]

Originally Posted by oldguy00

Somewhat off topic, but what music service/site do you use to get your mp3's (or flacs?)? Thx!

Personally, I still buy physical CD's and rip them to 320kpb mp3's myself. I've only ever downloaded a few albums from Amazon.

Most of what's on my (former) Jeep music stick was ripped while I still had Jeeps, and I don't think those played flac's.

[c_hri_s]

There's a much easier way.

1. Remove USB stick
2. Delete/Move tracks you want to edit
3. Put USB stick back in the car - it notices these tracks have gone
4. Remove USB stick
5. Move edited/tagged tracks back to stick
6. It'll see them as new tracks and scan them again

This works flawlessly and involves only 1 USB stick.

And yes, like others have said, there is a size limit to coverart. The tool mp3tag allows a quick resize if you right-click on the existing cover art.

[TurtleBoy]

Originally Posted by c_hri_s

There's a much easier way.

1. Remove USB stick
2. Delete/Move tracks you want to edit
3. Put USB stick back in the car - it notices these tracks have gone
4. Remove USB stick
5. Move edited/tagged tracks back to stick
6. It'll see them as new tracks and scan them again

This works flawlessly and involves only 1 USB stick.

And yes, like others have said, there is a size limit to coverart. The tool mp3tag allows a quick resize if you right-click on the existing cover art.

Perhaps they changed something in an update because this hadn't worked in the past, hence the 5 disks procedure was needed.

[MJBradley1967]

Plus, where would it actually keep the tracks if it were copying them to the media center? I thought it no longer had storage of that kind?

If the old 20GB number was accurate, there wouldn't be enough room for my collection.

As it is, I've seen other forums that say 5 sticks didn't work.

Re-formatting the USB stick then putting the music back on only momentarily made the new cover art appear, then it reverted, so at the very lease it's storing something somewhere, even if it's just tag information.