Hi All,

 

Just wondering if anyone can shed some light on this problem.

 

I've just installed a UK AVH-X8500BT running firmware 08.19.

I've checked to see if there is a newer version, and currently no updates are available.

 

I'm going to be using either USB flash or SD cards as my main source of music, and I've discovered a weird problem with track ordering.

 

As an initial test, I simply copied just one album to both SD and USB flash. The album in question is Queen's Greatest Hits.

 

The track listing (and filenames) for this is:

Queen - 01 - Bohemian Rhapsody.mp3
Queen - 02 - Another One Bites The Dust.mp3
Queen - 03 - Killer Queen.mp3
Queen - 04 - Fat Bottomed Girls.mp3
Queen - 05 - Bicycle Race.mp3
Queen - 06 - You're My Best Friend.mp3
Queen - 07 - Don't Stop Me Now.mp3
Queen - 08 - Save Me.mp3
Queen - 09 - Crazy Little Thing Called Love.mp3
Queen - 10 - Somebody To Love.mp3
Queen - 11 - Now I'm Here.mp3
Queen - 12 - Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy.mp3
Queen - 13 - Play The Game.mp3
Queen - 14 - Flash.mp3
Queen - 15 - Seven Seas Of Rhye.mp3
Queen - 16 - We Will Rock You.mp3
Queen - 17 - We Are The Champions.mp3
 

When I view the album in the file view, either from USB or SD, then the ordering is as follows:

Queen - 01 - Bohemian Rhapsody.mp3

Queen - 10 - Somebody To Love.mp3

Queen - 02 - Another One Bites The Dust.mp3

Queen - 04 - Fat Bottomed Girls.mp3

Queen - 03 - Killer Queen.mp3

Queen - 13 - Play The Game.mp3

Queen - 05 - Bicycle Race.mp3

Queen - 11 - Now I'm Here.mp3

Queen - 06 - You're My Best Friend.mp3

Queen - 07 - Don't Stop Me Now.mp3

Queen - 14 - Flash.mp3

Queen - 08 - Save Me.mp3

Queen - 09 - Crazy Little Thing Called Love.mp3

Queen - 12 - Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy.mp3
Queen - 15 - Seven Seas Of Rhye.mp3

Queen - 16 - We Will Rock You.mp3

Queen - 17 - We Are The Champions.mp3

 

If I then switch to Tag view, then the ordering is different, but still not correct.

Another One Bites The Dust

Bicycle Race

Bohemian Rhapsody

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Don't Stop Me Now

Fat Bottomed Girls

Flash

Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy

Killer Queen

Now I'm Here

Play The Game

Save Me

Seven Seas Of Rhye

Somebody To Love

We Are The Champions

We Will Rock You

You're My Best Friend

 

From what I can see, Tag view is simply arranging the tracks in alphabetical order.

 

If you select a track in the 'Tag' view, then they play back in alphabetical order.

If you select a track in the 'File' view, then they play back in whatever order the example above shows.

 

This behaviour is completely useless, especially if you are trying to listen to an audiobook.

 

As I see it, there are a two problems here:

1) File view doesn't seem to order the tracks based on any sense I can see.

2) Tag view should order the tracks based on the 'track number' in the tag itself. Otherwise, why bother even reading the tags.

 

I've tried rebuilding the database for the tags, but it doesn't make any difference. It's alphabetical order, or nothing.

I've also tried retagging the files, using a variety of tag versions, from v1 to v2.4. I've also verified that the track numbers are correctly tagged.

It still makes no difference.

 

I'm told that ordering in file view is based on the physical order that the files are stored on the media, which seems totally barmy.

I've checked all of the timestamps (creation date, last accessed, last modified etc.) and all seem to indicate that the files were created in album order, so I'm totally puzzled why they don't play that way. Surely, if they are played in physical order, that translates to the order in which they were created?

 

I'm going to try a program called DriveSort, which is supposed to address this problem, and I'll post back when I've had chance to try it.

 

For me, the bigger issue is the behaviour in 'Tag' view. I thought the whole point of creating a database was to allow iPod style functionality from USB/SD media. I'm prepared to bet any money that when you plug an iPod in, the tracks play in the correct order. This seems like a bug to me, unless anyone can point me at a way to play tracks in 'Tag' view in the correct order.

