Darel

Trying to figure out a convenient way to listen to all my music on my '14 W212, since it offers so many options, but I'm struggling here.

So I tried storing my CDs on the Music Library. This works. It's pretty convenient. The system locks up a lot when scrolling through and/or selecting albums. It sucks trying to load a bunch of CDs because each one takes about 15 minutes or more to load. I got through about 10 CDs and decided I needed to move on with my life. This is a pain unless I feel like dedicating an entire day to it. Also, can't get music off of my phone onto the HDD.

Speaking of, using BT Audio off my phone. This is also just a pain. I already have two screens in the car. I don't need to be constantly interacting with a third. Especially given the implications of constantly messing with my phone while driving. Also can't download from the phone to HDD.

Bought an SD card, converted about 25 CDs to MP3 and loaded them on the SD. Also downloaded all my music from my phone to the SD card. This works, but terribly. First off, every time I start the car, whether I left the SD card installed in the slot or not, the radio has to go through "Reading Memory Card". Every time it does this it takes 10-15 minutes or more, and if I haven't already arrived at my destination before it loads, it just comes up with a list of 288 songs, not organized into albums, not searchable, nothing. About half the time it locks up and the radio (COMAND screen) will automatically power down and restart while driving. So, this is useless, at least to me. So then, when I try to search, it says it needs to load the data for the card. Select "OK", and loading data takes at least 15-20 minutes. So, by now I'm 20-35 minutes into my drive before I can even listen to any music, and that's on the rare occasion the "data load" actually works. Probably 70% of the time the COMAND screen locks up hard and restarts. When it does work it's great. I can select by cover, select by folder, everything. If it could just "remember" the card after it successfully loads it, as long as it stays in the SD slot, it would be fantastic. But once I do get it "data loaded", when I shut the car off, even if I left the card in, it forgets everything and I need to go through the whole 20-to-30-minute process every time I restart the car.

This would be fine, then, if I could just download from the SD card (all's I'd need to do is get it to load ONCE) to the HDD but that's not even an option.

So finally, I ask, what are you guys doing? This is kinda infuriating. I don't have hours and hours to sit outside in the car loading CDs, and even then, I can't get the music off my phone. So then I could load the music off my phone onto my laptop, and burn CDs, and load them, but now that's even MORE time wasted.

I absolutely do not want to be playing music off my phone. No way, no how. Don't want to be playing with it while driving, don't even want it sitting out in the cupholder.

I haven't bothered with the USB storage option because I'm just assuming it operates the same way as the SD card.

What are you guys doing?

Darel

raja777m

I play via bluetooth from my phone,
I feel you are exaggerating about the screens, I don't need to see my phone for music for that long. I'm not that selective, I just play the shuffle.
If you want selective music, use voice control.

Darel

Yeah, I'm a flipper. Hate working off the phone. Don't even like having it around.

raja777m

try a thumbdrive and see if it helps.
There should be a USB port in the center console.

cetialpha5

I'm just using spotify and playing from various playlists. Haven't bought CDs in a while. I just stream from my phone although I should probably use one of those cables, but I couldn't get it to work on an ipod touch that I had. If I get bored, I use Sirius. There's a free 2 month trial for all new users and after that you can sign up by calling them and getting the $25 for 5 month deal that they always have going on. Just have to remember to call and renew it when it expires or it ends up going to $20/month. Been doing that for the last 2 years.

Darel

Yeah I've already got the XM subscription.

Oddly enough the SD card kinda behaved itself today. When I got in, having left the card in overnight, it did remember where it was from the night before and I didn't have to re-download the data like I had previously. This was a new development and a good one.

I had a 4-hour turnpike drive today to really exercise it. It's weird but it seems like the more you use something with this system, it kind of "learns". Trying to use navigation and SD card at the same time was almost a no-go. The COMAND system locked up, shut itself down, and restarted so many times while trying to start up route guidance and play off the memory card at the same time that I lost count. But, it seemed to get itself just a little bit further each time, and once I got route guidance going it behaved rather well. I ran through every disc stored on the card, searched through the folders and especially the "search by cover" option, which my COMAND seems to be the MOST ornery with and locks up on quite a bit. It really seems to behave better with exercise. I dunno. I'll monitor it and in the meantime try out the USB stick as well as maybe copying all these MP3s to a DVD-ROM and seeing if I can just get them to dump onto the HDD. I'm hoping the load times will be much faster since MP3s are way smaller than the CDAs that I had previously loaded off of regular store-bought, or burned, CDs.

