Infotainment system- Possible workaround for Voice control/Navigation audio cutoff

[iMaple]

Ever since I got my car, My voice control would stop working and the navigation audio stops working. I narrowed it down to having a USB drive plugged in and stopped using the USB whenever I needed voice control/navigation. Just unplugging it is not enough, you have to power off the car and wait for 10-15 mins for the infotainment system to reboot. The painful part is that I had to use CD RWs.

Yesterday, I decided to experiment a bit and realized that my 1 GB USB drive does not cause any of these bugs. Previously I had been using 16GB drives which consistently gave me problems. I always convert my songs to 128kbps CBR with strict ISO compliance as was discussed on another thread. I'm going to play around with 1GB,2GB,4GB,8GB,16GB flash drives over this weekend with different encodings (e.g. 1GB with CBR vs VBR) and will post an update. Perhaps it depends on how much data the USB stick has and not the size.

If someone else has already tried this, can you share that ? What's the biggest USB stick that you could use without glitching the voice commands ?

TL;DR; : Voice control not working/ navigation muted ? Try using a lower capacity USB stick.

 

[nitsuj]

I just reverted to using my 64GB Zune on AUX. Works flawlessly.

 

[iMaple]

I just reverted to using my 64GB Zune on AUX. Works flawlessly.

(yes) I know ! I tried doing that too, but I keep forgetting to turn it off when I switch off the car (argh)

Also its easier to use the steering wheel controls. The 1 GB stick is definitely working perfectly. I just put in a 2 GB stick- will try that for a day or two and update the thread.

 

[nitsuj]

(yes) I know ! I tried doing that too, but I keep forgetting to turn it off when I switch off the car (argh)

Also its easier to use the steering wheel controls. The 1 GB stick is definitely working perfectly. I just put in a 2 GB stick- will try that for a day or two and update the thread.

I keep my Zune in this https://www.amazon.com (commissions earned) years ago. I can control it just as easily as using the Infotainment controls. Since I'm used to driving a stick having my right hand off the wheel and free to do what ever feels completely normal.

 

[iMaple]

That looks like a good idea, I'm going to consider buying something like that for my phone. Though, for me, touch screens are more difficult to use while driving compared to the commander knob/steering control. Anyway my Lumia works really well on bluetooth, so I'm not really out of options.

The reason I decided to check out the USBs is that I had a hunch that the Mazda engineers must have tested at least some USB configurations - so there is a good chance that some USB configurations must work as designed.

 

[nitsuj]

The zune has a great no look interface, just swipe from right to left to go to the next song, or left to right to skip back. I just flip my thumb across it to change songs. I would use my Lumia for music, but I've just not taken the time to build playlists for it and it doesn't hold all my music. I do still have an unlimited data plan, but cloud music can be a little slow to load sometimes. So I stick with my zune and the consistent experience and easy use.
As for USB, I need a bigger thumb drive to hold all my music.

 

[ceric]

My guess is that 2G is the cut-off.
Older card reader cannot handle 2+G USB. Maybe we have the same issue here.
Try to see if 2G is the borderline.

 

[bigadorf]

I am definitely looking forward to hearing the results of the flash drive experiments, I have tried a 4g and a 8g flash drive and both times the system crashed.

 

[nitsuj]

My guess is that 2G is the cut-off.
Older card reader cannot handle 2+G USB. Maybe we have the same issue here.
Try to see if 2G is the borderline.

The 2GB Cut off in your card reader is a change in the SD standard.
SD = up to 2GB
SDHC = 2-32GB
SDXC = 32GB-2TB

The limits you may hit on a flash drive are going to be file system based. My guess is it will be at the 2TB boundary as it likely doesn't support GPT formatted volumes.

 

[iMaple]

There is a 2GB limit to the FAT file system. Anything above 2GB has to be FAT32.

My 2GB USB seems to be working fine (I'll give it another day to confirm). Since both my 1GB and 2GB USBs were formatted with FAT and not FAT32, one possibility is that FAT32 support is flaky (since the 8GB/16GB USB sticks have to be FAT32).

I'll try formatting my 1 GB stick to FAT32 and see if it confirms my guess and reintroduces the voice control bug.

 

[grumpy]

Yesterday I went on a trip with a 16gb drive in mine,along with phone connected via Bluetooth and navigation running. Freshly formatted and all songs are in the root directory (only about 60 songs thouh.) Drove about 500 miles yesterday stopping and turning off car 4-5 times over the course of the day. No issues with losing navigation when car turns back on or any other problems. Did not notice if it lost sound from drivers door after Nav speaks directions.

 

[iMaple]

Yesterday I went on a trip with a 16gb drive in mine,along with phone connected via Bluetooth and navigation running. Freshly formatted and all songs are in the root directory (only about 60 songs thouh.) Drove about 500 miles yesterday stopping and turning off car 4-5 times over the course of the day. No issues with losing navigation when car turns back on or any other problems. Did not notice if it lost sound from drivers door after Nav speaks directions.

Does voice control work ? The first symptom of the glitch is that voice control stops working. Also my 16GB usually works the first time I plug it in. Once its been there for a few days, voice control stops working (and doesn't work again till the drive is unplugged and the car is cold started).

 

[iMaple]

The 2GB stick with 320kps VBR mp3s resulted in the voice control glitch (after a day and a half) (huh)

 

[grumpy]

I haven't used voice control, so I couldn't tell you about that, but I don't recall he nav voice not working. Are you using seperate folders or dumping all the music in the root dirctory?

 

[iMaple]

I am using separate folders, I'll try dumping all of it at the root. The Nav voice often works for me even when it glitches (and if it cuts off, initiating a call over bluetooth makes it work again). That's why I use voice control as the canary

 

[grumpy]

Since I had to take a quick trip, I tested out voice dialing and navigation. The dialing worked flawlessly with the usb having been in there for 2-3 days. The navigation... didn't want to understand me, but it did try.