Resuming Playback with 2014 CX-5 GT Tech Stereo and other issues

You plug it in directly but how? USB Adapter to COAX - then plug it behind the stereo? Not seeing the inputs for this anywhere in my CX-9 2013 i must be blind hahah. HELP!

You know you're asking a question about a CX-9 on the CX-5 board, right?

For CX-5's there's a USB connector in the center console cubby.

psilon2020 didn't quote the person they were replying to (below). I was actually wondering what diakamo meant as well.

I had the same issue. So now I just use a coax cable and plug my Ipod directly to the stereo system. I get better sound that way also. You can plug the coxa cable in the center console and it will play directly to your speakers.
 
You know you're asking a question about a CX-9 on the CX-5 board, right?

For CX-5's there's a USB connector in the center console cubby.

Yeah, but there are some CX-9 owners posting in this as well and we all seem to have the same problem.
 
psilon2020 didn't quote the person they were replying to (below). I was actually wondering what diakamo meant as well.
I assume diakamo meant he was using the AUX jack input. (For psilon - it's also in the center cubby, right below the USB ;))
 
I assume diakamo meant he was using the AUX jack input. (For psilon - it's also in the center cubby, right below the USB ;))

Doesn't sound quality suffer with the aux jack input? My ipod nano has the 3.5 mini output thats for headsets and usb but not quite sure how the 3.5 will rival the usb in sound quality. Plus you cant beat having USB for power as well... But please let me know.
 
If you can tell the difference between USB (digital) input and AUX (analog) input with our radios in our cars while driving down the road, then my hat's off to you!

For what it's worth, when using USB, if so equipped, your centerpoint speaker will work. Also having the song display and steering wheel controls availble is nice with USB. You really shouldn't be using the phone too much when driving. Sound quailty wise, I do think the base response is a bit better with USB than aux,although I might not really be. And I agree at highway speed, sound quality did doesn't matter that much. Between not having a real sub, and all that wind noise, it is all about the same
 
Already frustrated with the playback on the USB connection. Do anybody know how to play songs from folders through USB connections? (Instead of USB menu that will bring to Song list, artist, album, genre Ect.) for 2014 CX-5? from my research from you tube the 2013's unit it can play by folders through USB.
 
I'd assumed it couldn't /wouldn't, but hadn't heard that the 2013s could.
I'd love to be able to do this too. Hope someone has the knowledge :)
 
Already frustrated with the playback on the USB connection. Do anybody know how to play songs from folders through USB connections? (Instead of USB menu that will bring to Song list, artist, album, genre Ect.) for 2014 CX-5? from my research from you tube the 2013's unit it can play by folders through USB.

No direct solution in the cx-5 however you can create playlists (m3u) one for each "folder", this is what I did.
 
No direct solution in the cx-5 however you can create playlists (m3u) one for each "folder", this is what I did.
Yes, playlists work for USB drives though not for my 5th Gen iPod.

I am experimenting with the following idea. I create playlists named A5, A15, A30 thru Z5, Z15, Z30. The number indicates the number of songs in the playlist. So A5 has 5 songs and P15 has 15 songs. Thus there are 26 playlists with 5 songs, 15 songs, and 30 songs for a total of 78 playlists and 1300 songs. I have 1354 songs so I put the last 54 in a playlist named Long.

The songs are randomly distributed like a shuffle with every song in one and only one playlist. I am working on a C program to read the USB drive and generate the playlists automatically.

Now it would seem that to scroll through 79 playlists would be a pain. But enter Voice Recognition which works pretty damn well. Once my USB drive has been read and starts to play music, I push the talk button on the steering wheel which pauses playback and say "playlist C10" and it plays C10. Sometimes it gets it right and is certain and simply plays it. Other times it is uncertain and asks "play C10?" and I say yes. If I say no, it asks "play Z10?" The first guess is usually correct. I have also discovered that the VR does not work as soon as the music starts playing after the USB drive has been read. It takes a bit longer for the system to process the data for VR but only about 30 more seconds in my case.

For CDs, the VR command "Play track 7" works but unfortunately not for USB playlists. If it did, I would probably use a single shuffled playlist of all my songs and just use such a command to start at some random song. But without a "Play track N" command, there is no easy way to start at song 875 or any other random place.

So if I am going to the store, a short drive, I might play A5 to the store and B5 back. Next short drive C5 and D5. Of course I can also choose a longer playlist even for a short drive and long ones for long drives.

It is a work in progress but so far so good. Just thought I would offer the idea up for others to consider.

BTW, it also works to say things like "play artist cranberries" or "play album joshua tree". In these cases it puts all the songs you have by the cranberries or all the songs on joshua tree (assuming you have those on the USB drive of course) into a playlist naned VR_playlist.

Although in the owner's manual, Voice Recognition is mostly associated with bluetooth, you do not need any bluetooth paired device to do the above.
 
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Thanks Karog for the idea! seems a lot of work just to be able to listen to music. I will try and play around with it and see if I could figure something out. I hope Mazda could come out with an update on their infortainment unit. It is a pain...
 