We'll see. Does anyone know if you can record to the HDD off of USB? Or is that ONLY from a disc?

Thanks,
D

thefisch

There is an older thread where members talk about indexing music on memory cards in order to get the most out of the system. You might find that enlightening if you find it via search. I personally use BT streaming with my smartphone and an old iphone I have connected to the media interface cable. The iphone works pretty well when it is connected via cable. The indexing does take a moment at first, but all the metadata is there for indexing, finding artists, songs, etc. and I think it may even work with playlists. And it doubles as an emergency backup phone for 911 even without active service.

I hate working off the phone also especially with a screen lock. But the skip ahead/back arrow buttons should work over BT so your phone can skip ahead or back as you desire. That makes it a little more workable for me.

HDD only copies from disc changer I believe. I gave up on that way pretty early too.

NSKPhila

HDD will not allow MP3 files to be loaded, only files from a CD - had to do with the digital rights.
I use a solid state SSD drive connected to the USB port.. never have a problem or shutdowns.
I have some files on a chip, folders with contents... let it shuffle - again.. no problems
have you loaded all your songs into one folder or have you broken them up?

Tump43

Yeah, that's the best idea. I'm sort of old fashioned and have hundreds of CD's so, I loaded them all into iTunes on my computer (using the Apple lossless format) then loaded them onto an old 160gb iPod that I keep permanently hooked up in the car via the lightning cable in the center console. Works great. Comand will search by cover, artist, title, playlist, shuffle and displays the album cover when the song is playing, but only if the pic is in the iPod. Every once in awhile I have to reboot the iPod, but that's it,

Darel

I tried it both ways. I seemed to have fewer problems when i had all the tracks listed individually and just let the database sort them out. When it was broken out into folders by album it acted as though a lot of them were corrupted and didn't want to find them.

I do have an old iPhone from work laying around, although I've always been an Android man myself.

New development though, took the fam out for pizza tonight and never used the SD card. However, while on XM, which I have never previously had any issue with of any kind, three times the COMAND unit randomly shut itself down and rebooted. Ugh.

I had already planned on taking it in for a couple little warranty things tomorrow, so I'll just tell them the COMAND unit is locking and restarting and leave it at that and let them investigate. Maybe I'll wind up with a 2017 data update on the house if they can't find any other solutions.

D

apg231

I actually use all the music storage options in my car. First I have a standard Sirius Sat Radio subscription, I have 6 classical music CD's in the CD changer, on my SD card, I have what I call "Driving Tunes" which is a compilation of my 50 favorite driving songs. On the HDD I have certain CD's loaded that make sense to play from track 1-15 in order (Queensryche - Operation Mindcrime, Pink Floyd - The Wall etc.) I have an iPod shuffle connected to the media interface cable which has my entire iTunes library for when I don't care what I listen to and just hit "shuffle" and lastly I have my iPhone, my wife's iPhone, my son's iPhone and my daughter's iPhone all stored in the Bluetooth settings so when they are in the car, we can pick who's playlist to listen to. I use the USB port as a way to charge my second (work) cell phone. I drive about 4 hours a day to and from work and this gives me the best flexibility of music choices.

Darel

Do you have any issues with any method? Any locking up or anything?

apg231

Nope, not one issue. Everything is seamless with the exception of when I select a CD that is in the changer. It takes about 3-5 seconds to load which I find normal.

pliukait

I've got something like 1800 songs on a single 32GB SD Card, playing them sequentially or randomly. Either way, I haven't listened to radio of anything else.

Sequentially, it takes months to go through them all. By the time it cycles through to the beginning I've forgotten what the first song was.

Darel

Yeah anymore my COMAND system just completely loses its' mind just having the SD card in the slot. Even with it just in the slot and I'm playing the radio or something, it randomly locks up and restarts while driving. Prior to using the SD slot it did occasionally lock up, especially when doing "Search by Cover" and if I turned the COMAND knob too quickly (God forbid). But, since I loaded the SD card it's been practically unusable. I'm actually glad to hear this is NOT normal.

I'm at about 49,000 miles so I made an appointment to get a few items looked at before I transition from factory warranty to CPO (seat cover, peeling trim) so I just threw that into the mix. It sounds like my car is not behaving normally at all so I'll let someone else deal with it.

Darel

What about MP3 files burned to a CD and uploaded that way?

