Like many I mourn the loss of the SD Card slot of MIB2.  Moving to USB-C is also a little premature I think, but that said...

 

In my MIB2 equipped Octavia I used a MicroSD card in an SD Card adapter to store and play my music.  Once we got the Karoq I took the MicroSD card and placed it into a single slot USB adapter, which was then inserted into a USB-A to USC-C adapter and then into the car.  This was too long to allow the lid to close over the charging compartment, but at least it was recognised and played music.  Later I bought this cable and this stick to replace my temporary solution and allow me to close the draw.  The wisdom of only allowing 20mm clearance above the USB-C socket is dubious, but that is where we are, thanks Skoda.  Maybe that is a VAG attempt to get people to spend more on a VW T-ROC or Tiguan where the sockets are in a different place.

 

In both cases the Infotainment system would randomly forget what it was playing and start playing something else.  Most of the time it starts playing the first track of the first album, alphabetically, from the MP3 tag database.  Occasionally it would go back to the first track of the same album, or it would go back to the point it was at from the prior engine start.  The upshot being I'd listen to the same few tracks repeated each time I started the engine.

 

The stealer was consulted at the 10k mile service, and they'd never heard of this before. Oh, imagine my surprise  

 

I know that the Infotainment system isn't going to be as comprehensive an implementation of the USB and MP3 tagging standards as a PC or even a modern smartphone.  In fact, I've already discovered that the system does not accept the existence of the "album artist" MP3 tag and only considers the "contributing artist" tag.  This is annoying to me, as in compilation albums I tend to have the track artist listed in the "contributing artist" tag and "Various Artists" in the "album artist" tag. That way sorting by "album artist" gives me all my compilation albums listed under "various artists".  Fortunately, the system allows browsing by folders, which I do normally.  When the system then reverts to the first file in the tag database it's a few more steps to go back to folders and start playing the music where it left off.

 

I've read a few posts that suggest that the problems are related to incomplete/inconsistent or plain wrong MP3 tagging, which I don't believe is the case here. Partly because I have spent much time getting them correct but also as I don't ask the system to play by tags.  Another suggestion was that there are non-English characters used in the filenames.  Possible as I do listen to some German music with umlauted characters in the filename and tags, but the issue doesn't occur because of playing those files, or even the album those files are in. Another suggestion was that using sticks over 32Gb can cause issues which seems mad in 2024 but if the implementation of exFAT isn't correct then it's possible.  I'm currently experimenting with a subset of the music collection on a 32Gb stick but it is too early to tell if the results are positive, in a crazy way I hope they're not and a better solution is available.

 

Anyone got any thoughts or suggestions.? 

 

Is there an Infotainment system expert in the house..?

Hi Wilfred I am just about to buy a usb stick for my Kamiq I have already tried a usb A 32g and it seems to work ok at the moment but I want a use c drive as the a drive  I have is why to big with the adapter on I can't see why a 64g would not work but don't want to buy the wrong one 

Just like the rest of the infotainment system which has periods of tyre pressure warnings / last fuel consumption / welcome messages being displayed on start up, most of the time the USB drive I have connected into the USB-C by the gear lever will arbitrarily decide where it'll play the tracks from. Yesterday it even started where I'd last listened to something!

33 minutes ago, Mollysman said:

 to big with the adapter on ... don't want to buy the wrong one 

The adapter I inked above fits with the draw closed in the Karoq not familiar with the Kamiq so can't really help there sorry.

4 hours ago, Mollysman said:

Hi Wilfred I am just about to buy a usb stick for my Kamiq I have already tried a usb A 32g and it seems to work ok at the moment but I want a use c drive as the a drive  I have is why to big with the adapter on I can't see why a 64g would not work but don't want to buy the wrong one 

 

I'd recommend one of these: Integral 128GB Fusion Dual USB-C & USB 3.1 Flash Drive - 200MB/s £19.99 - Free Delivery | MyMemory as it avoids any problems with adaptors and sits under the sliding lid.

 

Chris

1 hour ago, CJJE said:

 

I'd recommend one of these: Integral 128GB Fusion Dual USB-C & USB 3.1 Flash Drive - 200MB/s £19.99 - Free Delivery | MyMemory as it avoids any problems with adaptors and sits under the sliding lid.

 

Chris

 

Thanks Chris - I've investigated getting one.  MyMemory is showing out of stock, so is Amazon, and Integral don't seem to list it anymore on their site.  They appear to have replaced it with the 360 Dual USB.

