Informational: 2011 Camaro RS USB flash drive tests and summary

[spmike]

While this thread started out very positive, it's going to end very negative. While my tests with a few test mp3 files worked just fine, after copying several thousand files to the flash drive, nothing will play. "No supported data found"

I started searching, and someone posted that the radio does not support special characters in file names. Mine had parenthesis, hyphens, spaces, etc. Someone else wrote that the radio does not support file names with more than 100 characters in the name. Some of mine had up to 137. So I mounted on the flash drive on a Linux machine and wrote the following Perl script to rename all the files, remove the special characters, and truncate the length of the files to 80 characters:

#!/usr/bin/perl

# rename all music files on a thumb drive to a format
# compatible with the 2011 Camaro radio format.

# where the USB drive gets mounted:
$basedir="/media/CAMARO/music";

# length of file names to truncate to (takes last N characters):
$lengthlimit=80;

chdir($basedir);
@allfiles=`find . -type f -print`;

$maxlength=0;
$renamed=0;

$count=$#allfiles;


for $i (0 .. $count)
{
$file=$allfiles[$i];
$file=~ s/\.\///;
$file=~ s/\n//;
$newfile=$file;
if ($file=~ /.*[A-Za-z0-9]mp3/) #missing .mp3
{
$tempfile=$newfile;
$tempfile=~ s/mp3$//;
$newfile="${tempfile}.mp3";
}
$newfile=~ s/\s/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\~/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\!/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\#/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\$/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\%/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\^/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\&/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\*/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\(/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\)/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\-/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\=/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\\/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\|/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\[/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\]/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\{/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\}/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\;/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\:/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\'/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\"/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\</_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\>/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\,/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\?/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\`/_/g;
$file=~ s/\`/\\\`/g;
$mylength=length($newfile);

if ($mylength > $maxlength)
{
$maxlength=$mylength;
$maxname=$newfile;
}

if ($mylength > $lengthlimit)
{
$pos=$mylength - $lengthlimit -1;
print "mylength=$mylength, lengthlimit=$lengthlimit, pos=$pos\n";
$tempname=substr($newfile, $pos);
print "truncating $newfile to $tempname\n";
$newfile=$tempname;
}

if (!("$file" eq $newfile))
{
print "$i: renaming $file to $newfile \n";
system ("mv \"$file\" $newfile");
$renamed++;
print "------------------------------------------------------\n";
}
}

print "\n----------------------------------------------------------\n";
print "\ndone!\n";
print "\n#of files renamed: $renamed\n";

----------------------------------------------------------------

Thinking it will work now, I insert the drive into the car. No supported data found. The cussing begins. Back to searching. someone else posted that they thought the max file length was 32 characters. Again, why can't we get an explicit declaration from GM??? So fine, I write another perl script to rename every song to song1.mp3, song2.mp3 ... songN.mp3:

#!/usr/bin/perl

# where the USB drive gets mounted:
$basedir="/media/CAMARO/music";

chdir($basedir);
@allfiles=`find . -type f -print`;

$renamed=0;

$count=$#allfiles;


for $i (0 .. $count)
{
$file=$allfiles[$i];
$file=~ s/\.\///;
$file=~ s/\n//;
$newfile="song${i}.mp3";

print "$i: renaming $file to $newfile \n";
system ("mv \"$file\" $newfile");
$renamed++;
print "------------------------------------------------------\n";
}

print "\n----------------------------------------------------------\n";
print "\ndone!\n";
print "\n#of files renamed: $renamed\n";


----------------------------------------------------------------------

It has to work now, right? Wrong!!! No supported data found. More searching. Posts say that the radio only supports certain bit rates, like 128Kbps, but my tests were with 256kbps mp3's and they worked. Again, GM WHERE IS THE LIST OF SUPPORTED FORMATS???

Even if I can determine what bit rates work, there is no way I am going though all of my songs, checking the bit rate, and re-encoding them to a supported bit rate. I'm about to give up and subscribe to SiriusXM.

