2011 Usb Memory Stick Playlist How?

dataspng · January 30, 2011

2011 Siliverado 1500, Standard Factory GM Bluetooth/XM/Radio/Deck (non Nav) w/ USB Port.

Using a memory stick it plays songs great, I can jump to folders and songs no problem but for the life of me I cannot get Playlists to work. This is a memory stick NOT an Ipod.

I have tried: WinAmp, MediaMonkey, Windows Media - Music is all .mp3 and playlists are all .m3u like the manual says. I have also tried putting the files in the root, directories. Putting the playlists in the root and directory called playlist. Naming the playlists P1.m3u, P2.m3u (manual says P(X) for playlists??). Pull out the memory stick and plug it in a Sony deck, Pioneer Deck and factory Honda deck and the playlists work fine on those decks?

GM help line was great at reading the manual back to me... which didnt work.

Am I missing something? Searched the threads and folks say it works but no details.

P.S. I'm not near the limits of the folders, songs or directories. Just testing with about 50 songs and a few playlists or so.

Thanks,

- Brad D -

gadgetguy1288 · January 30, 2011

Cant say much about a memory stick, but my truck still works fine with my ipod touch 2nd gen and my new nano, even if they are in file mode.(I got bored one day waiting in the truck and just figured why not try it.) And all playlists and everything still worked.

dataspng · January 30, 2011

Cant say much about a memory stick, but my truck still works fine with my ipod touch 2nd gen and my new nano, even if they are in file mode.(I got bored one day waiting in the truck and just figured why not try it.) And all playlists and everything still worked.

Thanks gadgetguy - but I'm anti Ipod / ITunes plus I have access to a pile of memory sticks for free. It should work as advertised and chances are I'm missing something simply that will be a duh moment once I knew the proper way to format the files.

Thanks,

- Brad D -

PGDriver · February 2, 2011

Try re-formatting the stick, mine didn't work after loading it up on my iMac until

I formatted it for DOS, now it works great.

dataspng · February 11, 2011

Try re-formatting the stick, mine didn't work after loading it up on my iMac until
I formatted it for DOS, now it works great.

Thanks PGDriver - Good idea since I have no idea what format the sticks I have are.

Can you give me some details?

What brand / size memory stick?

What software did you use to create the playlists?

What does the directory structure look like for the playlists and music files, flat, seperate directories or ?

Can you send me a sample .m3u playlist file?

FYI - I tried NTFS and that did not work at all, would not read music. FAT32 works but still no playlist support. I will try the others DOS / Microsoft formats.

This is either really easy and I'm missing something or everyone ownes Ipods.

Thanks,

- Brad D -

PGDriver · February 11, 2011

Try re-formatting the stick, mine didn't work after loading it up on my iMac until
I formatted it for DOS, now it works great.

Thanks PGDriver - Good idea since I have no idea what format the sticks I have are.

Can you give me some details? Yes

What brand / size memory stick? Sandisk , 1Gig

What software did you use to create the playlists? No playlists, just dumped Mp3 files onto the stick. Exported from itunes

What does the directory structure look like for the playlists and music files, flat, seperate directories or ?

Can you send me a sample .m3u playlist file?

FYI - I tried NTFS and that did not work at all, would not read music. FAT32 works but still no playlist support. I will try the others DOS / Microsoft formats.

This is either really easy and I'm missing something or everyone ownes Ipods.

Thanks,

- Brad D -

Hope this helps

dataspng · February 11, 2011

Try re-formatting the stick, mine didn't work after loading it up on my iMac until
I formatted it for DOS, now it works great.

Thanks PGDriver - Good idea since I have no idea what format the sticks I have are.

Can you give me some details? Yes

What brand / size memory stick? Sandisk , 1Gig

What software did you use to create the playlists? No playlists, just dumped Mp3 files onto the stick. Exported from itunes

What does the directory structure look like for the playlists and music files, flat, seperate directories or ?

Can you send me a sample .m3u playlist file?

FYI - I tried NTFS and that did not work at all, would not read music. FAT32 works but still no playlist support. I will try the others DOS / Microsoft formats.

This is either really easy and I'm missing something or everyone ownes Ipods.

Thanks,

- Brad D -

Hope this helps

Thanks, Yea I've have the music working fine and folders working, its the Playlists that dont work for me. Still searching for someone that has Playlists working.

Thanks everyone for all the help.

- Brad D -

Superperv23 · February 11, 2011

I have seen this a few times and decided I would try it out, read the owners manual, fresh formatted usb, downloaded winamp to make the playlists. I created three playlists and could not get them to work with the files and playlists all in the root of the usb, I then moved the files to a folder and left the playlists in the root and still didn't work. I am not giving up but it doesn't seem to be as easy as the manual suggests.

Superperv23 · February 12, 2011

Well I got it figured out, .m3u wont work at all so I tried windows media player playlists .wpl files and put the mp3 files and playlist files in the root directory and it works. However you can not access the playlists directly, wat it does is sorts the files so that your playlists appear at the top of the list of mp3 files in the order of the playlist.

So it seems if you want to organize different types of music your best bet is to make folders and put them in folder and just select that folder instead of messing with the playlists. Of course you can put them in folders them make a playlist in wmp to arrange the order they play in.

dataspng · March 4, 2011

Well I got it figured out, .m3u wont work at all so I tried windows media player playlists .wpl files and put the mp3 files and playlist files in the root directory and it works. However you can not access the playlists directly, wat it does is sorts the files so that your playlists appear at the top of the list of mp3 files in the order of the playlist.

So it seems if you want to organize different types of music your best bet is to make folders and put them in folder and just select that folder instead of messing with the playlists. Of course you can put them in folders them make a playlist in wmp to arrange the order they play in.

Dear GM - Please remove the section in your manual, website and spec sheets that Playlists work with USB Memory sticks. They do NOT. Sure Apple Ipod (some models) do, but memory sticks do not.

Before folks flame me... Yes IPods do work... I know that and that is the answer I get from GM customer service, GM support, GM mechanics, the 3 dealers I asked (the truck was in for other things so I had time to ask), but no one knew about USB Memory sticks. Just quoted the manual, which does not work. Plug the same USB memory stick in another brand car with USB port and another car with aftermarket Sony deck works fine. They advertise it works so it should, but if it doesnt just take it out of the feature list.

Thanks Super23 - tried what you listed with the different playlist formats / files and no go. I did like your idea of folders as playlist so that is what I have done special just for this rig.

Thanks everyone

rprice54 · June 6, 2011

Not to resurrect a dead post, but I found this searching for an answer to my own problems. I have been able to get a playlist to work off my jump drive so I thought I'd at least post my experience in case someone comes across this in the future. I'm having problems getting my iPhone to play without noise (another thread) so I've been working on the Jump drive in the mean time.

What I did was create folders with music on the jump drive manually dragging and dropping MP3s into folders. Then I opened up winamp and plugged in the drive. It recognized the drive and asked if I wanted to import the music, I didn't. As far as winamp knows, this is the only music I have.

Then, by right clicking on the thumb drive icon in Winamp, I made a new playlist, and then added files to it all through winamp, only working on the thumb drive, no local media. When I was done, winamp had the .3mu files in the root directory, they show up as playlists on my display. The only downside is that you can randomize within a folder, but not a playlist, which is what I want to do, so I'm back to square one with my ipod, maybe the dealer can set that straight. I do like the folder idea better, it may lead to redundant copies of the songs, but may provide what I'm trying to do- large playlists that I can randomize. It's a 16GB drive, so I guess I have room.