[t18c97]

Made up a USB drive with a bunch of albums for wife CR-V. Problem is she starts an album, first track plays OK and then the second track fails. These are all MP3's ripped at anywhere from 128Kbps to 192Kbps, it doesn't matter. When I look in the folder on the screen it's showing duplicate entires, see attached. The ones that start with just a 1-XX play OK, the one's that start with ._1 don't.

I've created this USB on a Apple iMac and when I look in the folder there I don't see the ._ files and I don't see them on a Windows 8 system (which plays them fine). Same USB stick also plays just fine on a 2015 Buick Enclave.

Any ideas on what's going on???

 

[Jepalan]

Looks like you might have accidentally copied some hidden meta-data files onto the USB stick when you transferred the files.
You need make sure *only* the MP3 files were copied.
Plug the USB stick into your computer and toggle View settings to show all system and hidden files. See if there are extra files on the stick.

 

[t18c97]

I checked and the Mac isn't showing any hidden files in the directory.

 

[Milton56]

I had plenty of trouble trying to play mp3's on my 2017 Touring. After much experimenting, I have found that ripping my CD's using Windows Media Player directly to my USB in the WMA format at 128kbs has solved the problem. My USB plays perfectly now with songs in folders according to artist. Last song is remembered and picks up where it left off (instead of starting all over each time as before). With the super sound system in the Touring, the quality is very high.

 

[Old Salt]

I had a Chrysler 300 that had exactly the same problem. So I finally did what Milton 56 (above) did. For the Honda, I'm not even trying MP3. All my WMA files play perfectly. I don't know if Macs can generate a WMA file.

 

[t18c97]

I guess I'll hit up Honda with this problem and see what they say.

 

[vroom96]

I think the "._" files are deleted files in your mac folder that you somehow transferred to your usb drive. These deleted files are not visible from your mac. They will remain hidden until you empty your trash can.

Plug in your usb to your mac and delete all the files. Empty the trash can. This should remove all the hidden files on your usb you just deleted and any hidden files on your mac. Then re-copy all the files from your mac folder to your usb drive. Hopefully that will work.

Alternatively, I think you can see the "." files in windows (you may have to choose to display hidden files as someone suggested). If you can see the files in windows, delete all the "." files and you should be good.

 

[t18c97]

Yea, I thought it might be that also so I first tried clearing out the trash folder and copying it again, no change. So I next used the disk utility to do a complete reformat of the drive so it's clean and copied again again no change, still using the ._ duplicates. Just talked to Honda in CA and their help was go to the dealer.

 

[vroom96]

Can you verify if the "." files are still in your mac folder? At this point, I would go to the command line window, go to that directory, check if the "." files are there and remove them if they are. But if you're not a unix/linux user, you may have no idea what I am talking about

When you copy, are you copying the folder from the mac to the usb drive or are you highlighting and copying all the files in the mac folder to the usb folder? If the latter, I'm not sure why the "." files would also be copied to your usb drive. Hmm.

 

[t18c97]

I thought I did it correctly on the Mac to show hidden files, guess I didn't. Was on a WinTel PC today and yep they're there as hidden. So guess the Droid software just ignores the hidden attribute and tries to play the files anyway. Guess another thing to note for the 1st service visit that needs to be looked at.

 

[jayindy]

Anyone have a resolve for duplicate MP3 files as noted above? MP3 is a format I need to stick with for our Sandstorm 2017 Touring. My wife sings & does specials, I want to stay with MP3 because of its std for most sound systems. In our 01 CRV she would often practice her songs in the CRV while in the garage. Before I do massive amounts of ripping to flash drive, I wanted to see if anyone has cracked the nut here w/o doing the WMA format option, or re-inventing the wheel. Yes, after 16 years of Gen1 ownership, we upgraded this past July to our Gen5 Touring - my wife loves our new "V"!

 

[Wdstkcrv]

How to Easily Convert Your CDs to USB for Apple Users -- Gets rid of unplayable files. If you already have your MP3s on a USB then skip to APP 2.