As a programmer, what disgusts me is the (lack of) error handling in this GM radio. If they only support certain formats that is fine, but if they encounter a song they cannot play, they should simply skip over that song and go onto the next one, not invalidate the entire drive!!!! If I had access to the source code I could fix it myself, but I probably have better odds of getting hit by lightning than for that to happen.

I have always loved Chevrolet, but that love is fading fast because of this.
No documentation on supported formats in the owner's manual or the GM web site, very limited mp3 support, yet I can download Winamp for FREE that will play almost any mp3 on the planet. GM, you blew it on this one.

[skuttduck]

Originally Posted by The Stig

Out of curiosity, how many songs were you able to fit on the 64G drive?

This is a little off topic, but I have a 64gb flash drive. I used it and I still have space but it contains:

All of our super8 films that were transferred to DVD format. 1973 - 1991
3 DVD's worth (6 hours). I added audio and titles to them.

I have another 4 VHS tapes of footage from my brothers graduation, my graduation, my wedding and our wedding party. (8 hours)

2550 600 DPI photos from 1975 - 2003 (5.4gb)
2622 Digital photos from 2004 - 2012 (6.3gb)

Some random other photos like a few of my parents in 1967, and I still have 24gb free.

I find that simply amazing that I have been able to fit pretty much my whole lifes moments on a 64gb flash drive.

When you ask how many files you can fit on there. Based on this you can easily go over the 10,000 file limit.

[skuttduck]

Originally Posted by RubyCamaro

Thanks Guys but you lost me with this last bit?

In english. Don't buy a 64gb flash drive and expect it to work without doing something on the computer.

A 16gb flash drive works.

The last part about 128 bit rate is a setting if you use CD's to make your own MP3's. The higher the bit rate, the better the file sounds, and the bigger it is.

When I first created mp3 files back in 1995 - 1996 128 was the highest the software I had would do. I believe the highest bit rate is 384 now, and the higher the bit rate the larger the files.

[Runawayhacker]

Originally Posted by spmike

While this thread started out very positive, it's going to end very negative. While my tests with a few test mp3 files worked just fine, after copying several thousand files to the flash drive, nothing will play. "No supported data found"

I started searching, and someone posted that the radio does not support special characters in file names. Mine had parenthesis, hyphens, spaces, etc. Someone else wrote that the radio does not support file names with more than 100 characters in the name. Some of mine had up to 137. So I mounted on the flash drive on a Linux machine and wrote the following Perl script to rename all the files, remove the special characters, and truncate the length of the files to 80 characters:

#!/usr/bin/perl

# rename all music files on a thumb drive to a format
# compatible with the 2011 Camaro radio format.

# where the USB drive gets mounted:
$basedir="/media/CAMARO/music";

# length of file names to truncate to (takes last N characters):
$lengthlimit=80;

chdir($basedir);
@allfiles=`find . -type f -print`;

$maxlength=0;
$renamed=0;

$count=$#allfiles;


for $i (0 .. $count)
{
$file=$allfiles[$i];
$file=~ s/\.\///;
$file=~ s/\n//;
$newfile=$file;
if ($file=~ /.*[A-Za-z0-9]mp3/) #missing .mp3
{
$tempfile=$newfile;
$tempfile=~ s/mp3$//;
$newfile="${tempfile}.mp3";
}
$newfile=~ s/\s/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\~/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\!/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\#/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\$/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\%/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\^/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\&/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\*/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\(/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\)/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\-/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\=/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\\/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\|/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\[/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\]/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\{/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\}/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\;/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\:/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\'/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\"/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\</_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\>/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\,/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\?/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\`/_/g;
$file=~ s/\`/\\\`/g;
$mylength=length($newfile);

if ($mylength > $maxlength)
{
$maxlength=$mylength;
$maxname=$newfile;
}

if ($mylength > $lengthlimit)
{
$pos=$mylength - $lengthlimit -1;
print "mylength=$mylength, lengthlimit=$lengthlimit, pos=$pos\n";
$tempname=substr($newfile, $pos);
print "truncating $newfile to $tempname\n";
$newfile=$tempname;
}

if (!("$file" eq $newfile))
{
print "$i: renaming $file to $newfile \n";
system ("mv \"$file\" $newfile");
$renamed++;
print "------------------------------------------------------\n";
}
}

print "\n----------------------------------------------------------\n";
print "\ndone!\n";
print "\n#of files renamed: $renamed\n";