 

Any thoughts or help would be most appreciated.

 

Andy.

 

From what I can see, Tag view is simply arranging the tracks in alphabetical order.

 

If you select a track in the 'Tag' view, then they play back in alphabetical order.

If you select a track in the 'File' view, then they play back in whatever order the example above shows.

 

This behaviour is completely useless, especially if you are trying to listen to an audiobook.

 

As I see it, there are a two problems here:

1) File view doesn't seem to order the tracks based on any sense I can see.

2) Tag view should order the tracks based on the 'track number' in the tag itself. Otherwise, why bother even reading the tags.

Sorry, I'm not help here.

I've only signed up to concur with your thoughts Andy.

 

It's extraordinarily annoying, and just flat out wrong.

How on earth anyone managed to code it like this in the first place, let alone have it get past QA, is anyones guess.

 

Seems AVH units have had this behaviour for some time too, someone posted here about the 8400BH over a year ago.

http://avic411.com/index.php?/topic/33980-usb-or-ipod-tracks-on-8400bh-out-of-order/

 

 

When I get home tonight I'll see about copying the MP3s onto my USB stick one by one, in the correct order.

A bit of bash-foo should have that done in a few minutes.

 

Mike

Sorry, I'm not help here.

I've only signed up to concur with your thoughts Andy.

 

It's extraordinarily annoying, and just flat out wrong.

How on earth anyone managed to code it like this in the first place, let alone have it get past QA, is anyones guess.

 

Seems AVH units have had this behaviour for some time too, someone posted here about the 8400BH over a year ago.

http://avic411.com/index.php?/topic/33980-usb-or-ipod-tracks-on-8400bh-out-of-order/

 

 

When I get home tonight I'll see about copying the MP3s onto my USB stick one by one, in the correct order.

A bit of bash-foo should have that done in a few minutes.

 

Mike

Likewise I can't help but do have another question: Is it normal that the index needs to be recreated every time the unit is powered down or the USB stick is unplugged?

 

TIA

It's extraordinarily annoying, and just flat out wrong.

How on earth anyone managed to code it like this in the first place, let alone have it get past QA, is anyones guess.

 

Seems AVH units have had this behaviour for some time too, someone posted here about the 8400BH over a year ago.

http://avic411.com/index.php?/topic/33980-usb-or-ipod-tracks-on-8400bh-out-of-order/

 

 

 

As you have guessed, the AVH units seem to be loading the FAT32 drive contents based upon order the files were stored. Since most people prefer a different sort order for the files, check out http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/393280/FAT-32-Sorter  which should solve your problems after you have copied the MP3 files you want to your USB or SD sticks.

Yes, very annoying. I can confirm this happens in a 8850BT. What I have done is a program that takes the track and disc number and modifies the title of the song so they retain their order (i.e. track 3 title name changes to "03- name" so that the alphabetic order is now the correct order.... It is a simple hack. It includes a program to copy a collection to the USB or SD CARD so it does not copy files already in the device. It has only been tested in Linux and is written in Python3. I uploaded it in GitHub if it is any use. You are welcome to fix it or improve it and put back the improvements. The repository is in https://github.com/vsanchez/ordertracks

 

 

BTW I am using a256G  SDxc card formated in NTFS and is working fine so far...

I stumbled across this thread today when looking for a solution to this problem.  I've been tolerating it for years on my AVH-8500BHS but finally decided to fix my SD card today.  

 

The problem is, as previously stated, the head unit sorts the files according to the order in which they were copied to the card.  What seems to be the simplest solution is to put the track number at the beginning of the filename so when you copy the files to the SD card, they get copied in order.  The problem is that Windows (and I assume other operating systems as well) treats the filename as an alphabetic listing and not as a numerical one.   This is why this occurs:

 

 

Queen - 01 - Bohemian Rhapsody.mp3

Queen - 10 - Somebody To Love.mp3

 

When the files are copied to the SD, Windows copies them in the default sort order.  

 

So to fix this, you ultimately have to manipulate the way Windows sorts the files then copy them fresh so that they get copied onto the SD in the desired order.  

