trying to play music using a 64 g Thumb drive is a nightmare

[johnskisalot]

My 2018 Audi would allow me to go up to a top level Folder and view all of my music on my thumb drive.
On my new Volvo it just shows a ton of confusing stuff and i cannot figure out how to view the folders. It is so annoying. btw...I tried several things from the menu options...Albums/Songs/genre and still a complete nightmare
For example I will have a folder called "The Clash" and in that folder are subfolders with several different albums "London Calling"/Sandinista"/Combat Rock"
I may have to just setup the thumb drive differently.
If anyone has a suggestion I would appreciate it......

Much apreciated.

[met24]

Sensus ignores all of the folder structure on the USB stick, and just works on the tags in the MP3 files (or whatever else you have on there).

It will read playlist files (m3u if I remember correctly) but I haven't worked with them for decades.

My 3 series (E90 LCI with iDrive) was brilliant when it came to controlling an iPod (although the standardised car-to-iPod interface (not CarPlay) didn't support Album Artist and I don't think Apple ever updated it to do so, but that's another story) ... in comparison, not having a spinny wheel or even A-Z shortcuts on Sensus makes scrolling through a long list a bit painful and distracting.

So I tend to listen to the radio instead, and if it's going to be a long drive I may plug the iPhone in and use CarPlay. And mutter quietly under my breath when Sensus then decides to go back to FM instead of DAB ... some of the time.

[Steve XC60]

There are a few threads on this which you might find useful - or frustrating - depending on your outlook.
Try this one for a starter:
https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=243921

Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a straightforward answer to this one and the best you can probably hope for is to find the workaround that works best for you.

The Gracenote indexing is part of the problem... it thinks it knows best and, more often than not, it doesn't and there is no way to deactivate it.

[daverey]

Similar frustrations here I'm afraid. I always listen to music via a USB drive. A couple of tricks that I've found make it bearable....

i) If you have several albums by an artist and want to shuffle between all songs, then I don't think you can do this via the screen as it forces you to choose an album. However, if you use voice control and say "play The Clash" it will then pool all songs with the Clash as the artist and play through them. Getting the car to understand my accent is another matter though..... This could easily be fixed by an "all albums" option on the screen when you select an artist, but this hasn't been implemented.....

ii) Compilation albums are also a pain. The way round this is to create playlists for each one. In the link elsewhere in this thread there is a freeware m3u playlist maker. If you download this you can create the playlists that the car will read. if you don't do this then I recall Sensus reads each track by a different artist in the compilation as a separate album....

iii) Be careful though - I think there's a limit of something like 100 playlists, so if you've got a lot of compilations you might hit this and it won't read some of them

[Clan]

From the owner's manual ...

Technical specifications for USB
devices
The following specifications must be met to
allow the contents of the USB devices to be
read.
No folder structure will be shown in the centre
display during playback.
Max number
Files 15 000
Folders 1 000
Folder levels 8
Playlists 100
Items in a playlist 1 000
Subfolders No limit
Technical specification for USB A
connector
• Type A socket
• Version 2.0
• Voltage supply 5 V
• Current supply max. 2.1 A
Related information
• Media via USB port (p. 517

[BroadwayBlueshirt]

There is a simple fix.

Create each album as a 'playlist'

See Here https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showt...=243921&page=5