----------------------------------------------------------------

Thinking it will work now, I insert the drive into the car. No supported data found. The cussing begins. Back to searching. someone else posted that they thought the max file length was 32 characters. Again, why can't we get an explicit declaration from GM??? So fine, I write another perl script to rename every song to song1.mp3, song2.mp3 ... songN.mp3:

#!/usr/bin/perl

# where the USB drive gets mounted:
$basedir="/media/CAMARO/music";

chdir($basedir);
@allfiles=`find . -type f -print`;

$renamed=0;

$count=$#allfiles;


for $i (0 .. $count)
{
$file=$allfiles[$i];
$file=~ s/\.\///;
$file=~ s/\n//;
$newfile="song${i}.mp3";

print "$i: renaming $file to $newfile \n";
system ("mv \"$file\" $newfile");
$renamed++;
print "------------------------------------------------------\n";
}

print "\n----------------------------------------------------------\n";
print "\ndone!\n";
print "\n#of files renamed: $renamed\n";


----------------------------------------------------------------------

It has to work now, right? Wrong!!! No supported data found. More searching. Posts say that the radio only supports certain bit rates, like 128Kbps, but my tests were with 256kbps mp3's and they worked. Again, GM WHERE IS THE LIST OF SUPPORTED FORMATS???

Even if I can determine what bit rates work, there is no way I am going though all of my songs, checking the bit rate, and re-encoding them to a supported bit rate. I'm about to give up and subscribe to SiriusXM.

As a programmer, what disgusts me is the (lack of) error handling in this GM radio. If they only support certain formats that is fine, but if they encounter a song they cannot play, they should simply skip over that song and go onto the next one, not invalidate the entire drive!!!! If I had access to the source code I could fix it myself, but I probably have better odds of getting hit by lightning than for that to happen.

I have always loved Chevrolet, but that love is fading fast because of this.
No documentation on supported formats in the owner's manual or the GM web site, very limited mp3 support, yet I can download Winamp for FREE that will play almost any mp3 on the planet. GM, you blew it on this one.

OK, I can personally vouch and say that the radio fully supports 320kbps quality and is allowed to have common special characters like dashes in the FILENAME. The radio identifies and sorts the MP3s based off of the ID3 tags, NOT the filenames. The only limitation I have come across is the ID3 tag version. If you try to use some of the newer versions, it will not work. Try dropping the ID3 tag version down to 1.0 or 1.1 (cannot remember). If you have your self a Linux box (right on!), EasyTag is a good app to do this with. I've been where you are already, so I know exactly what you are experiencing. It's the ID3 tags bro, not the filenames.

[Chris97b]

Thanks for all of the good information! I'm still fighting with the stupid USB trying to get a 2GB flash drive and a couple dozen MP3s to work. I've tried every combination of format and cluster size, and no luck so far.

To whoever mentioned NTFS, I wasn't able to get the system to recognize NTFS no matter what I tried. Using Fat32 with various combinations of cluster size I was at least able to get it to tell me no supported data found, so I'm thinking NTFS is out (unless there was a firmware update on the radio I'm missing).

Tried eliminating all variables from the filenames and still nothing (I have 2 folders now, labeled "1" and "2" with songs named "1.mp3" through "12.mp3" in each, and still nothing.

I was wondering if the fact that they are 320kbps may have mattered, but sounds like at least some people were able to get that working.

Good info on the ID3 tags, I'll have to check on that and see if it makes a difference.

I get the feeling there may also be some variations in the radio firmware. I know there was at least one TSB that involved replacing the PDIM module and flashing the firmware. The instructions on the TSB to check the software version don't want to work on mine, so I'm thinking a trip to the dealer is in my near future.

What a pain...

[rray]

My car came without a USB port so I bought an Android based head unit. That was OK up to 16GB SD and USB drives, but I wanted FLAC capability as well as to use any kind of drive or file format.

