I've trawled through the forum a bit and read stuff here and there but information is so scattered that it's giving me a headache now. Am I the only one who thinks the Amundsen infotainment system is just bloody awkward to use? Or is it me and I'm just using it wrong?

I want to play music from a USB drive in the centre armrest console, so I've formatted the USB driver and copied some mp3 tracks to it. Some are in folders that make logical sense to anyone browsing the folder structure. Albums etc. The problem is the stereo doesn't play stuff from individual folders, it just scans the entire drive and plays them in filename order, regardless which folder they are in. It just scans the entire drive and plays every song from every folder in alphabetical order. What?!

Another issue is every time I turn off the ignition and lock the car, then return to the car later and turn on the ignition ... is the stereo playing the same song I left it playing? No! It's started again at the very beginning of all the files in all the folders playing in name order.

Before anyone says it, I don't want to use my phone to play music, I just want the stereo to do its job. Seriously everyone, am I doing something ridiculously dumb here and I'll be embarrassed for even asking this, or is it really that un intuitive? If it's a dumb question I apologise right here, right now.

if it makes any difference it's the Amundsen with the USB-C in the "ashtray". From what I've read that's the latest model right?

That is the last model of MIB3 in the Superb, yes.

Mine is Columbus and gives a folder tree but yes it just starts from the beginning.

Does it make a difference if you fill in the album, artist etc in the file data on your pc? Should then at least list by artist and album etc?

I have MIB3 with Columbus and play mp3 files from the USB port in the centre storage box. The tracks always start again exactly from where I last played before switching off the car, so no problem there. However, I don’t arrange the music files in folders (just one big blob of mp3 files on the USB) and I have filled the artist and album fields on my home computer, so maybe that allows the MIB3 system to remember where it was when I switched off the car?

18 hours ago, Binx1310 said:

Does it make a difference if you fill in the album, artist etc in the file data on your pc? Should then at least list by artist and album etc?

6 hours ago, fencer said:

I have MIB3 with Columbus and play mp3 files from the USB port in the centre storage box. The tracks always start again exactly from where I last played before switching off the car, so no problem there. However, I don’t arrange the music files in folders (just one big blob of mp3 files on the USB) and I have filled the artist and album fields on my home computer, so maybe that allows the MIB3 system to remember where it was when I switched off the car?

To answer you both, No I have not filled in the artist and album stuff. I download a lot of DJ sets and mixes which means they'll not have regular ID3 tags. Hmmmmmm I might have to start formatting ID3 tags.

3 hours ago, allclownsareevi said:

To answer you both, No I have not filled in the artist and album stuff. I download a lot of DJ sets and mixes which means they'll not have regular ID3 tags. Hmmmmmm I might have to start formatting ID3 tags.

I have MIB 2 and download music to the internal HDD via the SD slot. Adding album, artist and track no allowed better searching of and playing of the tracks.

2 hours ago, Binx1310 said:

I have MIB 2 and download music to the internal HDD via the SD slot. Adding album, artist and track no allowed better searching of and playing of the tracks.

Yep, that'll most likely sort the OP's issue.

On 11/02/2026 at 17:11, allclownsareevi said:

To answer you both, No I have not filled in the artist and album stuff. I download a lot of DJ sets and mixes which means they'll not have regular ID3 tags. Hmmmmmm I might have to start formatting ID3 tags.

Mine definitely uses the MP3 album, artist and track tags to sort into a sensible order. I don't have any untagged MP3s so I don't know what happens without them.

General organisation of tracks is poor, though. If you select by "Genre" it then only lists the tracks by Artist name, there's no way to sort by Album, which is a pain for things like audiobooks. I'd like to be able to select "Book" or "Drama" and then pick a specific Album, but the only way to do that is to seach by folder and filename, which takes far too much attention to be done while driving 😒

Forgetting where it was in a playlist or album seems to be standard behaviour. I've had long conversations with Skoda and they insist this is the way it's designed & won't accept that it's a fixable fault, despite lots of internet threads for all VW group cars complaining about this behaviour. It makes playlists pretty useless.

When the system is first started after a long pause I briefly see a message like "device not found", I assume that the system is too slow to mount the storage, so that when the media player looks for the playlist again it can't find it, and resets. Then the storage eventually appears and it starts playing from whatever it thinks is the first track. Should be an easy fix (longer timeout?), but VW don't seem to care.

I've also noted than if I create .m3u playlists on the USB stick the system scans and stores them under "Playlists", but after some time (randomly weeks to months) it then forgets them. They still show up in the filesystem but are greyed-out and not selectable. The only fix is to take the memory stick to a PC and copy all the m3u files to a different folder, before deleting the originals (renaming the folder isn't enough). They'll then re-appear for a while, until the system forgets them again later. My guess is that they are scanned when the USB stick is first inserted, but something causes that cache of data to be corrupted.

My next car will NOT be from VW group 😠

VAG definitely don’t care enough to muck around with these bits. Not enough dev time, critical fixes only etc etc.

MIB3 had some catastrophic firmware updates that they needed to fix and in some cases replace hardware - in cases of Mk4 Octavia generation, they had soft buttons for heater controls so couldn’t change the temperature. Gotta be careful moving to another brand though; not that VAG is good but plenty aren’t any better.

7 hours ago, travs said:

Gotta be careful moving to another brand though; not that VAG is good but plenty aren’t any better.

True, one reason I haven't changed yet is that I can't find a decent replacement. I'm now leaning towards an older car with a decent reputation, one that dates from before all the touchscreeen and driver aids crap was trendy. I can spend the difference paying a specialist to fully service it and replace anything that's wearing out.

Good point:

B7 RS4

E36 M3

Sapphire 4x4 Cosworth.

1 hour ago, travs said:

Good point:

B7 RS4

E36 M3

Sapphire 4x4 Cosworth.

You misspelled E46 M3. The B7 can be expensive to run… a B5 is maybe more sensible, unless you can magic up a B6!

Reading this thread makes me realise that newer doesn't always mean better, I have a MY20 SE L Hatchback which was the first of the facelift models to hit the UK ( 69 REG) . So the car has Amundsen 2.5MIB fitted with nav and music SD card slots.

I have all my music in MP3 format on the SD card by artist, album and track which list plays faultlessly through the Media and digital cockpit screen - and when required again plays from the last play. For me as a luddite where technology is concerned this system I have is perfect and has helped me in my decision to keep with this car instead of updating with a newer model.

Just saying like 😁