USB disk identification failure

Wessexboy

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Wimborne
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MG4 Trophy LR
Hi, newbee here, 2 months in and my info-tainment system has stopped working with the above error message. Booked into main dealer in 3 weeks time (waiting for courtesy car...) but wondered if this is a common problem / easily fixed? Tried a reset by holding the home button for 10 secs as I saw elsewhere but to no avail.
 
Beyond waiting for the dealer visit the only other thing I can think of is to disconnect the 12V battery for a few minutes and then reconnect to possibly reboot the system. Otherwise ?‍♂️ or it just clears itself randomly.
 
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I've had this happen last week on our Trophy. I think it happened after I'd plugged my phone into the USB C port to see if it would charge from it (I don't think it did). It also knocked out the radio. Still the same over a week later. As I'm away from home and everything else is working fine, I'll leave it. Then, when I'm back home, I'll probably do as @the briggie suggests and disconnect the battery to reboot the car. Just don't fancy trying that 350 miles from home!
 
The message "USB disk identification failure" popped up a couple of weeks ago when loading the display. As some users mentioned earlier, I believe it was something to do with me using USB cable. Not 100% sure though. This is the first time it happened as I've had my MG4 LR Trophy since October 2022.

The radio froze on one station only, although Bluetooth has continued working. I disregarded the issue as I thought I will have my service coming up in June and they will fix it for me.

Yesterday morning woke up and couldn't open the car with the remote key. The 12v battery was dead. Had no indications the battery being low on juice. Drove the car the day before as normal.

I found there is the user of MG5 Facelift reported that this issue has been draining his battery. I'm not an expert, but worth flagging it. U disk identify failure

Solution (edited): Called AA to reboot the 12v battery. When got the car up and running - the "USB disk identification failure" message disappeared. Charged the car for 1h and drove for 1h to make sure the 12v battery charges to full. This morning the battery on the app in rest mode shows 12.5v, which seems to be okay.
 
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I do not understand. The battery going flat was the result of an attached phone that uses android AA? Is that it? Do you leave the phone attached in the car?
 
I do not understand. The battery going flat was the result of an attached phone that uses android AA? Is that it? Do you leave the phone attached in the car?
Hi. Perhaps I confused you with my reply re Solution. Edited it to make more clearer. The USB cable might have triggered the USB failure message in the first place. Just for clarity, no devices were left overnight connected.
 
How old is the USB cable? Perhaps the insulation had a defect where it flexed and two or more wires were shorting making the car think it was a USB drive.
 
How old is the USB cable? Perhaps the insulation had a defect where it flexed and two or more wires were shorting making the car think it was a USB drive.
It is definitely flexed. Perhaps you are correct.
 
My wife's phone causes the USB disk identification failure message to repeatedly pop up and then disappear while it is connected to the usb port. My phone has never caused it using exactly the same cable. No idea why. Also, my 12V battery drained after my radio stopped working. Not sure if that was on a journey when my wife plugged her phone in, but it could well have been as it was during a long trip and she might have been charging her phone.
 
I’ve had exactly the same issue multiple times now. USB identification error and radio stops working then, after not using the car for a few days it’s as dead as a dodo. Both times RAC came out, recharged the 12v battery, cleared all the error codes and it works fine. It’s definitely something to do with using Apple car play via USB lead and a parasitic discharge of the 12v battery. Eventually my local MG dealership checked the car over but said there was no probs with it! They updated the infotainment software to R33 and it had behaved itself for some time since but, after using CarPlay during long journey in the last few days, the radio has suddenly stopped working (15/5/24) and I get the USB error again. I’m just waiting for the battery to die again. Took it to MG today - they couldn’t be any less interested. They told me they had 1 tech in and were fully booked with MGs all needing diagnostics and the customers had all waited “months” so I couldn’t expect to jump the queue. I explained my previous experience and was now expecting it to fail but it made no difference. I asked if the cars in today all had the same issue and she just smirked at me - which I took to be a “yes”. They wouldn’t even reset the car for me and clear the error. Bloody useless and frustrating in equal measure…..

... the above was typed on 16/5/24 after visiting my local MG Dealership, but has only just posted as I've had issues verifying my forum account with gmail.

