caseycasem

I have a 2017 Lexus ES. Everytime i turn on the car, it seems the system has to completely reindex the music on my usb stick. As a result, browsing music is impossible for roughly 30 minutes. The lexus dealer is claiming this is normal, which makes no sense. It's my understanding that you can have roughly 1000 folders (and this was from many years ago) and 65k songs. I've got under 9k songs and about 950 folders. No folder has more than 20 or 30 songs.

Andy while I'm on it, is it common for the satellite radio to just go out? I have times where I'm on an open highway and I'll lose a signal for several miles. In Dallas, if I go to the AMC theater (the one hear Look Cinemas), the satellite radio just stops working for the most part. Never had Sat radio before, I just assumed it had a more reliable signal than a local FM station, but that dosent seem to be the case (with my car).

Thanks for any info/tips/advice.

Kijug

I have a USB stick with just under 9,999 songs. I was struggling with it for a while (months) and some songs would appear, some would disappear. Come to find out, Lexus REALLY means you cannot have more than 9,999 songs. Once I eliminated a few songs, my USB stick has been working like a charm. Now, to your question about time. It takes about 6-7 minutes for mine to re-index every time I get in the car. Yes, very annoying. However, "roughly 30 minutes" seems very long, indeed. I wonder if your music is organized differently. I only have two levels of folders. Each folder is basically a CD. A few CDs have 30 or so files, but most are in the ~15 track range. Here is the info from my 2014 ES manual (p425):

Items related to standards and limitations are as follows:
• Maximum directory hierarchy: 8 levels
• Maximum number of folders in a device: 3000 (including the root)
• Maximum number of files in a device: 9999
• Maximum number of files per folder: 255

Don't know what else to help with, tho.

Tetguy

I have a 2017. It came with a 3 month sub to satellite radio. I tried using it for awhile. It did not matter which channel I listened to, it would cut in and out, sometime s up to a minute at a time.(hiway or in the city did not make any difference) Not impressed and did not renew it.
As for the usb stick, I have not experienced the problem you are having. So far, I have a lot less music on my stick than you do...about 1/4. I sorted my music to 6 different folders...Bluegrass, Classic Country, Classic Rock,Easy Listening etc. In each of those folders I have put in the songs and sorted them by the artist in alphabetical order. I normally play my music by using the random button. I can set that to all the folders or to just one folder..eg easy listening.
Your problem might be with the program you used to download the music on your stick. I ended up using I tunes because I could not get the album info of many songs to show up on the screen and I seem to recall a reindex thing with WMP. Also I wpould make sure that all your songs are mp3 and not WMA etc.
Hope that helps.

Mike728

^^ This ^^

lesz

There was a thread here several weeks ago in which someone talked about similar issues where the satellite radio signal was cutting out even though there were no obstructions between the car and the satellite. It turned out that signals from some cell phone carriers use a frequency that interferes with the frequency of the satellite radio signal, and the satellite radio signal was cutting out when the car was near the towers of those cell phone carriers. And, while I don't recall what it was, there was confirmation of that being the cause of the loss of the satellite radio signal. Again, my memory might not correct, but I believe that one of the cell carriers whose signal interferes with the satellite signals was AT&T.

jaredsc

Satellite radio in Lexus are just crap. Mine does the same thing. I've had the dealer replace the radio, antenna, and other stuff, too. My Mercedes and my BMW are perfect compared to the Lexus, they never cut out, whereas the Lexus cuts out even when you're near nothing and the sky is totally open.

Mike728

Yes, the airwaves are getting crowded. http://www.insideradio.com/free/siri...dd62c07af.html

don1

I have a 2014 ES 300h and use the ML satellite radio all the time. It never cuts out except for when I go into a tunnel or a wide bridge where signal loss may result for a few seconds. Satellite radio uses a much higher frequency band than cell phone so there should be no interference between them.

lesz

I'm pleased to see that my aging brain was able to be accurate in remembering that AT&T is the wireless carrier whose signal interferes with the Sirius XM signals. Now, if I could only remember where I put about a half dozen things that I've misplaced.

lesz

Evidently, that is not true with AT&T's wireless phone signals, according to the article in the link that Mike posted.

jollick

Same experience in my 2013 and 2015. Not sure if it just the areas I travel or they changed the radio electronics in newer models.Very reliable.

Epcole

I'm having a similar issue with my USB as the OP. Using a 32GB disk with only about 1200 songs on it, the car spends a long time "reading USB" - longer than I'm willing to wait and I just switch to radio - maybe there is a limit on the disk size. My 8GB disk with the same file/folder structure takes less than a minute.

The other annoying issue with USB is the random playback. Every time I get in the car, it plays the EXACT same sequence of songs. I haven't tested this all the way through, but at least about 10-15 songs before I get frustrated and manually select a song, which seems to reorder the queue. Wondering if it's my USB drive or if anyone else has had this happen.

Tootsall

Been doing some reloading of USB drive and think I found something that really speeds up the initializing on a vehicle start...
1) Make sure stick is FAT 32
2) Create folders...by genre, performer, or whatever. I stretched my imagination and named them “Folder 1”. “Folder 2”. Etc.
3) ONLY load tunes MP3(MPEG is how they display on Mac), or WMA
4) Put a MAX of 255 tunes per folder (I used 254 as limit.)

I loaded a 16 gb stick with 9 folders and maxed the memory at just shy of 16 gb. Installed the stick in the car, turned it on, and settled back expecting about 5 min. for the initial load. It initialized in less than 1 minute...probably closer to 20 sec.! Put USB play into “Folder Random” and jumped through some fast forwards...as quick as when I BT from my phone or iPad with no delay between jumps..

Non-compliant formats I loaded onto an old 16 gb Sony Walkman and plugged it into the aux input. I generally play music in “random” so inability to control Walkman from car is no big deal (I listen to everything from Classical to Jazz to Pop to World...in fact everything except Opera and Country/Western.)

Next trick will be to pick up a 32 gb Thumb drive and see how that works.

But...speed on initialization is truly an improvement...probably due to “following the rules” in the Owner’s Manual....dooh.

PS: I just tested it again this morning and it was playing music off the USB before the Warning Screen had deactivated! Definitely going for a 32 gb drive next (I have around 10,000 out of 18,000 MP3 tunes in my computer so lots of variety).

Tootsall

Put a new (and fully loaded) 32 gb thumb drive in yesterday. 17 folders, just over 4,000 tunes. From the moment I hit the Start button to music playing...13 seconds. (I used a Sandisc Cruzr USB 2.0 memory stick). This was a first initialization with all different music than any previously used.

Just advising, if it’s taking you longer than that then there is something amiss with what’s on the memory device or the way you’ve set up the folders.

ThumperPup

i didnt want to start a new thread when i could come in here
but my issues is not the same but it does have to do with the USB
is it normal that every time i start the vehicle it reverts to the sat radio option
it never picked up on the usb even if i plug it in before i start the car
is this normal if i finished and shut the car off while it was on iphod audio from the usb ?

also does it matter which usb plug you use is one specific just for charging and the other is for the audio system or does it not matter ?

also its weird that sometimes when i used BT for audio the audio sounds loader and more clear then when i use the usb
i always thought usb would be better for audio than BT becuase more of a direct line between the player and the unit

i am going to get a usb thumb drive so that i can customize the image for my navigation screen before i do this and find out maybe there is a issue or im doing it wrong does it matter which usb plug i use for the usb thumb drive or do they both do the same things ?