Hi all

I was recommended to post in here from some helpful guy in the superb forum.

I have a 15 plate Superb SE with what I believe is a bolero head unit. It's the standard one - I didn't pay extra for the sat nav. Anyway, the issue is that I took the 32gb SD card out of my previous 60 plate Octavia (which had a similar or identical head unit) but now I cannot see all of the folders on the SD card. I believe it is a folder limitation as I have tried with 2 different cards. I have also doubled the number of files in the last visible folder and I can see them all but the number of folders is unaffected.

What is odd is that all the folders were visible in my old Octavia. Can the technology have gone backwards?!

Skoda say there is a software update for addressing issues with the SD slot but I am reluctant to spend a day taking the car to the garage and leaving it there for this. I will get it done on the first service next May.

Anyone else have a similar experience or knowledge of the issue?

Many thanks

Nick

Edited 11 September, 201510 yr by nick1977

seems strange i have a rcd510 which is bolero and use 32gb card with no problems 

 

have you tried formatting and adding the files again 

 

only issue i read was each folder needs to be under 2gb 

Yep I've tried 2 different cards and exactly the same issue. Tried formatting the cards in different ways but it only seems to work with FAT32. The odd thing is, as I said, it worked fine in the SD slot of my old Octavia. I literally just took the card out of one car and placed in the other when part exchanged. Now I can never listen to ZZ-Top!

My cards are organised using an artist>album>track format. Hope that makes sense.

It really is stumping me as it appears like a software or firmware issue rather than hardware, but why would a 5 years newer unit be more restricted in how many folders it can see?

Nick

Edited 12 September, 201510 yr by nick1977

Never being able to listen to ZZ-Top is a bonus in my opinion. 

Ive got a 32gb which works perfectly in my unit ... its a class 10 card.

Try a full format not a quick format of the card. I have my music formatted the same as you and regularly enjoy Deguello

Thanks for the tip I'll give it a try. Can I ask (roughly) how many folders you have on the card?

Tried the full format (took about 2.5hrs!) but still no joy. I am almost 100% convinced it is a limit to the number of folders it can see, as I chose different folders this time and again it stops around the letter S but the last album (folder) visible contains all the tracks it should. Very annoying!

Anyone else got any tips?

Thanks

Nick

Edited 22 September, 201510 yr by nick1977

I am wondering if it's a root folder limitation. Maybe you could try moving things into subfolders? For example in the root create something like:

 

0-E

F-J

K-O

P-T

U-Z

 

Then put artists starting 0-E in the 0-E folder etc. etc.

Just a thought!

Sounds like a plan, although the last visible folder (artist) should have 5 subfolders (albums) but I can only see 1. This would tend to suggest your idea won't work, but I'll give it a shot anyway

Nicm

Right I've tried that, and sonething rather odd happened! I created 4 folders - 0-E, F-K, L-S, T-Z. I then dropped all the artist folders into the relevant ones. Now when I try it, I can only see the first three folders in the root (i.e. t-z is not there), BUT L-S has every folder visible! I'm therefore seeing more than I did previously, even though I've technically added to the folder count. This really has me baffled. I will try using the specific folder layout suggested above to see if that makes a difference.

Nick

I agree it's very odd behaviour.

 

Whilst I am sitting here pondering there may be some sort of invalid characters or hidden files in the structure that could be upsetting the system. Have a check for odd punctuation marks in folders / file names or special characters with accents etc. Look to see if any hidden or system files are present and remove them. Also check file permissions / attributes are normal (e.g. you probably don't need read only or other such attributes set).

Tried the full format (took about 2.5hrs!) but still no joy. I am almost 100% convinced it is a limit to the number of folders it can see, as I chose different folders this time and again it stops around the letter S but the last album (folder) visible contains all the tracks it should. Very annoying!

Anyone else got any tips?

Thanks

Nick

 

What are you using to format the drive?  Shouldn't take 2.5 hours to format - perhaps the SD is duff?

 

https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

Using my camera as that is the only SD device I have. It takes a few seconds to do a quick format but lot longer for the full one. Takes a similar amount of time to copy 32gb of music too! About 3~4mb a second

Edited 1 October, 201510 yr by nick1977

Using my camera as that is the only SD device I have. It takes a few seconds to do a quick format but lot longer for the full one. Takes a similar amount of time to copy 32gb of music too! About 3~4mb a second

Buy a USB / SD card adapter & use it your computer to reformat / reload the card? 

Never full format a disk. Drive-wise it is the same thing, as the drive first reads the allocation table and then proceeds to locate the requested file on the disk. If the allocation table is empty (which is what the quick format does) the drive does not care for the rest of the disk, which it treats as if it was empty.

 

Now, the FAT file system has some limitations (which you can google), and sometimes the devices that read the FAT impose further limitations.

From what I can guess, the allocation table on your card grows very large due to the many files and their long file names, so large that it cannot be loaded in the head unit memory.

 

To make the allocation table smaller, you can increase the cluster size - this means less clusters and thus smaller FAT. Do this by formatting the card (quick format is enough) and choosing the largest allocation unit Windows will allow. Copy the files back on the card and report back

Thanks guys. I'll give it a shot. I will probably pick up a dedicated card reader to make things quicker, although I don't think this is the root cause of my issue. I'll try reformatting as suggested and report back.

Thanks

Nick

Just tried that. It gives the option of 64kb as the largest but when I click format it says "Windows was unable to complete the format". Could this be due to me using the camera to write to the SD card? The only options it seems to work with are 16kb and 32kb.

Thanks

Nick

Edited 3 October, 201510 yr by nick1977

Hold on, just realised a was trying the wrong card. Wiped the card for my camera! Fortunately I'd backed up the photos recently

Tried the correct card and it allowed the 64kb format so now copying files across to test.

OK tried that. No difference :(

I am going to order a separate card adaptor to rule that out, but I keep coming back to the same thought. Why did it work fine in my old Ocatvia and not in my (5 years newer) Superb?

Nick

How many folders can the HU see? If it is something like 100 or 128 or 256, sth like that would imply a hard limit from the HU. Other than that I have ran out of ideas.

OK tried that. No difference :(

I am going to order a separate card adaptor to rule that out, but I keep coming back to the same thought. Why did it work fine in my old Ocatvia and not in my (5 years newer) Superb?

Nick

Did you use the formatter that I put in my post or windows?