For Apple computer users you will need 2 apps and a small investment.

App 1: To MP3 Converter $9.99 (try Free version first if you like). Open the app to drag and drop your music CD onto the app’s browse window. After all songs are converted, click the Open… button. This will display all the songs by album you have converted. Drag the album folder(s) to a clean USB drive to copy.

App 2: DotCleaner $1.99. Open Dot Cleaner and click Choose Folder. Select the USB stick with your songs and then click Start Cleanup. Eject USB and you are ready to go.

Insert the USB into one of the Honda USB ports. In Audio, go to source and select USB as the source. The audio interface offers many ways to sort through your folders and songs. You can play random songs in a folder or random songs selected from all the folders. You can scroll by folder or song to be more selective, too. To see all these options be sure to click that little down/up arrow on the right of the screen. It is a toggle to go back and forth between views.

This solution will not work on older Apple OS systems, which do not support apps. I am not affiliated with Apple, or any of these apps.

You don’t have to read this part: I searched the internet, as well as this forum, to figure out how to burn my CDs to USB so I could play them in my new Honda CR-V 2017. At first I was successful at converting the CDs to the MP3s format and copying them onto a USB stick. BUT the Honda audio interface read every hidden file associated with each song as an unplayable file. The hidden files, also know as “._” or Dot files, are bits of data that the Apple OS tags to certain files. They messed up the playing of the songs on the Honda system. At first I tried Terminal commands of all kinds but it just didn’t delete the dot files. Hence, Dot Cleaner app. So easy. Hope this works for you.

 

[jayindy]

Thanks Wdstkcrv!

...to add, my mac pro OSX Sierra ver 10.12.6, maybe yours too, has dot_clean on-board, no purchase necessary, simply open a terminal window (similar to a windows DOS box) and type the syntax below, or drag your drive, memory stick, thumb drive from your desktop into the terminal window after first typing "dot_clean " (between the quotes & 1 space) & hit enter. I put my memory stick, aka thumb drive into the USB on our V & all the no count "._" files are gone!

dot_clean /Volumes/YourThumbDriveNameHere

 

[Kai Winters]

I'm experiencing the same problem when using a usb in my '17 EX V. My files are a mix of mp3 and mp4 and generally come from iTunes, latest version, on my Windows 10 laptop.
I did rip many of my cd's via Windows Media Player but for quite some time I've used iTunes. Some files play just fine, others are "unplayable" and some called unplayable will start to play after a few seconds...maybe 10 ish...I have no idea why.
The problem exists not only on the '17's oem system but also on my wife's '12 V LX which has an aftermarket head unit, Alpine iLX-007...she experiences the same problem.

I did a lot of research, over 2 hours, last night using Google search and tried the "fixes" recommended using the "cmd" window dos system. I'll try a usb today to see what happens.
It is a minor pain in the ass that I don't believe is a Honda issue as the problem exists with my other V. I use my iPhone, as does my wife, to listen to music, etc. via Car Play which works great...as does Blutooth in the '17.

 

[Kai Winters]

WOW...what a fickle system.
I've spent over an hour tinkering trying to figure out what will/won't play and I have no conclusions at all.
I even dl'd and installed the NCH audio converting suite...trial though I may buy it as it is on sale right now...and converted a mix of files directly from my iTunes library...mp3 and m4a files...converted them to mp3 and placed them in a folder and all of them, 15 files, worked in my '17 EX.
I also created a folder of 15 "m4a" files and of the 14 only 3 worked...one was a recent purchase/download from iTunes the other two are from cd's in my collection that I added to my iTunes library quite some time ago.

So far every mp3 of those I converted work fine so next I think I'll convert some more...mp3 and m4a's...but keep them in separate folders to see what happens.

I haven't had a chance to read the owner's manual that covers audio and don't remember what it shows but I will do that today as well.
Interesting...glad it is a cold and wet day here so not much to do before I go to work tonight.

