[Tlon]

I was searching for an answer to this problem and couldn't find a solution on the interwebs. I thought I'd post the solution in case anyone else finds themselves in this boat.

First, some background. I've been able to load a hefty amount of music on a 512GB drive USB-C drive. It works great. I followed a lot of the info here but iDrive has changed quite a bit since then. Now, it works with drives formatted withe either exFAT and NTFS. I was able to maintain my (sub)directories and add a playlists directory. The only change I needed to make to playlists after exporting them from iTunes was to remove any local drive info (i.e., remove "D:\music" from "D:\music\itunes\music", as noted in the link above) in a text editor.

I have two of these drives. One was organized slightly differently as I was trying to see what would be the best way to organize things on the car.

Here's the problem. As I went between the two drives, iDrive cached all of the information from both. Any updates were added, but nothing was taken away or reindexed. I ended up with duplicate playlists in my listing of playlists, for example. I'd also tried to fix some cover art problems, but once the original file was loaded, it wouldn't update. New stuff would be added, but not removed and updated files were not updated.

I couldn't find anyway to force a reindex a thumb drive. I tried:
- selection the option button everywhere
- removing the drive and reinserting. No go.
- removing the drive, rebooting iDrive, and reinserting it. Nope.
- deleting all the music off the drive and reinserting. That's when I ended up with duplicate file names.
-changing the name of the drive. Nothing.

And a few others. I spoke with the BMW Genius and they had no idea how to help, and suggested I'd need to bring it into the dealership for service for this(!).

Here's the solution, in case anyone else runs into this problem: you need to reset all vehicle data (under car|general settings). Unfortunately, this means you have to reconnect your car to your profile, and you lose a ton of settings (e.g., seat memory, steering intervention settings, sound settings, map settings, customized control displays, etc.).

Took me a bit to get everything back in order, but the flash drive fully reindexed and works great. And, now I know what happens when you reset all vehicle data.

[sygazelle]

Thanks for sharing this information. I'm not that skilled, so my hi-tech son is going to set up the music for the G05 we pick up in a few weeks. I will share your info with him.

[outguy]

I currently have a 2016 528. Picking up my 2019 x5 in a couple of weeks. I took my 1 TB usb hard drive with all my music to the dealership and put it into a showroom vehicle. The x5 wouldnt even recognize the drive when it was plugged in. After some research, the Genius told me that idrive 7 doesnt support hard drives. I found that unlikely and I am currently awaiting delivery of my factory order to start tackling this. My drive is a Seagate 1 TB and I'm using a windows PC to xfer all my music from a network share where all my ripped CD's are organized and stored. Was the drive you referenced in the Amazon link the exact drive you are using?

[MotoWPK]

Originally Posted by Tlon

Here's the problem. As I went between the two drives, iDrive cached all of the information from both. Any updates were added, but nothing was taken away or reindexed. I ended up with duplicate playlists in my listing of playlists, for example. I'd also tried to fix some cover art problems, but once the original file was loaded, it wouldn't update. New stuff would be added, but not removed and updated files were not updated.

I couldn't find anyway to force a reindex a thumb drive.

What if you renamed the USB drive? Perhaps iDrive would then recognize it as a different/new drive and created a new index.

[TestnDoc]

Originally Posted by outguy

I currently have a 2016 528. Picking up my 2019 x5 in a couple of weeks. I took my 1 TB usb hard drive with all my music to the dealership and put it into a showroom vehicle. The x5 wouldnt even recognize the drive when it was plugged in. After some research, the Genius told me that idrive 7 doesnt support hard drives. I found that unlikely and I am currently awaiting delivery of my factory order to start tackling this. My drive is a Seagate 1 TB and I'm using a windows PC to xfer all my music from a network share where all my ripped CD's are organized and stored. Was the drive you referenced in the Amazon link the exact drive you are using?

I’m afraid your Genius is right. I was shocked when my portable hard drive wouldn’t work, but the manual clearly states what will and won’t work. It worked fine in my 550! iDrive 7 is a step backwards!

[Tlon]

Originally Posted by MotoWPK

What if you renamed the USB drive? Perhaps iDrive would then recognize it as a different/new drive and created a new index.

I tried this. Didn't help. I also tried reformatting the drive in NTFS instead of exFAT (and renaming). Also didn't work. Well, actually, doing the latter is what seems to have duplicated all the playlists.

Similarly, if I moved an artist folder to a different folder, say the root folder, the artist would show up twice in the "folder listing" (under search), once in the new location and once in the old location, even though it was moved from its original location.

Ultimately, the problem is that it's not re-indexing, which makes some sense. If it reindexed every time, it would take 10-15 minutes (or longer if yuo have a large collection) every time you plugged the USB drive into the port. It would just help if there was an option to force a re-indexing of the drive or to clear the stored cache of music and album art.