 

According to the 360 product data sheet it's 37mm high, the dimensions of the Fusion [not from Integral website] show it as being 28mm high, which means the 360 might not fit under the lid.  Shame.

Hi Wilfred. 

 

I have a Seat Ateca with the same infotainment system as your Karoq and I too have been suffering from random selection of tracks when listening, in my case, to MP3 audio book files on USB.  I can use the same files in another VAG car (a 2016 Audi A4) and never have an issue but with the Ateca, once it finished the current track, and after returning to the car to continue a journey, it would select track 1 from a different book from the same author or track 1 from a book by a different author.  I can't tell you the amount of times it started playing the first track of "Blue Moon" by Lee Child!

 

Most of my audio book MP3 files had been created by using an audio CD to MP3 converter program but that didn't add all the MP3 tag information so I spent much time using a MP3 tagging program to create unique track names, file names, add in the author, the correct title etc.  I then used another program to create a playlist file and it is this that I select when listing to a story, rather than navigating to the folder for story and selecting the first track.

 

As a result of doing this it does seem to be behaving better, although earlier this week when listening to an audio book ("The Sentinel" by Lee Child) it then jumped about 15 files (but at least it didn't start playing disk 1 of "Blue Moon" :-))

 

I did also find the unit struggled with 128 GB USB sticks so I repartitioned them down to 32 GB and that seems to be better.  Having said that, one of the USB sticks will start playing then won't play anything when I next use the car, reporting that there are no readable files.  I have reformatted the USB stick to no avail so have just ordered 3 more.

 

Best of luck with getting this working - I've been trying now for almost 18 months....

 

Glen

1 hour ago, TheITGuy said:

 

Best of luck with getting this working - I've been trying now for almost 18 months....

 

 

If I figure it out, I'll paste it here.

22 hours ago, Wilfred said:

 

Thanks Chris - I've investigated getting one.  MyMemory is showing out of stock, so is Amazon, and Integral don't seem to list it anymore on their site.  They appear to have replaced it with the 360 Dual USB.

 

According to the 360 product data sheet it's 37mm high, the dimensions of the Fusion [not from Integral website] show it as being 28mm high, which means the 360 might not fit under the lid.  Shame.

Thanks for the update. I'll have to look after mine!!

 

Chris

It's been a while, and I've been experimenting.  I wouldn't say I have any definitive results but based on recent experience here's what I uncovered.

 

I started off with a couple of old 32Gb sticks, both SanDisk. One USB 2.0 and one USB 3.0.  Both formatted as FAT32 and with about 28Gb of music on them, no non-English characters, and no compilation albums or audio books.  They worked flawlessly for a couple of weeks each.  Never forgot where they were and were selectable easily from the tag database or the folder routes. I also noticed that it didn't take between 5 and 8 seconds to react to any instruction, like play/pause or skip a track.

 

Next, I moved back to my original 128Gb stick and formatted it as NTFS.  First off, I just did a quick format and had a few weird errors that I never saw before.  I then did a full format [uncheck the "Quick Format" box but be prepared for a long wait] and copied approximately half the music collection on to it.  As before, no compilation albums, audio books or albums with non-English characters.  This worked fine for many weeks and was as responsive as using the 32Gb sticks.  One morning it was back at track one in the tag database, but I can't rule out the fact that a system update didn't cause this as the night before it told me there was an update.  Since then, it has rest to track one in the tag database two more times, although I wasn't in the vehicle when this was noticed the much-reduced frequency could be indicative of an update being downloaded and applied silently.

 

The original stick was formatted as exFAT when I bought it, so I'm going to suggest that the system support for exFAT in the MIB3 system is flawed. I also think that there could be something in the need for the full format, especially when changing file systems. 

 

I do also wonder about the music database size, I dropped from about 20,000 files and folders down to about 10,000 files and folders.  I do still need to add back the German artists, to see if the umlauted characters have any bearing, as well as add back in the compilation albums and audio books.

 

In parallel to this I have been doing a mass re-tagging exercise to my compilation albums - making contributing artist be "Various Artists". Audio books are also edited to reduce the complexity of the file structure to reduce the number of directories to see if this has any impact.  Once I have spent some time with the German music, I'll add back the compilation albums and see what happens.  Audio books will probably remain on a separate stick.