 

[Wdstkcrv]

Awesome. I tried several terminal commands but not the one you mentioned.

 

[jayindy]

Kai, appears you are progressing….

After I discovered the dot_clean method mentioned above, I copied many years & GBs of .mp3 music straight from our iMac’s /Users/MyName/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media folder to V’s memory stick - took about 30 mins, then I did the dot clean and maliciously all the no play ._ files are gone, what I call a PTL (praise the Lord!) - took dot_clean at terminal window about 30 secs to finish cycle, but when I plugged memory card into the V, years of my wife's music folders from her imac (she sings specials) now reside on the small thumb drive & W/O the ._ files!! Pretty amazing how you can now reduce a box full pile of CDs to a small 1” 32gb memory drive.

I'm writing up a recipe for her to first create the Artist_Name folder on the thumb drive, rip the mp3 files (usually a demo, high, medium, low, w/ vocals, w/o vocals) from the CD onto the iMac where they reside in the iTunes Media Folder mentioned above. She will copy the 6, or 7 files into the thumb drive’s Artist_Name folder, then I'll have her execute a script file, much like a .bat file from DOS days to remove the no count files w/ Dot_Clean - all done in a few mins. She’ll be able to practice in her new sound proof studio (our garage parked '17 V) all w/o digging thru her CD case.

Better would be to somehow attach the small thumb drive onto the house LAN much the same way you would share out a NAS drive. With the V Acc-On mode, & connected to house wifi, we could simply drag the new mp3 files onto the V's NAS drive w/o first removing it from the USB port - maybe someone has done this, or maybe it is possible now - don’t know. I’d also like to know if Honda would only come up w/ a way to turn off V from acc-mode w/o 2ndly going to on-mode, then off....just like..how do you keep the engine running from a remote start w/o killing the engine first, unless you are talented enough to press the brake and the start button at the same time to keep engine running w/o first killing it....hummmm, maybe talked about some-where else in this site - but for now, I happy to keep songs in .mp3 format, was thinking I was going to have to burn all the CDs from a Win box into WMA format which would have made me completely unhappy.

 

[jayindy]

Wdstkcrv, dot_clean works from my Mac Pro OSX Sierra ver 10.12.6 Apple/Mac laptop - I'm not sure Windows boxes (Win7/8/10) have this executable unless, as you've done, purchase a dot_clean app to run it from.

 

[Kai Winters]

I'm a Windows user so I don't have that issue.
I've solved the problem...or seem to have.
I bought, downloaded and installed the NCH Suite of audio tools and used Switched Sound File Converter to convert all my files. What I did is to select all of my music files in my iTunes library and copy paste them to a folder on my hdd. I then added all of those files to the Switched Sound File Converter and converted them to mp3 format. I chose a bitrate of 320kbps with High Quality Encoding. I then converted them to another folder on my hdd.
I copy/pasted the songs...over 700 files...onto a 16gb usb formatted to FAT32 and plugged it into my V.
I did not test every song but started with every fifth and after ten of those I moved to every tenth then every twentieth before finishing. Every song I tested played great with the usual metadata displayed.

NCH is on sale, home version, for $16 US. You can use the free version but it limits you to 5 files at a time and is throttled back. The paid version is many times faster and there seems to be no limit to the file amount you add.

I use my iPhone via CarPlay and don't use a usb but it is nice to know I have one in the console just in case. My wife prefers a usb because she says it is just easier to not plug her iPhone into the Alpine head unit to use CarPlay.
It was an interesting experiment.

I still have no idea why some files play and others didn't even though they were all m4a files...but generally m4a files don't play in my OEM head unit. I think some mp3 files also didn't play. Again I have no idea...has to be something perhaps in the metadate, hidden files...but I have my Windows set up to show all hidden folders.

 

[wreckemall]

Looks like some hidden meta-data files, that are getting copied along with your original mp3 files. This usually happens when there is some sort of bug/ virus in your system, that creates temporary or hidden files on on its own while copying files to an external device. Please check out for that