[Tlon]

Originally Posted by outguy

I currently have a 2016 528. Picking up my 2019 x5 in a couple of weeks. I took my 1 TB usb hard drive with all my music to the dealership and put it into a showroom vehicle. The x5 wouldnt even recognize the drive when it was plugged in. After some research, the Genius told me that idrive 7 doesnt support hard drives. I found that unlikely and I am currently awaiting delivery of my factory order to start tackling this. My drive is a Seagate 1 TB and I'm using a windows PC to xfer all my music from a network share where all my ripped CD's are organized and stored. Was the drive you referenced in the Amazon link the exact drive you are using?

I'm using a PNY 512GB USB-C flash drive. It was $130 on Amazon. It's solid, stays in the port well, and other than the indexing problem works great.

I used to use an old iPhone as a music hard drive in my F15. It worked great. In the G05, I had to unplug it and plug it back in every time I started the car. I don't know if the center console USB port is not set up to send a wake up signal to the iPhone--the F15 would as soon as you opened the door of the car--or if it's something else, but I wonder if there is a similar reason for a portable drive not working.

[windycitycy]

What happens when you've successfully indexed a drive full of music then add a new album to the drive? Will it be recognized or force a reset as you describe above

[RMAS99]

I hate I cant play randomly a all pen drive. It only plays randomly the folder that you are in

[Tlon]

Originally Posted by windycitycy

What happens when you've successfully indexed a drive full of music then add a new album to the drive? Will it be recognized or force a reset as you describe above

It will add the new album.

The problem is more about deletions and file updates. For example, if you change the title or cover art of a song in a file, it doesn't seem to always update (it was inconsistent, since a couple of albums did update and others did not) but when I added a new playlist, it recognized it and added it immediately. Additionally, when I deleted every folder but one album on the drive, it kept showing all 10,000 songs that were originally on the thumb drive. It would visibly scan through all of the songs, presumably trying to find one to play, and it even would recognize that the file was not there (i.e., the length of each song showed as 0:00 as it was scanning each), but still showed all the albums, cover art, playlists, track listings, etc. that were no longer on the thumb drive. I could select them but obviously nothing would play. This would just force another rescan as above, which eventually would stop but without any change to the listings.

And, then, once things started to duplicate, there was nothing I could do other than the reset all vehicle data to force a full reindexing.

[AndroidRobot]

Originally Posted by outguy

I currently have a 2016 528. Picking up my 2019 x5 in a couple of weeks. I took my 1 TB usb hard drive with all my music to the dealership and put it into a showroom vehicle. The x5 wouldnt even recognize the drive when it was plugged in. After some research, the Genius told me that idrive 7 doesnt support hard drives. I found that unlikely and I am currently awaiting delivery of my factory order to start tackling this. My drive is a Seagate 1 TB and I'm using a windows PC to xfer all my music from a network share where all my ripped CD's are organized and stored. Was the drive you referenced in the Amazon link the exact drive you are using?

I hope that hard drive you were using is an SSD... I wouldn't use and HDD in a moving vehicle whether in a laptop, external etc. I don't see the problem just buying a 512gb flash drive for ~$90 or a 256gb one for $45 I mean there are tons of options out there. I have quite a few ssds in my desktop but I wouldn't want something that physically large in the car. I normally use a 128gb SanDisk flash drive like the one linked below. I might for for a 256gb one to hold my FLAC files once I get my X5

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Ultra.../dp/B01BGTG2A0

[Tlon]

Originally Posted by AndroidRobot

I hope that hard drive you were using is an SSD... I wouldn't use and HDD in a moving vehicle whether in a laptop, external etc. I don't see the problem just buying a 512gb flash drive for ~$90 or a 256gb one for $45 I mean there are tons of options out there. I have quite a few ssds in my desktop but I wouldn't want something that physically large in the car. I normally use a 128gb SanDisk flash drive like the one linked below. I might for for a 256gb one to hold my FLAC files once I get my X5

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Ultra.../dp/B01BGTG2A0

My thinking exactly. Just one note, you'll need a USB C drive to use the center console. Kind of a pain, but only because we're still in the early stages of USB C and devices are not as ubiquitous. Still, the one I link to above work really well and 512G is pretty spacious for a thumb drive.

[AndroidRobot]

Originally Posted by Tlon

My thinking exactly. Just one note, you'll need a USB C drive to use the center console. Kind of a pain, but only because we're still in the early stages of USB C and devices are not as ubiquitous. Still, the one I link to above work really well and 512G is pretty spacious for a thumb drive.

no, from what I've seen it's a USB-A for that port, all others are USB-
edit see image

[Tlon]

Originally Posted by AndroidRobot

no, from what I've seen it's a USB-A for that port, all others are USB-
edit see image

Sorry, I didn't realize that area was called the Center Console. I meant the Center Armrest. Yes, that one is USB-A, but I believe it does not connect to the media player, at least I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere and when I tried connecting my iPhone there, it was not recognized. I could be wrong, and that would definitely make it a lot easier.

Edit: the manual does say the one in the Center Console is for data transfer too, but as I said it didn't work for me.