I got fed up and built a windows 8 PC for the dash, and now have both 64G and 265G SSD's and can transfer songs over the home WiFi or buy directly from Amazon onto the car.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

[Chris97b]

Just an update, I finally got it to play for the first time. Apparently not all USB drives are created equal. I was testing using a 2GB flash drive by a noname manufacturer (branded with another company's logo and given away at trade shows) and that was at least part of my problem.

Tried out an old 1GB Lexar I had laying around and it worked perfectly (FAT32, 16KB clusters). Doing some additional testing with filenames and ID3 tags, but it's worth noting that at least some USB drives simply will not work.

[blahzay]

Originally Posted by ItsBroke

I don't own 10,922 songs!

Then you need to visit this link and get your archive up "http://www.albumhunt.com/linkarchive.html"

[FLGator75]

I bought a Kingston 64GB off Amazon for $35, it worked great until I took it it to work to folder all of my music but in the process we had a commercial power failure at work & the PC I was using was not on a UPS so needless to say it wiped out this thumb drive. I sent it back to Amazon for a full refund & used that money to get a Sandisk 64GB @ Walmart for the same price & was able to get 9422 songs on it so far without any problems of it not being recognized by the audio system in my Camaro.

I tried two other drives one of which was another Sandisk 64GB but it's not being recognized whereas the Adata 32 GB does get recognized. The 32 GB will be my next source of music when I run out of room on the first Sandisk.

Btw, I downloaded a free program on the internet that converts just about any music format(YouTube, CD-cda, etc) to MP3 format then I burn the MP3's to the flash drive.

[ORNGASM]

I have had no major problems with the 32gb Sandisk Cruzer right out of box. It is full with around 3500 songs. The mp3s range from 128kbps to 320kbps. Most are either 192 or 320kbps. Only minor issues I have found are that all folders alphabetize in 2-3 chunks...so all folders are not alphabetized in one nice list. One other minor issue is when I turn on car the USB is not always recognized. I have to unplug flashdrive and plug back in....then it stays recognized for another week or so.

[VeeGeeTea]

Originally Posted by RubyCamaro

Okay as one of the old fart generation (those who do not work in a tech related job), you are still speaking greek. Just tell me what flash drive I can buy that will work. That is about as much as I can handle. But thanks for posting this info for the tech savy younguns' as this is a very frustrating issue.

The 64GB is the size of the USB drive. Imagine it as the rooms in a hotel, the larger the size the more people you can house.

64GB (Gigabytes) is equals to 64000 MB (Megabytes) is equals to 64000000 KB (Kilobytes).

Each song approximately 3-5 minutes of time are usually around 4-6 MB.
So you take 64000MB dividided by the the maximum size of 6MB and you'll get approximately 10922 songs before your USB is full.

The FAT32, NTFS, ExFAT are the type of algorithm (pattern) that the content of the USB will be saved in. Think of it as reading/writing a language whether it's English/French/German.... etc on a document.

As per 32kb/cluster. Think of it as a neighbourhood. You can fit 32 houses in a neighbourhood before you'll have to expand and build a new block of houses.

I hope that makes more sense for you. Should there be any further questions, please feel free to ask me. Thanks.

[VeeGeeTea]

Originally Posted by spmike

While this thread started out very positive, it's going to end very negative. While my tests with a few test mp3 files worked just fine, after copying several thousand files to the flash drive, nothing will play. "No supported data found"

I started searching, and someone posted that the radio does not support special characters in file names. Mine had parenthesis, hyphens, spaces, etc. Someone else wrote that the radio does not support file names with more than 100 characters in the name. Some of mine had up to 137. So I mounted on the flash drive on a Linux machine and wrote the following Perl script to rename all the files, remove the special characters, and truncate the length of the files to 80 characters:

#!/usr/bin/perl

# rename all music files on a thumb drive to a format
# compatible with the 2011 Camaro radio format.

# where the USB drive gets mounted:
$basedir="/media/CAMARO/music";

# length of file names to truncate to (takes last N characters):
$lengthlimit=80;

chdir($basedir);
@allfiles=`find . -type f -print`;

$maxlength=0;
$renamed=0;

