Today, I was told something by the dealer that I thought I would run past the experts. While my MY11 S class was in for an A service I asked the SM to check the Gracenote database because it rarely recognizes any of my CD collection. I assumed that there had to be some glitch or a corrupt database. These same CD's, with few exceptions, are identified just fine in my MY10 E class.

I was told that of course my MY10 E class will recognize more CDs. Even though my E class is a year older, it is using a later version of the Gracenote software. While the S may be a year newer, because the W221 was deployed before the W212 the software used for Gracenote is 3 years older than that in my E class. As a consequence, both older and newer CDs may not be recognized as well in the S class. I will say that the S only recognizes about 1 in 20 of my collection. I asked specifically if there was a patch or update and was told that the Gracenote software is not maintained like other software systems on the car. There simply is no upgrade to improve the CD recognition. I thought that this sounded strange. Is there really no update available? Can anyone confirm this?

It is not a big deal as I rarely use CD's anymore. In fact, I have not even touched the music register. i am pretty much iPod exclusive in both cars. Just curious if anyone else has a similar experience or if somone knows differently. I have a pretty broad CD collection so I don't think it has any relation to the genre of music I listen too. Everything from Pink Floyd to Vivaldi. A few are recent CD's and some that are going on 30 years old and everthing in between.

Thanks for the input.

 

I know it will only recognize commercially produced CDs. Each commercial CD has an embedded code that Gracenote uses to identify the CD, and then it can populate the title song and artist info. The code isn't present on home made CDs.

I just uploaded the entire Beatles library onto the Register and Gracenote picked them all up. I'm guessing you already ripped the CDs to the Ipod and the title/artist info comes across there, right?

 

Nope, I am only referring to commercially produced CDs. I would expect home ripped CDs to not work but these are store bought. I will try my Beatles library. Wife bought me the Remastered set a few years ago. I will see what my experience with those are.

 

That's the same box set I ripped to the Register, so that would be a good test. There are a couple of special compilation discs in that set that it didn't get, but everything else came over.

 

So I finally got around to testing a couple of the CD's from that Beatles boxed set. No album or song titles listed so Gracenote did not recognize the CD. I think that the software and/or the database is hosed on my car. Aparently the dealer is not interested in fixing this issue. Like I said before, not a huge deal since I use the iPod for most all of the music on this car. It's just an annoyance.

 

Per MB the Gracenote update is included on the latest Navi map update, so getting that done should give you the new Gracenote data as well.

http://www.manualslib.com/manual/527751/Mercedes-Benz-Comand.html?page=145

 

So here is the the question. Since I bought the car as a CPO in Nov. 2014, should the Navi and therfore the Gracenote database be the latest edition at that time? Or, is that not part of the CPO package.

 

It used to be, but I had the same question on my 2010 CPO and they said no. I updated myself since we were planning a trip and I wanted accurate maps.

 

My car recognizes pretty much anything you insert into the drive, both commercial and non-commercial CDs and DVDs.

 

Gracenote relies on a database of a song's unique audio fingerprint, so as long as it has catalogued the track it should come over. Based on that it should pick up ripped tracks as well but mine didn't.

 

My 2007 does not have Gracenote or music register. Any idea if either of these can be added with a software update?

 

I think with the 2010 facelift MB went from a DVD based navi unit to an internal hard disc drive, and they went with a big enough drive to store the navi info with room to spare for music files. Gracenote goes hand in hand with the HDD so without a hard drive in COMAND I don't think there's a retrofit. I wonder if you grabbed a used 2010 + COMAND as a salvage piece if it couldn't be coded to your car. Then you'd get the HDD, Gracenote and the Media Interface (which can be adapted to BT audio.