[9secvmax]

I searched and cannot find the answers to the questions. I finally received my 2020 SP WB Challenger. It has the UC 8.4 with the Alpine. My question is direct. The 2020 UC will not properly read raw wav files. It does not sort them. Folder structure is non existant.

In my 2019 Ram Laramie (HK system thats sound like sh!t), I have a 128GB SD card formated eXFat with all wavs in a folders. Works perfectly. I tried in the 2020 SP. Files eventually show up but no structure, no folders, no order. Same problem that I had with a 2019 Wrangler with the Alpine upgrade, 7" uConnect.

Im asking, what audio format does the 2020 want to see LOSSLESS? Just tried FLAC on a 16GB USB formatted exFat. Wont even read it.

What LOSSLESS audio codec format?

What data disc drive format? exFat, Fat, Fat16, NTFS?

Thank you!

 

[jtrosky]

Strange - my 2018 GT with the 8.4" Alpine system seems to read .wav and .flac just fine. It even shows album art for .flac. I'm not 100% sure about the .wav sorting, but I'm pretty sure they sort and show dirs just fine as well (I'll check to make sure).

Do you have the nav unit or the non-nav unit? I think they are manufactured by different companies, so maybe that is the difference? I have the non-Nav unit.

I use a 128gb USB thumb drive, which I think is formatted to FAT32, but I'll check (it may be eXFAT). Will be back in touch shortly.

 

[9secvmax]

Im using a 128GB SD card formatted NTFS. Its working now. BUT, I put 2GB more of music on it and the UC8.4 NAV does not recognize the new music. It was at about 64GB. This additional data may have put it over the limit of what the UC can read. This is why its imperative to know what the actual USB spec or requirements are. I remember doing this with my 2016 SRT 392. I think the UC stopped reading at 64GB. You can put a 128GB. However, it will only see 64GB. Im wondering if I reformate the media to exFat.

Thanks for any help!

 

[jtrosky]

Mine definitely reads over 64gb - my 128gb is almost 100% full and I see everything. Let me go check the format right now - be right back....

EDIT: Ok, it's formatted NTFS. Sorry about that - I thought it was FAT32.

I'm using a SanDisk 128gb USB 3.0 thumb drive ("Cruzer", I think) - it's one of those little stubby ones.

When you say you are using an SD card, I'm assuming you are using a little USB reader? Or do the 2020's also have an SD card slot?

Also, I'm pretty sure I tried a 256gb SD card (with a mini USB SD reader) and it worked fine as well. I'll have to find that SD card and confirm, but I'm almost positive it worked fine.

 

[9secvmax]

USB SD card reader. I have all wav files. Nothing is compressed.

 

[jtrosky]

USB SD card reader. I have all wav files. Nothing is compressed.

I can't confirm if there is some sort of limit on the number of .wav files because I only have a few (pink noise, polarity blips and stuff like that). Most of my files are 320k .mp3 or .flac files.

Looks like I have a total of about 9500 files on the 128gb USB thumb drive.

 

[9secvmax]

Thats probably why it works. I work with lossless only. Im going to order a 128gb usb 3.1. Ill try this again.

Just wondering if anyone else has had this issue with WAV files?

 

[jtrosky]

Not sure why it would care if the files were lossless or not though - that shouldn't change the way it indexes and displays the files. Flac files are loseless as well (compressed, but lossless). I have about 1700 .flac files.

How many .wav files are on the drive? Just trying to see if I can come up with a way to test it (can make many copies of a single wav file with different names, for example).

 

[9secvmax]

1240 files I think...

 

[jtrosky]

1240 files I think...

OK, let me see what I can do.

 

[9secvmax]

I just checked again. 1406. I called my dealer. Talked to my sales guy. This is the 5th vehicle I bought from him. He's going to make a few calls...

 

[jtrosky]

I'm copying my 2000 .wav files to a SD card now.... Will know soon enough.

 

[A Guy]

This is a couple of years old, and I know you guys are able to use larger sizes, but officially only up to 32GB is/was supported

https://www.driveuconnect.com/content/dam/uconnect/system/2017/pdf/8.4-RA3.pdf

I know some people have had success formatting the larger drives to Fat32 using a program like

SD Memory Card Formatter | SD Association

www.sdcard.org

A Guy

 

[jtrosky]

Sorry for the delayed response. I went downstairs while waiting for the 2000 .wav files to copy to my SD card and I fell asleep. Didn't get back to this until just a short while ago.

