USB Issues

[ScottFL]

A year ago when I bought my new truck I pulled the Samsung 128GB USB stick out of my old car and put it into the RAM and when it didn't function I learned there is a 32GB limit. So on May 17 my free year of satellite radio ended and I had picked up a 32GB SD card as well as a 32GB Samsung stick.

The SD card was recognized immediately but no joy with the USB.

I tried a bunch of old sticks and nothing but an old 16GB stick that would work when I was starting to think maybe the reader was bad.

Then I thought maybe if I update the radio as it has never been updated it would work better. I printed out the instructions for updating the 8.4AN and it said to use an empty stick with at least 4GB free. I had a 64 sitting in front of me and loaded it up. When I put the 64 into the reader it flashes but nothing happens.

I didn't have any small sticks except a 2GB stick that would hold the update and I tried that coming into work today, but no go.

I leave work in a couple of minutes and loaded up the 16GB (the only one that would play music) with the update if that doesn't work not sure what to do other than have the dealer check it when it is in for the next service.

Has anyone else had lots of problems playing music from the USB stick?

I have over 200GB of music on my iPhone but Bluetooth streaming produces a reduced volume.

 

[rotwiler]

Sticks have to be Fat32 format when putting sticks in. With larger sticks they are not fat32. Larger sticks you need app on pc to convert to fat32. Most come with exFat or other. I used many cheap thump drives, no issues unless I have lossless flac music which my 8.4an doesn't support.

 

[MADDOG]

Mine takes a 64 GB USB stick in FAT32 format with no issues.

 

[Riccochet]

I use a 120 GB USB SSD hard drive formatted FAT32 with no issues.

 

[ChrisM101]

A year ago when I bought my new truck I pulled the Samsung 128GB USB stick out of my old car and put it into the RAM and when it didn't function I learned there is a 32GB limit. So on May 17 my free year of satellite radio ended and I had picked up a 32GB SD card as well as a 32GB Samsung stick.

The SD card was recognized immediately but no joy with the USB.

I tried a bunch of old sticks and nothing but an old 16GB stick that would work when I was starting to think maybe the reader was bad.

Then I thought maybe if I update the radio as it has never been updated it would work better. I printed out the instructions for updating the 8.4AN and it said to use an empty stick with at least 4GB free. I had a 64 sitting in front of me and loaded it up. When I put the 64 into the reader it flashes but nothing happens.

I didn't have any small sticks except a 2GB stick that would hold the update and I tried that coming into work today, but no go.

I leave work in a couple of minutes and loaded up the 16GB (the only one that would play music) with the update if that doesn't work not sure what to do other than have the dealer check it when it is in for the next service.

Has anyone else had lots of problems playing music from the USB stick?

I have over 200GB of music on my iPhone but Bluetooth streaming produces a reduced volume.

* Well heres something you ought to know up front before spending alot of time on this... USB sucks as well and has a much reduced volume, and trouble with reading folders and such. Mysynch on ford did awesome and this Uconnect does nothing.
I too have over 100 GB music and im pretty disappointed in it.
Probably just best to re up the satellite radio.

 

[Riccochet]

* Well heres something you ought to know up front before spending alot of time on this... USB sucks as well and has a much reduced volume, and trouble with reading folders and such. Mysynch on ford did awesome and this Uconnect does nothing.
I too have over 100 GB music and im pretty disappointed in it.
Probably just best to re up the satellite radio.

I have zero issues with the USB in my truck. Reads all folders just fine and no volume issues either.

The only thing I don't like is the lack of FLAC support. Most of my collection is in FLAC format and I had to convert everything to high bitrate MP3.

 

[McBroom]

A year ago when I bought my new truck I pulled the Samsung 128GB USB stick out of my old car and put it into the RAM and when it didn't function I learned there is a 32GB limit. So on May 17 my free year of satellite radio ended and I had picked up a 32GB SD card as well as a 32GB Samsung stick.

The SD card was recognized immediately but no joy with the USB.

I tried a bunch of old sticks and nothing but an old 16GB stick that would work when I was starting to think maybe the reader was bad.