$count=$#allfiles;


for $i (0 .. $count)
{
$file=$allfiles[$i];
$file=~ s/\.\///;
$file=~ s/\n//;
$newfile=$file;
if ($file=~ /.*[A-Za-z0-9]mp3/) #missing .mp3
{
$tempfile=$newfile;
$tempfile=~ s/mp3$//;
$newfile="${tempfile}.mp3";
}
$newfile=~ s/\s/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\~/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\!/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\#/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\$/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\%/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\^/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\&/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\*/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\(/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\)/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\-/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\=/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\\/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\|/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\[/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\]/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\{/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\}/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\;/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\:/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\'/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\"/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\</_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\>/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\,/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\?/_/g;
$newfile=~ s/\`/_/g;
$file=~ s/\`/\\\`/g;
$mylength=length($newfile);

if ($mylength > $maxlength)
{
$maxlength=$mylength;
$maxname=$newfile;
}

if ($mylength > $lengthlimit)
{
$pos=$mylength - $lengthlimit -1;
print "mylength=$mylength, lengthlimit=$lengthlimit, pos=$pos\n";
$tempname=substr($newfile, $pos);
print "truncating $newfile to $tempname\n";
$newfile=$tempname;
}

if (!("$file" eq $newfile))
{
print "$i: renaming $file to $newfile \n";
system ("mv \"$file\" $newfile");
$renamed++;
print "------------------------------------------------------\n";
}
}

print "\n----------------------------------------------------------\n";
print "\ndone!\n";
print "\n#of files renamed: $renamed\n";

----------------------------------------------------------------

Thinking it will work now, I insert the drive into the car. No supported data found. The cussing begins. Back to searching. someone else posted that they thought the max file length was 32 characters. Again, why can't we get an explicit declaration from GM??? So fine, I write another perl script to rename every song to song1.mp3, song2.mp3 ... songN.mp3:

#!/usr/bin/perl

# where the USB drive gets mounted:
$basedir="/media/CAMARO/music";

chdir($basedir);
@allfiles=`find . -type f -print`;

$renamed=0;

$count=$#allfiles;


for $i (0 .. $count)
{
$file=$allfiles[$i];
$file=~ s/\.\///;
$file=~ s/\n//;
$newfile="song${i}.mp3";

print "$i: renaming $file to $newfile \n";
system ("mv \"$file\" $newfile");
$renamed++;
print "------------------------------------------------------\n";
}

print "\n----------------------------------------------------------\n";
print "\ndone!\n";
print "\n#of files renamed: $renamed\n";


----------------------------------------------------------------------

It has to work now, right? Wrong!!! No supported data found. More searching. Posts say that the radio only supports certain bit rates, like 128Kbps, but my tests were with 256kbps mp3's and they worked. Again, GM WHERE IS THE LIST OF SUPPORTED FORMATS???

Even if I can determine what bit rates work, there is no way I am going though all of my songs, checking the bit rate, and re-encoding them to a supported bit rate. I'm about to give up and subscribe to SiriusXM.

As a programmer, what disgusts me is the (lack of) error handling in this GM radio. If they only support certain formats that is fine, but if they encounter a song they cannot play, they should simply skip over that song and go onto the next one, not invalidate the entire drive!!!! If I had access to the source code I could fix it myself, but I probably have better odds of getting hit by lightning than for that to happen.

I have always loved Chevrolet, but that love is fading fast because of this.
No documentation on supported formats in the owner's manual or the GM web site, very limited mp3 support, yet I can download Winamp for FREE that will play almost any mp3 on the planet. GM, you blew it on this one.

Fully support MP3.
Limited support for WMA (does not support pro/lossless).
Doesn't not support any other formats.

PFD doesn't advanced to next song.
Randomization isn't true random.
Bluetooth streaming quality sound worst than FM Radio.

[VeeGeeTea]

Originally Posted by The Stig

Curious to know what'll happen if you try to index more than the 10,000 song limit.

I recall GM indicating that you cannot index more than a certain amount or it won't play.

[Barttron]

Thanks, first few USB sticks I tried did not show up at all, after a reformat all is good.