So I took a 1khz Sine Wave .wav file and made 2000 copies of it (WavFile0.wav - WavFile2000.wav).

Initially, I coped them to a 64gb Samsung EVO MicroSD card (which already had some other .mp3 files on it) and when I put the MicroSD card into the cars console USB port (via a SanDisk USB SD card reader), it wouldn't even recognize it all for some reason. DIdn't even try to read it. Not sure why yet (haven't investigated that issue any further). It's formatted NTFS just like my other cards, which work fine.

So then I found my SanDisk Ultra 200GB MicroSD card (also formatted NTFS), which already had over 100gb of other music files on it - and copied all of the .wav files to their own directory on that MicroSD card. I put that in the cars USB port and it recognized it right away (using the same USB SD card reader) and sure enough after a little time to read/index it, I could see and play all of the .wav files. Since they were just test tone files, they were just listed as "Unknown" when looking for them via Artist, etc.

So anyway, my 2018 GT with the 8.4 non-Nav headunit can definitely see up to at least a 200gb USB drive (MicroSD card via USB card reader) - and can definitely read at least up to 136gb of data, including .wav files (with 2000 .wav files in a single folder - it could see and play any of them).

I'll have to do a little more research to see why that one 64gb MicroSD card isn't working even though it's formatted as NTFS (and works fine in other devices) - might just need to reformat it or something.

 

[jtrosky]

So after a little more research, I'm now more confused than ever...

First off - I misstated something. When my 200gb SanDIsk MicroSD card worked, it was formatted as FAT32 (not NTFS like I originally thought and stated earlier).

So far (I still have more testing to do), it seems like actual USB thumb drives work when formatted as NTFS. What is really strange is that when you use a NTFS-formatted MicroSD card via a USB SD card reader, then NTFS doesn't work at all! I've tried both a 64gb and a 200gb MicroSD card and neither would would even be recognized in the car when used with a USB SD card reader (tried two different SD card readers as well). exFAT doesn't seem to work that way either - only FAT32 when using an SD Card with a USB SD card reader....

I want to do a little more testing with some smaller SD cards and maybe even a third USB SD card reader, but so far, it seems like you must use FAT32 when using MicroSD cards with a USB SD card reader....

So far, this is what I've found:

64gb MicroSD, NTFS - NOT recognized
64db MicroSD, exFAT - NOT recognized

200gb MicroSD, NTFS - NOT recognized
200gb MicroSD, FAT32 - IS recognized

128gb USB 3.0 thumb drive, NTFS - IS recognized


Like I said, I'll do some more testing with different size USB thumb drives (and with different formats) as well as some more sizes of MicroSD cards and even another USB SD card reader (the one I was testing with was a multiple-card reader, so I want to test with another basic MicroSD-only card reader).

What a PITA. Going forward, I think I'm going to forget about using MicroSD cards with USB SD card readers and just stick with actual USB thumb drives in the car. The stubby ones are super small and work perfectly (with any format, I believe - but will confirm).

 

[BOX]

It was only Windows 2000 that didn't support FAT32 partitions larger than 32Gb. FAT32 supports up to 2Tb native. It is recommended that you always use FAT32 for those USB devices smaller than 2Tb. Drives larger than 2Tb will see issues if you try to only use 1 partition.

 

[jtrosky]

FAT32 has other limitations too though. For example, I know they have a 4gb filesize limit, which may or may not be a problem for audio files (it was a problem in my other car where I also could play video files and had headrest monitors). I think that there are also limitations with the number of files in a directory and things like that. Again, may or may not be an issue (depending on how you store your music), but I'd rather use NTFS and avoid the potential issues completely.

Not to mention that you also need a "special" app to format devices over 32gb with FAT32 (the Windows format tool will only give you the option of exFAT or NTFS for drives over 32gb). Again, not the end of the world, but can be a pain in certain situations.