After being fine for a year since getting the car, I've now started getting USB replay wierdness.   a USB C stick has always just lived in the car, no bother.  It sounds somewat silimar to above.  Frequent re-starts to the first track on the stick when turning on the ignition.   Voice search for an artist playing the wrong tracks (different artists).  Put the stick in a PC and it says error detected, but chkdsk finds no errors, and then re-inserting the stick in the PC doesn't flag an error!?  Put it back in the car, start playing, then return it to the PC and error detected again; rinse and repeat.  Was originally FAT32 and have reformatted as exFAT; no difference. 

We had a service recently and they did some software updates as a "recall", apparently before there was a chance you could accidentally lock the vehicle with the keys in instantly. Now you have to wait for a minute or so before the car will lock with keys in. After that the DSG seemed to be making sloppy changes and we had a run if about 10 engine stops where the playing track reset to the first track in the MP3 tag database. Now things have settled down and the infotainment system is only doing it occasionally.

 

I did think there would be an easy explanation as to why this happened but now I don't think there is. There's some trigger but I don't know what it is, and everything I've tried hasn't uncovered it.

 

I doubt very much that the infotainment system has "proper" USB support and once the deficiencies are uncovered I'm hoping the solution will also be. I had a Toyota whose system would only work properly if the USB stick only had 1 layer of folders, even if you weren't playing music from the stick. Took me ages to uncover the answer buried in a Toyta blog on the Yaris - which wasn't the model I had!

On a previous Ford there was an issue with USB resetting which I believe was down to the voltage dipping when the engine was being cranked.  It only ever restarted at the first track, never playing the incorrect track; i.e. select artist E and get artist D.

 

Bearing in mind that this worked fine for a year...   I'm assuming the indexing of the USB device is getting stored within the head unit.  If that's somehow stuffed, I wonder if a factory reset will help?

One of the nice things about the Skoda system is that you can turn it on without needing to turn on the ignition. It's reset even then! I did wonder the same thing but I don't think so as it doesn't reset if you subsequently start the vehicle.  The other thought I had was that it doesn't shutdown gracefully when you get out of the vehicle or hit the power button on the head unit.

 

I'm convinced that the system builds an MP3 tag database in its own memory, if you load up a large stick and go straight to interrogating the database you can see a subset of what's on the stick and can see the list growing on each screen refresh.

 

What I don't understand is how they managed to break things so badly when going from MIB 2 to 3. My previous Octavia system worked flawlessly.

Have long (i.e. not quick) reformated the USB stick to defaults and reloaded the music, and for now it seems to be working nomally again.  I'm guessing here, but I think possibly the head unit now thinks it's a different stick and has therefore reset it's internal cache/index of tracks. ...of it could be sunspot activity.  Who knows!?

I also had issues with a quick format when changing file format at the same time. I suspect in that sense you're correct.

 

There's many over the air updates which probably also help to confuse things..

5 hours ago, Wilfred said:

There's many over the air updates which probably also help to confuse things..

 

Yes, good point.

I asked a question a while ago here.

What I have found though, is that I turned off the gesture control on my infotainment and it's not skipped any tracks since.

Coincidence maybe ?

 

I'm not ruling anything out with this!

 

Did turning off gesture control also turn of the proximity sensing for the menus.?  I don't think I have ever used the gestures, so it won't be an issue turning it off. 

 

Much like the voice "wake up phrase" for the voice control.  That turns on the voice control randomly, even listening to the radio, the DJ says something, and voice control wakes up!

Sorry, I've not noticed

Hello to all from a new member.

I felt compelled to join BRISKODA so that I could add my own experience to everyone else’s list of woes related to the MIB3 infotainment system used with USB memory sticks and forgetting what was last playing, when starting a new journey.

I logged the problem as a warranty issue with Škoda in December 2023, 3 months after taking delivery of a new Kamiq. It took that long for me to convince myself that I wasn’t doing anything silly – and Gesture Control was disabled.

This is how I described the fault to Škoda:

When using the Media Player I find that, unlike previous Škodas I have owned, my Kamiq often fails to retain its audio track position between successive journeys.

It actually forgets what it was last playing on about half the breaks between successive journeys. The other half the time it works fine. Whether the break between journeys is 5 minutes, or 5 days, the chances of the Media Player remembering or forgetting what it was last playing are about 50:50. It is particularly infuriating when I am 20 or so chapters into a long book and the Media Player loses its place.

Now, after an extensive dialogue (multiple long email threads) with Škoda Customer Service UK, and latterly Škoda CZ, their response seems to be “well it works some of the time, so what are you complaining about?”.