Today is 27/5/2024 (BH Monday no less) and, as half expected, the MG4 is DEAD again after not using it since early Saturday morning = about 2.5 days. 12v battery is again flat (third time this year......).

Called MG Assist (aka the AA) and explained that the dealership had advised the only way they would look at the car with any urgency whatsoever is if it's taken to them on a low-loader. So I asked for that to be arranged but AA said they wouldn't do that unless the vehicle was inspected first by one of their patrols. I explained my concern that the patrol would just fix the issue (as the RAC had done twice before), likely would reset whatever was causing the parasitic drain and clear the errors, which is what the dealership said the AA shouldn't do. If that happened, I would also be in for a 3-4 month (!!!) wait to get it back into the garage for it to be looked at (again!).

The AA guy rocked up and was really helpful - he confirmed he sees "loads of MG with this issue" - but was also clear "the AA would not tow a car for what is essentially a flat battery" (understandable I guess, but also a catch-22 there...). Interestingly he confirmed that just about every MG he goes to has a software-related issue, rather than mechanical..

He charged the 12v battery and then put the car on charge. Surprise surprise (NOT!) the radio starts working immediately. He didn't clear the error codes though, so I hope this will give me some leverage when I call the Lease company / garage tomorrow. But I know they will have no interest / urgency in looking at it. I'm utterly convinced it's something to do with using Apple Car Play, so I guess I'll just have to avoid using that for the forseeable future. It's just really poor for a car which isn't even 12 months old yet......

If anyone is aware of any fixes / resolutions / tips or tricks for this I'd be very grateful to hear them..... Thanks so much in advance!
 
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Welcome to the forum, sorry about the circumstances!

I happened to meet someone in a car park when we were both connecting to the destination chargers, who had a car identical to mine except it was an SE LR like yours. She also mentioned issues with Apple CarPlay, although they didn't appear to be interfering with her use of the car. Sorry, I'm not being much help here.
 
You aren't the first one here for sure. There must be someone with info about the fix. But I doubt it will help you.
What does surprise me is that the lease companies in the UK don't care at all. They have an obligation to give you a car that works.
 
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... the above was typed on 16/5/24 after visiting my local MG Dealership, but has only just posted as I've had issues verifying my forum account with gmail.

Today is 27/5/2024 (BH Monday no less) and, as half expected, the MG4 is DEAD again after not using it since early Saturday morning = about 2.5 days. 12v battery is again flat (third time this year......).

Called MG Assist (aka the AA) and explained that the dealership had advised the only way they would look at the car with any urgency whatsoever is if it's taken to them on a low-loader. So I asked for that to be arranged but AA said they wouldn't do that unless the vehicle was inspected first by one of their patrols. I explained my concern that the patrol would just fix the issue (as the RAC had done twice before), likely would reset whatever was causing the parasitic drain and clear the errors, which is what the dealership said the AA shouldn't do. If that happened, I would also be in for a 3-4 month (!!!) wait to get it back into the garage for it to be looked at (again!).

The AA guy rocked up and was really helpful - he confirmed he sees "loads of MG with this issue" - but was also clear "the AA would not tow a car for what is essentially a flat battery" (understandable I guess, but also a catch-22 there...). Interestingly he confirmed that just about every MG he goes to has a software-related issue, rather than mechanical..

He charged the 12v battery and then put the car on charge. Surprise surprise (NOT!) the radio starts working immediately. He didn't clear the error codes though, so I hope this will give me some leverage when I call the Lease company / garage tomorrow. But I know they will have no interest / urgency in looking at it. I'm utterly convinced it's something to do with using Apple Car Play, so I guess I'll just have to avoid using that for the forseeable future. It's just really poor for a car which isn't even 12 months old yet......

If anyone is aware of any fixes / resolutions / tips or tricks for this I'd be very grateful to hear them..... Thanks so much in advance!
When you leave your car, you don't leave it plugged in but not charging, do you?
 
If it's popping up a USB disk message when you plug your Android phone in then you've probably got your phone in File transfer (MTP) mode.
It's not Android - it's an iPhone and the issue seems to always happen after using Apple Car play for long journeys......

Also, not sure why that would stop the radio working and eventually the 12V battery to discharge?