Hi, new to this forum, I just picked up a CX-5 Grand Touring AWD today, and I am SOOOOOOO dismayed by these issues with the iPod. I assumed my unit was defective, but clearly I'm seeing the same things. My iPod is a 160g Classic, and is about 120g full of music. Plugging it in takes at least 5 to 10 minutes before it shows up. Also, attempting to navigate 'artist' is completely unusable. I mean, I push the page down, and literally get a spinning ball for 3 to 4 seconds before it pages down. It would take me 20 minutes to move from A to say S this way. Then every time turning off the car the thing has to rescan?

I'm raising hell at the moment with the broker I bought the car from, and he's talking to the fleet manager at his dealer to attempt to contact Mazda and see if a fix is in the works (I saw some threads here that it possibly was). But this is absolutely ridiculous. I don't' want to use the aux input, bluetooth, etc. I want the damn iPod control to work as it should! I email Mazda as well, but am expecting a stock answer from them.

But please, anyone who has any real knowledge that a fix is coming, please post! I want to return the car honestly, as strange as it sounds, partly I bought a new car to more easily listen to all my music from the iPod. And now I simply can't!

FRUSTRATED!!!
 
Hi, new to this forum, I just picked up a CX-5 Grand Touring AWD today, and I am SOOOOOOO dismayed by these issues with the iPod. I assumed my unit was defective, but clearly I'm seeing the same things. My iPod is a 160g Classic, and is about 120g full of music. Plugging it in takes at least 5 to 10 minutes before it shows up. Also, attempting to navigate 'artist' is completely unusable. I mean, I push the page down, and literally get a spinning ball for 3 to 4 seconds before it pages down. It would take me 20 minutes to move from A to say S this way. Then every time turning off the car the thing has to rescan?

I'm raising hell at the moment with the broker I bought the car from, and he's talking to the fleet manager at his dealer to attempt to contact Mazda and see if a fix is in the works (I saw some threads here that it possibly was). But this is absolutely ridiculous. I don't' want to use the aux input, bluetooth, etc. I want the damn iPod control to work as it should! I email Mazda as well, but am expecting a stock answer from them.

But please, anyone who has any real knowledge that a fix is coming, please post! I want to return the car honestly, as strange as it sounds, partly I bought a new car to more easily listen to all my music from the iPod. And now I simply can't!

FRUSTRATED!!!

Mogambi,

I hear you. I brought my 160GB ipod with me when testing out the 2014's and that's why I ended up going with the 2013 version of the CX-5. The 13's read the ipod right away, however, the issue of navigating by Artist is also present on the 2013. I sent an email to Mazda suggesting that the Artist interface (as well as the song and albums) have the alphabet index so you can navigate faster. If you connect your phone to the Mazda via bluetooth and then use the contact search on the Mazda you'll see what I'm referring to. That's the same way my wife's Prius works.
 
No direct solution in the cx-5 however you can create playlists (m3u) one for each "folder", this is what I did.

Nice idea! I found the following (free) simple executable, sPlaylistMaker, that generates folder/sub-folder playlists automagically. Took about 15 secs on my 32GB USB thumbdrive. It's portable and you can even keep it on the USB drive so it's always there if you make changes to your music: http://skwire.dcmembers.com/wb/pages/software/splaylistmaker.php
 
I thought the system wouldn't recognize M3U playlists via USB drive? I know I've tried on my 2013 CX-9 and it won't recognize any playlists. Is there some trick as to where the M3U file needs to be located on the drive, or how the file is laid out?
 
I thought the system wouldn't recognize M3U playlists via USB drive? I know I've tried on my 2013 CX-9 and it won't recognize any playlists. Is there some trick as to where the M3U file needs to be located on the drive, or how the file is laid out?
Well it does on my 2014 CX-5 Touring. I put my playlists with names like whatever.m3u in a top level dir named playlists but I just made that dir up. It does not really matter where it is. I believe it scans the entire file system recursively and recognizes m3u playlists.

I don't know about your 2013 CX-9. Others have reported differences between the 2013 CX-5 and the 2014 CX-5 so what works on the 2014 CX-5 may not work on yours.

Here is a sample of one of my random playlists shortened to two songs. Note end of lines are 0x0A ie ^J created on OS X, USB formatted FAT32, first song has no length, 2nd is 161 seconds long but that time does not seem to appear on the display:
Code:
#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:,I Do
/Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians/Shooting Rubberbands At The Stars/12 I Do.mp3
#EXTINF:161,Excitable Boy
/Warren Zevon/A Quiet Normal Life/02 Excitable Boy.mp3
 
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It will recognize play lists. I haven't tested various formats, I just know it works with FAT32 formatting on the USB drive, and M3U (unicode) play lists. I read in another forum somewhere that some MP3 players may have trouble if you use an M3U file with text other than unicode. Check your MP3 software -- I was using a few different ones like winamp etc and they have an option as to whether to use unicode or not.
 
It recognizes playlists in many different formats, as long as the first line is "#EXTM3U".

I had posted a tool that I found a few posts up, unfortunately that tool does not put that line in and the PLs are not seen. I'm now working on a batch program to add the line to existing playlist files. I'll put it up here if anyone is interested.
 
Thanks for the info RedBaron. That explains why my M3U's weren't recognized. I use MediaMonkey to create my playlists, which apparently doesn't prepend that line.
 

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