To compare notes with other sufferers, I have established that the 50:50 forgetfulness occurs irrespective of choice of USB memory stick:

Capacity - 8GB, 16GB, 32GB up to 128GB

Format - FAT32, exFAT or NTFS

Manufacturer - Intenso, Kingston or Sandisk

Connectivity – USB2 or USB3 stick using USB-C adapter OR USB3 memory with direct USB-C connectivity (e.g. Kingston DataTraveler microDuo 3C 128GB)

For a long time, Škoda has refused to engage with me to resolve the problem but I have told them that I am convinced this a bug where the track-position system variable is randomly corrupted (when starting the car to begin a new journey), possibly in all VAG Media Players with USB-C connectivity across the Volkswagen-Audi Group.

And just as I’m composing this post, I receive an email from Škoda Connectivity Help Desk in the Czech Republic, saying that:

We have forwarded your case to our development team for further analysis.

As soon as we have more information, we will contact you.

Thank you for your cooperation.

That’s 17 months since I first tried to get Škoda interested in fixing this bug!

I guess it’s OK for me to refer Škoda to this thread, since they’ve been telling me for a long time that no one else has reported this problem?

Apart from music and stand-up comedy, on long journeys I listen to audiobooks and it’s absolutely infuriating when, 20 chapters in, the Media Player loses audio track position and sends me back to the first file that was written to the USB memory stick. I find the problem so annoying enough that if this was a stand-alone head unit (like in the old days), I’d simply rip it out and replace it with an after-market head unit that works. But now it’s no longer possible to separate infotainment functionality from vehicle functionality so that’s not an option.

I’ll post back whether or not I make progress with Škoda Connectivity Help Desk.

I wouldn't want to put a 'downer' here but having spent a lifetime in IT

Since they’ve been telling me for a long time that no one else has reported this problem?

That's fob-off stage 1

We have forwarded your case to our development team for further analysis.

As soon as we have more information, we will contact you.

Thank you for your cooperation.

I'm afraid that's fob off stage 2

If you have the strength to persist, then fob off stage 3 is usually

We're expecting a firmware update in the near (sic) future, lets see if that fixes it.

Of course, it won't but by that time they hope you'll have given up and forgotten all about it! If not they will return to Stage 2, they'd really like to return to Stage 1 but that's a bit tricky since they've sort of admitted the existence of the problem in the past by going to Stage 2!

Edited 22 May, 20251 yr by NottsIan

Hi MarkAL

I feel your pain - see my earlier post in this thread! I spent ages adding all the MP3 tags to the audiobook tracks in an attempt to get the damn car to remember where it had last reached, but right up until March (when I traded in the Ateca for a Hyundai Tucson), it would still randomly not recognise the USB stick or start replaying from the start of the same track. I started to stick the edge of a Post-It note to the screen at the point where I had paused a track, so that if it reset, I could rapidly return to the point where I left off.

I've never had the problem in the Tucson, nor my other car, a 2016 Audi A4.

I hope you get this resolved.

Glen

Thank you, TheITGuy, for your good luck wishes.

Like you previously had a 2016 Audi A4 with totally reliable media player functionality, I’ve still got a 2019 Škoda Superb, also with totally reliable media player functionality. It has 2 x SD memory cards for MP3 media files and it maintains separate “bookmarks” for each SD card.

The 2019 Škoda even displays cover art embedded in the ID3 tag for whatever is currently playing, whereas, on the rare occasion the MIB3 decides to display cover art, it’s not usually relevant because it’s been cross-linked from an entirely different album, elsewhere on the USB memory stick.

It is because the media player is so good in the 2019 Škoda that I find it doubly infuriating that the MIB3 system is so buggy and bad.

And yes, NottsIan, I realise, and I’m disappointed to note, that Škoda has been fobbing me off for more than a year, which is why I think they need an audience for their poor customer service. I can actually remember a time when Škoda actually used used to care about their customers.

I bought my first Škoda in 1997 and this faulty Kamiq is the 9th new Škoda I’ve bought – if that isn’t brand loyalty then I don’t know what is.

If Škoda won’t organise a firmware upgrade to fix the fault, this Kamiq is not just the last Škoda I’ll buy, it also means I can’t buy any other vehicle from across the entire Volkswagen-Audi Group range, because this bug must be present in pretty much all their vehicles (with USB-C interface for media) now!

Thanks also to TheITGuy - It's helpful to know that Hyundai is making vehicles with working media players.

Anyone got any ideas on where else I ought to post, or who else I ought to write to?