 

Here is how I did it, using Windows.   This seems like a really long process, but once you get the hang of it, it's pretty easy to do.  We are going to use a freeware utility called MP3Tag that makes the job MUCH easier than doing it by hand. 

 

Part 1:  Copy your SD Card to your computer so you can work with it. 

 

1.  Pull your SD Card out of the head unit and insert it into your computer. 

2.  Create a folder on your desktop.  

3.  Copy the entire contents of your SD Card to that folder.  

4.  Open the new folder and look for a subfolder called 'data.'  Delete it if it exists.  This folder contains the database your head unit created, and since we want the database to be re-built by the head unit after the card is reinstalled in the vehicle, you want to delete it now. 

4.  Make any changes to the folder structure you like.  I set up mine as ARTIST \ ALBUM \ MP3FILE.  This worked for me, I have not experimented with other layouts.  

 

Part 2:  Set up MP3Tag and make sure you have tracks set right. 

 

1. Download a utility called mp3tag.  It's an indispensable utility when you work with lots of MP3 files.  

2. Open MP3Tag and drag the entire folder from your desktop into MP3Tag so all of your songs appear on the list. 

3. Go through the TRACK column and make sure all of your files have tracks set up.  If not, set them up.  This track number will dictate what order the music plays in when all is said and done.  So if you have a "variety" folder that has different songs from different albums or artists, then you'll want to set the track order according to what order you want the songs to play. 

4. At a minimum, make sure that the ARTIST and TITLE field are set for every file in addition to the track number.

 

Note:  One trick is that MP3Tag supports nested sorting.  I suggest clicking the TRACK column header to sort by track, then the PATH header to sort by your folder structure.  That makes it easier to see the song order, since the head unit will play by folder then by track.  

 

Part 4:  Set up MP3Tag to perform the Track Reformatting. 

 

1. A special action has to be defined in MP3Tag to perform this operation.  Click the Actions menu at the top of the window, then select ACTIONS. 

2. Click the "New" button along the right side of the "Action Groups" window that appears.  It has a little "yellow star" on it. 

3. Give the action a name, such as "Format Track Numbers" and click OK. 

4. Click the "New" button along the right side of the "Actions" window that appears.  Select "Format Value" from the list and click OK. 

5. In the "Format Value" window:

   a. In the "Field" box, type TRACK. 

   b. In the Format String" box, cut and paste this text:  

[$num(%track%,3)]

6. Click OK, OK, Close. 

 

Note: MP3tag saves this configuration.  So if you need to do this again in the future, you will already have this part taken care of. 

 

Part 5:  Perform the Track Reformatting. 

 

1. Highlight (select) all of your files by pressing CTRL+A in MP3Tag.  All lines will highlight.  

2. Click ACTIONS and select the action name you just created.  

3. MP3Tag will work for a bit.  When it's finished, all of your track numbers should be exactly 3 numbers long.  001, 002, 010, 015, etc.  

 

Part 6:  Place the track numbers into the filename.  

 

1. With all lines still highlighted (Selected), click the "Convert" menu and select "Tag - Filename."  

2. In the Format String field, paste this text:  

%Track% - %artist% - %title%

 and click "OK."  

3. MP3Tag will work for a bit, when done, all of your filenames should begin with the three digit track number. 

 

Note:  The format string can be customized if you are feeling adventurous.  It's beyond the scope of what we're trying to get done here so your mileage may vary if you plan to tinker with it.  The key is that the track number must be 3 digits long and it must be at the beginning of the filename. 

 

 

Part 7:  Validate.  

 

Go back to your folder in Windows Explorer.  Look through your folders and make sure you are happy with how everything looks.  If not, make any changes manually or use MP3Tag.    

 

Part 8:  Redo your SD Card.  

 

1. Open the SD Card in Windows Explorer, and delete everything from the card.  Formatting it is even better, but as long as everything is deleted, it's fine. 

2. Copy the entire contents of the working folder you created on your desktop to the SD card in one shot.   Windows will copy them in track order, populating the card properly. 

 

 

Enjoy.  Pop the SD card back into your head unit, and everything should play in perfect order.