NSKPhila

no, won't let you load mp3 to the hard drive.. only audio files from a CD (MB way of verifying that you are the owner of the music, since you bought the CD)

thefisch

If you create an audio CD for playing in any CD player (not just a CD storing mp3 files), then you can load that onto the hard drive.

Scott.lewis7

I have a 64 GB USB drive with all of my music on it. I have that plugged into the center console port and have access to everything. Not all older music files have the cover clip art and when I changed the names from "The Doors" to "Doors" on the thumb drive the system still recognized it as "The Doors" but other than that this is an easy way to store and update everything. I leave the thumb drive in all the time. If you take it out and add music the system will take a little while to refresh everything when you put it back in.

wessam sheta

Hi Scott
i just want to ask u about somethings happened with me in my usb stick
first of all I drove before B200 2013 and the usb worked perfectly, every thing was ok
i know driving cla180 2018 and I face some problems in my usb
it's the same usb I used before, sandisk 32 gb carrying about 3000 songs in folders and sub folders, it's now keep restart from 1st song again and again when I left the car in night
other thing about the random track list, it makes the shuffle for all the songs in the usb
so I just want to ask is that normal or not
and if the problem in usb or in system itself and if suppose to make special setup in the usb for the songs in it
i format it to fat32 with 320 kilobytes

so pls pls help me here

Darel

OK, update. Had the car in last week for some cosmetic stuff and the COMAND locking and running slow. They did find a fault in the COMAND unit ("server login"fault?) which cleared after they re-loaded the unit with the most recent version of the COMAND software. The system is better but still BAD. The unit is no longer locking up on me. However, each time I start the car and try to play music off the SD card, I STILL have to wait 10-15 minutes while it is "loading music storage", then when it does finally load (if I haven't already reached my destination) it's not in file format, meaning it's just a list of 250 songs, not organized into albums. So if I then go to "Search" and either "Search by Folder" or "Select by Cover" it takes ANOTHER 10-15 minutes to organize itself into albums. So, it's better in that I can do such previously-unheard of things as use the navigation, and listen to music, it's still not right.

Given that an SD card only costs $15 I figure I'll try a new SD card. Maybe something's up with this one. Also may try a USB stick and seeing if that's any different.

Also, when you guys load your music onto your storage device in MP3 format, are you just throwing all the songs on the device and letting the Gracenote database on the car sort them out, or are you organizing them into folders first, before you put it in the car? I recall in the above discussion there were guys who tried both ways. I tried both and the system was completely not having it when I had it in folders. At least when I have it in a single list the Gracenote database figures it out...it just takes FOR.EV.ER. And it has to redo it every time I start the car, regardless of if the SD card was left in the slot or not. It wouldn't be bad if I just had to power through letting it load one time for 45 minutes or so, but it's every time I shut the car off.

Thoughts?

BMerc1

I tried finding an external HD 350GB but the one I found connected ok though the data could not be read by COMAND. I then tried a USB thumb drive and it worked fine though I could only use the 64gb one. My dilemma is the amount of music files that I have - over 300gb and counting. I have always liked the classic iPod with 160GB of storage space but I have since accumulated more music and can't fit it all on this iPod. So I went and picked me up an SD card 250gb and it worked wonderfully. I know I can't fit all my music on it but I can split it between the iPod and the SD card. This was my solution and couldn't be any happier!

Darel

OK, so I got a USB and loaded the music on it and it works pretty well. But, then I lose my cellphone charging port.

So I have an old IPhone 4S which I don't mind donating to the music storage cause and just making it a permanent part of the car. A couple of you above have mentioned you did this. How did you load the music on the old iPhone? Can I just drag-and-drop from my laptop to the phone the way I did with the USB and the SD Card? Do I need to somehow load it onto that ITunes thing, which I don't think will really work since the phone is deactivated? Is there a certain program on the phone I use to run the music, or will the COMAND unit automatically "search through" the phone and find the MP3s?

Thanks,
Darel

apg231

On an iPhone you need iTunes to load music onto it. It doesn’t matter if the phone is deactivated, you are not making calls or accessing the internet, you are using it solely as a music player. The only hiccup I see is the connection to the car. The standard MB interface cable is the old style Apple 30 pin connector. You can get adapters or a MB media interface cable with a lightning cable end on it (to work with your 4s.) I currently have an old iPod Nano hooked via the MB 30 pin connector and it reads the music off it without running any program.

Darel

Actually my old iPhone has the 30-pin connector that the car has. So how do I get the music into iTunes? When I connect the USB to my laptop it just comes up "Apple iPhone".