Personally, I'm just going to use NTFS-formatted USB drives instead of using SD cards with a USB SD reader, but I'm still curious as to which formats/devices are supported with Uconnect and which aren't. So far, all formats seem to work with USB drives, but only FAT32 seems to work with MicroSD cards in a USB SD card reader....

I thought it was kind of strange how NTFS doesn't work with SD cards/USB SD reader, but works perfectly with USB drives.

 

[jtrosky]

Just wanted to post a follow-up to this thread. I filled up my 128GB USB thumb drive as I started to add a lot of FLAC files (much bigger than MP3's), so I bought a SanDisk 256GB thumb drive and sure enough, it works fine in my 2018 Challenger. I only tested it with FAT32 at this point though (it comes formatted as FAT32 and I copied a bunch of stuff to it before I thought to reformat and test it with NTFS - don't feel like having to recopy all of that music just to test NTFS right now).

Like I mentioned earlier, for whatever reason, actual USB thumb drives seem to behave differently than MicroSD cards using a USB reader. All actual USB thumb drives seem to work, regardless of format (FAT32 or NTFS) whereas MicroSD cards using a MicroSD card reader don't always work, depending on size/format. So I'm just going to stick with actual USB thumb drives.

I got this SanDisk 256GB "stubby" thumb drive for $33 on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07857Y17V/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Hard to beat it for $33....

Here are the results of my previous testing, including this new 256GB thumb drive, for what it's worth:

8gb MicroSD, FAT32 - NOT recognized with Sandisk USB reader - Works with Targus and generic USB reader


64gb MicroSD, NTFS - NOT recognized with any reader
64db MicroSD, exFAT - NOT recognized with any reader
64gb MicroSD, FAT32 - IS recognized

128gb MicroSD, NTFS - NOT recognized with any reader
128gb MicroSD, exFAT - Not yet tested
128gb MicroSD, FAT32 - NOT recognized with Sandisk reader - Works with other readers


200gb MicroSD, NTFS - NOT recognized with any reader
200gb MicroSD, exFAT - NOT recognized with any reader
200gb MicroSD, FAT32 - IS recognized

SanDisk 128gb USB 3.0 "stubby" thumb drive, NTFS - IS recognized
SanDisk 128gb USB 3.0 "stubby" thumb drive, FAT32 - IS recognized

SanDisk 256gb USB 3.1 "stubby" thumb drive, NTFS - Not yet tested
SanDisk 256gb USB 3.1 "stubby" thumb drive, FAT32 - IS recognized

Hope this info is useful for someone....

 

[08blackrt]

I had all kinds of odd stuff going on with both a 64 and 128 gig USB drives when I tried them in my car. Zero issues with 32 and below. Well, other than the every so often thing where it can't read the card, and you have to shut the stereo off and turn it back on to fix it. Every '18 and up FCA product I've been in does that, as do many other makes.

 

[jtrosky]

I had all kinds of odd stuff going on with both a 64 and 128 gig USB drives when I tried them in my car. Zero issues with 32 and below. Well, other than the every so often thing where it can't read the card, and you have to shut the stereo off and turn it back on to fix it. Every '18 and up FCA product I've been in does that, as do many other makes.

That's interesting. I honestly haven't had any issues whatsoever with my 2018 GT 8.4" head-unit when using actual USB thumb drives (MicroSD cards in a USB reader is a different story)! I was using the 128gb USB thumb drive for quite some time before recently upgrading to the 256gb thumb drive because I ran out of space on the 128gb drive - and I seriously haven't had any issues whatsoever - and I use the head-unit and USB drive constantly. NEVER have issues where it can't read the thumb drives (or any other issues for that matter).

You are using actual thumb drives and not an SD card in a USB SD card reader?

Both of my thumb drives are SanDisk "stubby" thumb drives. One (the 128gb drive) is formatted with NTFS and the newew one is formatted with FAT32 (will eventually try it with NTFS as well).

Also - I have the non-nav 8.4 head-unit. My understanding is that different manufacturers makes the nav and non-nav units, so maybe that plays a part in the overall stability/functionality? Do you have an 8.4 nav or non-nav head-unit?

I have been thoroughly impressed with the 8.4 unit in my 2018 GT. Definitely the best OEM head-unit I've ever used - by FAR.