When you leave your car, you don't leave it plugged in but not charging, do you?

Nope - I only plug it in when I'm charging - which isn't that often as I only have a fairly short journey to work. I'm convinced it's related to use of Apple CarPlay - consciously not using that should (?!?!) help prove that I guess, till MG finally sort the issue out.
 
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More questions - sorry! I'm hoping the collective experience can help me please?

So it's taken since 27th May till today (10th July) for the car to go into the MG dealership for yet another diagnostic and ironically it's first year service. Six weeks is the quickest they could do - which I guess reflects the number of MG's out there with issues?!?

Today, the staff at the dealership were more contrite / apologetic after I explained that I was getting fed up with having an unreliable car (it's broken down 3 times in its first year) and between the four parties involved (MG UK, MG Assist (aka the AA), the lease company (Tusker) and the dealership (Richmond Southampton), they have all just passed the buck onto one of the others and no one appears willing or able to take responsibility for reaching a solution.

When I collected the car the Service guy explained (as they had previously) taht they'd found "nothing wrong" and that they were limited with their investigations as MG Assist / AA had cleared all the error codes when they last attended (I did ask the AA guy not to, but I'm not sure that's even possible given they are re-setting it to make it work??) They went on to explain that the "USB Disk Identification error" issue was only supposed to occur with "incompatible phones" (and of course an iPhone should be fully compatible) so they couldn't explain why it keeps happening. He also reassured me that mine wasn't an isolated example but it was "relatively rare" issue. I told them I hadn't used the Apple car play since the AA reset it and I hadn't had any issues since, so all things point to the compatibility between the Chinese software, US iPhone and using Apple Carplay. The guy explained that, in their experience, once the USB Disk ID error starts there's nothing a user can do to stop the 'cycle' the software gets into, the radio stops working, followed quickly by failure of the 12v battery due to a parasitic drain. (All the more reason they should have proactively helped when I took it into them two days before it last failed, explaining that it was stuck in that cycle and would fail again). He told me they had done an update and the "USB disk ID failure" was in the list of the 30+ fixes the software upgrade is supposed to fix so he was hopeful it would not reoccur.

However, after I left, I felt the guy was choosing his words pretty carefully. I had taken a photo of the software versions before it went in this morning and checked them afterwards and they appear to be exactly the same........

Now I would have thought any update would show a new version number? And given the careful use of words this got me thinking....

mg1.jpg
mg2.jpg


If I was cynical, the way he said they'd "done the update" could have been referring to update after the second diagnostic back in March? At the time, they couldn't tell me for definite whether that would fix it (and it didn't, obviously) but they may now have looked at the fix list and that issue is listed. So despite giving me the impression they'd done an update today, could they be referring to the fixes in the previous update and in effect have done nothing? If that's the case, the problem will undoubtedly reoccur if I use Carplay! His last comment as I was leaving about "just keeping an eye on it" would now make sense.

However, giving the guy the benefit of the doubt, is it possible for smaller patches / upgrades to be applied which don't show as a new software version?

Does anyone have any experience of the update process, whether this always changes the software version number or even if there's a publicly accessible record as to what each update is supposed to fix?

Thanks as always for any assistance anyone can offer. Much appreciated in advance.
 
Some more details of the firmware versions are found in the hidden menu. Whatever happens with the car, I would suggest you copy these versions asap. So, if you need to get another update it may show a difference. I admit it is 'may'. Some system updates simply are not shown as I found out myself... Btw, your SE has the latest infotainment version (R33).
 
There are indeed lower level patches that can be applied to fix things. My understanding from my dealer is that MG UK only open those up when all the normal updates have been tried first. Then there's a special patch server they can access.
 
Hi, newbee here, 2 months in and my info-tainment system has stopped working with the above error message. Booked into main dealer in 3 weeks time (waiting for courtesy car...) but wondered if this is a common problem / easily fixed? Tried a reset by holding the home button for 10 secs as I saw elsewhere but to no avail.
I had exactly the same issue. The only thing that fixed it after disconnecting 12v battery and holding home button for 10 seconds, was to go into settings menu and ‘reset to factory settings’ this has fixed the issue.
 

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