Fixing Gracenote

MrBill

Member
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2017 MX-5 GT
If you like Gracenote (GN), skip this thread. But if you dislike the program, read on . . .

We have both a 2017 Miata and a 2017 CX-5. The Miata runs Infotainment version 59.00.330 NA, and the CX-5 runs 59.00.502 NA. I listen to my music library on USB drives only and in random mode. The tips below apply to both cars.

I have a library of 3,340 songs in which I carefully edited ALL Title, Artist and Album data. This took me literally hundreds of hours, so imagine my surprise and disappointment when GN ignored my entries and substituted their own, many of which were simply incorrect. So I dug around and found a number of threads describing how to disable GN by interrupting its update about 1/2 way through. Trust me, this does NOT work. What I ended up with was a fully functional GN but a partial Title/Artist/Album database. GN continued to overlay my information whenever it had the information in its partial database.

I experimented around a LOT, and finally devised a way to get GN to accept my Title, Artist and Album as is and display only my entries on the Infotainment screen. Here's how:

- Precede each Title with a sequential number. This should be done to BOTH the external MP3 name and the internal Title field. Use the free Bulk Rename program (http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Main_Intro.php) to number the MP3 filenames and the free MP3TAG program (https://www.mp3tag.de/en/index.html) to overlay the internal name with the external name, less the MP3 extension. Be sure to test these changes on a test file before making permanent changes to your music folders!

- Precede each Artist with an asterisk and a space "* " using the MP3Tag program.

- Precede each Album with an asterisk and a space "* " using the MP3Tag program.

Here's an example of a song in which I made the above changes:

http://aa4m.com/links/P&L.jpg

Now the Title, Artist and Album information will display exactly the same as your original entries, not be overlaid with GN garbage. Additionally, you now have the sequential Title number and the Artist and Album information preceded with the asterisk, giving you visual proof that the screen is displaying your information, not GN's. Please note the following:

- There's no reason the Title couldn't be preceded with an asterisk, I just like the sequential number more.

- I was not interested in seeing Album information, so using MP3TAG I entered "* Unknown" for all 3,340 songs.

- Both the Bulk Rename and the MP3TAG are very powerful programs. I know that once you become more familiar with these programs, you'll find many more uses.

- Preceding the Artist and Album with the "asterisk-space" was not as simple as I think it should have been. Let me know here or in a PM and I'll tell you how I did it.

- Some of the stuff you learned above could probably be used to prevent GN from changing your pictures. As for me, I didn't care what GN wanted to use for pictures so I didn't mess with this field.

I hope you will now enjoy a GN-free display, just as I do!! :)

- Bill
 
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More Information

For clarification, the following MP3 song:

bns1.jpg


When played will show the following on the Infotainment screen:

bns2.jpg

In a couple of weeks since I've made the changes, GN has not incorrectly displayed any of the information I've provided. The empty frame to the right of the screen is because I'm using a "busted" (partial database) copy of GN. This frame can be removed with an MZD-AIO hack.
 
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This is an old post. I'm hoping someone will pick this up.

I have the latest GN update (ADR_June2018). I have tried the "* " prefix to album and artist using mp3tag. But it doesn't seem to work. The system still uses GN for anything it has in its db. If its not in the db, it uses what i have in the tag.

The only thing I haven't done is "busted" the GN install. I suppose I can try that, but would rather as a last resort. Plus, I think i have to find an old update to roll back to, because I don't think I can update the system to the same update.

Any suggestions?
 
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