Then I thought maybe if I update the radio as it has never been updated it would work better. I printed out the instructions for updating the 8.4AN and it said to use an empty stick with at least 4GB free. I had a 64 sitting in front of me and loaded it up. When I put the 64 into the reader it flashes but nothing happens.

I didn't have any small sticks except a 2GB stick that would hold the update and I tried that coming into work today, but no go.

I leave work in a couple of minutes and loaded up the 16GB (the only one that would play music) with the update if that doesn't work not sure what to do other than have the dealer check it when it is in for the next service.

Has anyone else had lots of problems playing music from the USB stick?

I have over 200GB of music on my iPhone but Bluetooth streaming produces a reduced volume.

I have the same issue with my iPhone Bluetooth. I’m curious if there’s a cure for it. Im really beginning to HATE my my 5.0 Uconnect that don’t ConnectU. I know it’s Apple that won’t release it(technology)to FCA for some ****** up reason.


I Love My 2018 RAM 2500HD 4x4 6.4L. USMC (ret)

 

[ScottFL]

Thanks for all the replies.

Here is the update. The update worked when coming from the old 16GB stick. I will note that the instructions printed on the site documented many extra steps that are not required, just plug it in and wait a couple minutes and it will do everything automatically.

FYI, if you plan on doing a radio update while on your commute, do it during daylight hours. I get off at midnight and during the update the screen goes white and it bright enough to illuminate the cabin and the screen off button is disabled.

After the update the other sticks are still not recognized, I have formatted all sticks to FAT32 numerous times and all files are organized by artist folder and album folder within and MP3's are ripped 256kb with metadata completed. I'm MAC at the house and tried EXFAT and Windows at work where I formatted to FAT32.

I did find a happy solution. I remembered that I keep a plug in my lunch box and I wish I would have tried this first but I used the lighting cable to connect to my iPhone and whammo, it is recognized as an iPod and now I have over 23 thousand songs at my fingertips.

 

[MADDOG]

Nothing like a nice alternative.

I had some failures initially when the music was in folders on the USB stick with my system. I ended up dragging and dropping individual files, with no folders, to the stick and it worked a LOT better.

Apparently the system was stumbling over trying to decode all the metadata in the file to access a specific music file. Putting them in as individual files removed the problem by requiring the system to only decode the metadata on one file at a time.

 

[PowrRam]

I had problems with my 32 GB SD card in my 2015 Ram Big Horn. The UConnect 8.4 would recognize it; the metadata (song, artist, track) would show on the UConnect screen but the system would not respond to voice commands, i.e. "Play song 'Viva Las Vegas'". Answer: "I'm still indexing your music library. Try again later". OK, five minutes later. "I'm still indexing your music library. Try again later". An hour later, same thing.

Strangely, I also had a 32GB USB stick that worked fine. Now that I have a 2018 Big Horn I see there is no longer an SD card slot.

I decided to do a software update as you attempted. However, the UConnect site said there was no new updates available. Several phone calls to UConnect support and they told me I needed to format the SD card in FAT32 format (it was) and then create eight subfolders no larger than 4GB each. I monkeyed around with a lot of copy-and-pasting of music files into subfolders this but it didn't fix it. I went to the dealer and had them flash the latest update to UConnect. That did the trick.

You might need to go to the dealer and have them do the software update. They have access to the latest software patches.

 

[PowrRam]

I did find a happy solution. I remembered that I keep a plug in my lunch box and I wish I would have tried this first but I used the lighting cable to connect to my iPhone and whammo, it is recognized as an iPod and now I have over 23 thousand songs at my fingertips.

That's great, but you lose the voice command functionality. I'd try taking it to the dealer and getting them to do the software update.

 

[ScottFL]

Voice command was weird, I told Siri to play something and nothing happened, I picked up the phone and sure enough was playing but nothing coming from the system. I then selected an album using the 8.4 and it started right up.

I'm about a thousand miles away from an oil change, I'll bring it up then along with, "whatever happened to updating the software for my 32-gallon tank", I bug them with every time

As far as file structure I will play around and load only individual tracks. Funny thing is that 16GB stick that did function only had individual tracks not artist folders, it was loaded years ago and I was grabbing sticks to see if any would function. Although, the SD card does have the folder hierarchy... I'll experiment and post up the results.