USB Music

[derek31a]

I love my music, but the USB option is useless. I have about a dozen albums on the stick and when I plug it in, all the music is downloaded into the infotainment system and rearranged into alphabetical order, regardless of what album it comes from. If I want to hear a particular album with the tracks in the correct order, I can't. I also have to select which album I want to hear every time I turn the car on, the system remembers the track that was playing, but not the album. When I had a ZS EV all this worked so why not on the (23 plate) MG4? for a music lover this is not good enough, and I can't find a solution. ~Can anyone help please?

 

[Rolfe]

This has come up on other threads. I think the facility is there in the Trophy, but hard to find. Something about a "Play All" option hidden away somewhere.

As far as I remember, @Lillemy had this problem but managed to figure it out.

 

[Lillemy]

It is crap. You can select folder view in newer infotainment versions, but it resets every time you leave the car.
Also if you have many folders on the usb stick it fails to show folder view.

Surprising that it is worse than my old 2011 ford focus which played music folders perfectly from the usb stick....

 

[Rolfe]

Be glad you have it at all! The SE didn't until R33, which I don't yet have.

 

[derek31a]

It is crap. You can select folder view in newer infotainment versions, but it resets every time you leave the car.
Also if you have many folders on the usb stick it fails to show folder view.

Surprising that it is worse than my old 2011 ford focus which played music folders perfectly from the usb stick....

.....and yet it worked perfectly in my ZS, so MG can do it! I can see all the folders but when you select a folder all the tracks get shuffled into alphabetical order and as you say, when you leave and return to the car it's back to square one.
COME ON MG, SORT IT OUT.

Be glad you have it at all! The SE didn't until R33, which I don't yet have.

With an alphabetical playback encompassing all the albums on the stick, I might just as well just listen to the radio. Utter garbage.

 

[paulus]

I found (Trophy R46) that you can select folder, and it will play the songs in that folder in the correct sequence. However:
1, on resuming the track after power off it continues the track but not the folder, so advances to the next track alphabetically!!
2. on numerous seemingly unrelated system changes eg lights coming on (even when driving through a short tunnel) it also forgets which folder it is in and moves onto the next alphabetic track!!

I am VERY interested to know whether this is fixed in R59. Can anyone confirm??

 

[Rolfe]

With an alphabetical playback encompassing all the albums on the stick, I might just as well just listen to the radio. Utter garbage.

I actually renamed several hundred tracks into the right order.

I found (Trophy R46) that you can select folder, and it will play the songs in that folder in the correct sequence. However:
1, on resuming the track after power off it continues the track but not the folder, so advances to the next track alphabetically!!
2. on numerous seemingly unrelated system changes eg lights coming on (even when driving through a short tunnel) it also forgets which folder it is in and moves onto the next alphabetic track!!

I am VERY interested to know whether this is fixed in R59. Can anyone confirm??

Hmmm. I hope the SE R33 doesn't do that or hello, square one. As it is it very occasionally loses its place and goes back to the first track on the stick, but that's been only a handful of times in a year.

That USB CD player plan is beginning to look a bit tempting.

 

[hharzel]

You can select folder view in newer infotainment versions, but it resets every time you leave the car.

Another NCrAP requirement for their 5-star rating?

 

[Grriff]

I'm afraid the best solution is to use Carplay or Android Auto with a music player of your choice.

 

[Rolfe]

Let's not go round all that again.

 

[derek31a]

I actually renamed several hundred tracks into the right order.

Nice, if you have the time!

Sadly, judging by all the replies there is no solution, just a failure from MG. I just hope someone at MG reads this forum and that future software updates fixes this and some of the other problems raised.
Over to you, MG.

 

[QLeo]

I'm afraid the best solution is to use Carplay or Android Auto with a music player of your choice.

I know folk don't like this response, but our music collection is running to around 9000 tracks in opus format. It would be an impressive car-based music player that could handle that in any sane way as it can be pretty unwieldy. So for us, it's acceptable to have lower expectations of the car's own ability. BUT we use vlc from the f-droid repository on our android phones. Then we simply press the button on the steering wheel and say "Play album <ALBUM>" or "Play <ARTIST>". And A Voice says "Asking vlc to play <REQUESTED_MUSIC>" and it starts.
Now the question is, as vlc is Free and Open Source software, could they not have integrated it or something similar into the car?
The biggest problem we have is trying to remember the music we have, so we spend minutes debating what we want to listen to. I don't think a software upgrade can help with that. The other day, we felt like a bit of Bach, so just said "Play the Brandenburg Concertos" and it duly played all the versions of the Brandenburgs we have. Cue "We've already heard this...."

 

[Ian Key]

BUT we use vlc from the f-droid repository on our android phones.

VLC is also available from the android Play Store if you are unsure about downloading it from F-Droid.

 

[QLeo]

VLC is also available from the android Play Store if you are unsure about downloading it from F-Droid.

Oh yes, absolutely. We tend to de-google our phones and tablets as much as possible, and over many years have had no reason to distrust f-droid, but the reason I mentioned the source is that sometimes playstore-provided apps don't appear under android auto (sometimes it's the other way around.) I don't know what that status is for vlc.

 

[Martinonline]

I use VLC from the app store and it appears in AA. It continues the track from where I last used AA if I forget to stop it.

 

[fred12345]

Questions about VLC, when I connect my phone to Android Auto, VLC only plays audio and no more video, parked or not... Just tried YouTube music and that also plays audio only even when parked...

 

[QLeo]

Questions about VLC, when I connect my phone to Android Auto, VLC only plays audio and no more video, parked or not... Just tried YouTube music and that also plays audio only even when parked...

Never tried this, I'm afraid, as we have no use for video via the car.