[outguy]

Originally Posted by AndroidRobot

I hope that hard drive you were using is an SSD... I wouldn't use and HDD in a moving vehicle whether in a laptop, external etc. I don't see the problem just buying a 512gb flash drive for ~$90 or a 256gb one for $45 I mean there are tons of options out there. I have quite a few ssds in my desktop but I wouldn't want something that physically large in the car. I normally use a 128gb SanDisk flash drive like the one linked below. I might for for a 256gb one to hold my FLAC files once I get my X5

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Ultra.../dp/B01BGTG2A0

it was a drive I had laying around (therefore didnt cost anything for this application). it wasnt a solid state and it has been completely fine for the 2 years it has been in the car. I know there are options. I was just disappointed that idrive 7 wouldnt allow a simple "plug my existing drive in" ability.

[AndroidRobot]

Originally Posted by outguy

it was a drive I had laying around (therefore didnt cost anything for this application). it wasnt a solid state and it has been completely fine for the 2 years it has been in the car. I know there are options. I was just disappointed that idrive 7 wouldnt allow a simple "plug my existing drive in" ability.

I'm very surprised it didn't crash or have issues. Maybe roads by you are smooth and you don't like the car like you stole it If I didn't live in an area with roads so bad I'd be in a M5 Comp right now.

[AndroidRobot]

Originally Posted by Tlon

Sorry, I didn't realize that area was called the Center Console. I meant the Center Armrest. Yes, that one is USB-A, but I believe it does not connect to the media player, at least I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere and when I tried connecting my iPhone there, it was not recognized. I could be wrong, and that would definitely make it a lot easier.

Edit: the manual does say the one in the Center Console is for data transfer too, but as I said it didn't work for me.

That's odd, it works in my current vehicle (18 X3 M40i) and in the X5 I test drove before ordering. Is it your drive? I'd be asking some questions if that port wouldn't play media

[Tlon]

Originally Posted by AndroidRobot

That's odd, it works in my current vehicle (18 X3 M40i) and in the X5 I test drove before ordering. Is it your drive? I'd be asking some questions if that port wouldn't play media

Could be. It was an iPhone, though, that worked fine in the center armrest (other than having to unplug and plug it back in every time I started the car).

Frankly, after the problems I had with duplicate files and playlists, I have no desire to test it by trying another drive in the USB-A port.

Plus, I haven't seen a 512GB USB-A drive that wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb in the center console. If you can find one or you're okay with a smaller capacity drive or running a cable to a hard drive, it'll be a good option if it works.

The type C drive was the smallest I've seen and wasn't too expensive. And, for me, 512GB is perfect. I have about 10,000 songs in lossless format, and it holds them all with room for a few videos and whatnot.

So, this all worked out well in the end.

Looking forward to hearing how you manage with a USB-A device in the center console. Hope it goes well.

[AndroidRobot]

Originally Posted by Tlon

Could be. It was an iPhone, though, that worked fine in the center armrest (other than having to unplug and plug it back in every time I started the car).

Frankly, after the problems I had with duplicate files and playlists, I have no desire to test it by trying another drive in the USB-A port.

Plus, I haven't seen a 512GB USB-A drive that wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb in the center console. If you can find one or you're okay with a smaller capacity drive or running a cable to a hard drive, it'll be a good option if it works.

The type C drive was the smallest I've seen and wasn't too expensive. And, for me, 512GB is perfect. I have about 10,000 songs in lossless format, and it holds them all with room for a few videos and whatnot.

So, this all worked out well in the end.

Looking forward to hearing how you manage with a USB-A device in the center console. Hope it goes well.

hard to say but I see your point. The biggest I've seen is 256gb. although you could use a small MicroSD adapter with the new 400gb cards they have now but that's an expensive way of doing things. I didn't see any new compact USB A or C drives at CES this year


edit: this is the smallest 512gb I could find https://www.pny.com/usb-elite-type-c

[Tlon]

Originally Posted by AndroidRobot

hard to say but I see your point. The biggest I've seen is 256gb. although you could use a small MicroSD adapter with the new 400gb cards they have now but that's an expensive way of doing things. I didn't see any new compact USB A or C drives at CES this year


edit: this is the smallest 512gb I could find https://www.pny.com/usb-elite-type-c

Yeah, that's the one I have. Amazon link above. Works well. Very solid little drive. Sticks out a bit but not bad at all.

[AndroidRobot]

Originally Posted by Tlon

Yeah, that's the one I have. Amazon link above. Works well. Very solid little drive. Sticks out a bit but not bad at all.

I'm hoping more compact USB C drives will come out, there's no reason why we shouldn't already have them right now. I'm in to bed there's a way of making an external drive work but it night be outside the realm of possibility for most people

[MikeElmendorf]

I’m having a different issue with music from USB:

Apple Devices (iPhone, iPod Touch and iPod Classic) are all very buggy with iDrive now. So, I tried transferring my library to a USB drive.

It seems to work well, and displays the album artwork both on the iDrive screen and HUD when you are scrolling, which is cool. However, iDrive fails to see a lot of the content on the USB drive. I’ve reformatted, reconnected and a lot of stuff is always missing—and not always the same content, either. It seems to change with each reformat and rewrite.

I’ve confirmed on other devices that the content is in fact there and playable.

Any ideas on that one?

Thanks.