Issue using USB thumb drive

[Nosrepmodnar]

I have been using USB sticks in my cars for the last dozen or more years. Great way to do audio books instead of carrying dozens of CDs in your vehicle.
The radio in the maverick (lariat) is constantly losing the USB drive though, switches to FM and since the volume is up to hear spoken work the radio is at a ridiculous volume.
I turn the radio off before I turn the car off, then when turning on I wait for a while, long enough that the drive should be ready, before turning the radio on.
Defective radio or is this a widespread issue? or am I the only weirdo using USB drives?
I am not leashed to my phone and do not want to use that to play the music, believe it or not I actually drive places without having it on me

Sponsored

 

[KevCuRaoi]

I have been using USB sticks in my cars for the last dozen or more years. Great way to do audio books instead of carrying dozens of CDs in your vehicle.
The radio in the maverick (lariat) is constantly losing the USB drive though, switches to FM and since the volume is up to hear spoken work the radio is at a ridiculous volume.
I turn the radio off before I turn the car off, then when turning on I wait for a while, long enough that the drive should be ready, before turning the radio on.
Defective radio or is this a widespread issue? or am I the only weirdo using USB drives?
I am not leashed to my phone and do not want to use that to play the music, believe it or not I actually drive places without having it on me

Mine occasionally does a similar thing. Usually, it just fails to connect when I first start it. Sometimes it defaults to radio, or sometimes the audio is just off. Rarely does it drop USB while it is already playing something.

I don't turn the radio on/off. Nothing special. I haven't looked into the issue.....but I just turn audio on or switch back to usb if necessary.

 

[Gschaef]

I only used USB drives in mine and though there were other issues, this was not one of them. You say you wait for awhile until the drive should be ready. The display should actually tell you that.

When you turn on your radio with the USB plugged in, or when you plug in the USB after the radio is turned on, you should see a message on the screen indicating the drive is being indexed. When the message clears the drive is ready to use. If you are not seeing that prompt it may be the drive is not being indexed properly which may be part of the problem.

 

[billbillw]

The USB file playback setup is a hot-mess on the Maverick (non Sync3). I wish my iPod would work with it. I have had numerous frustrations with it. Can't browse until it scans (why does it have to scan every time you start the car?), you can't browse while in motion, and it doesn't go back to the same spot you were at when browsing. So basically, you have to sit there for 5+ minutes after starting the truck, then select, otherwise, you are trying to do it at a stoplight which can be frustrating, or you have to pull over to a parking lot and make a selection. After each album is finished, you have to repeat the process.

I was hoping to make it easier to at least bring up a playlist of all albums by each of my favorite artists, so I put 24 M3U playlists on my USB stick, each for an artist with all their albums in chronological release order. Turns out the playlist feature is broken too. Out of those 24 M3U, it only sees two playlists, and in those playlists, it only shows about 1 album worth of music, and they aren't in correct order! WTF?

And if the official Ford account here chimes in and asks me for my VIN "to look into it", I will ignore because there is nothing they can do.

 

[Samus]

I have been using USB sticks in my cars for the last dozen or more years. Great way to do audio books instead of carrying dozens of CDs in your vehicle.
The radio in the maverick (lariat) is constantly losing the USB drive though, switches to FM and since the volume is up to hear spoken work the radio is at a ridiculous volume.
I turn the radio off before I turn the car off, then when turning on I wait for a while, long enough that the drive should be ready, before turning the radio on.
Defective radio or is this a widespread issue? or am I the only weirdo using USB drives?
I am not leashed to my phone and do not want to use that to play the music, believe it or not I actually drive places without having it on me

Happens all the time on my Chevy Volt as well... It's annoying.

 

[Gschaef]

The other annoyance is it is hit or miss from starting from where you left off. I had 1200 songs on a usb. Say I listen to 100 songs and then turn the truck off. The next time I start the truck the usb will either start on song 101 or song 1. And even though I have it on shuffle if it restarts on song one it will play the same 100 songs in the same order as before to get back to where I left off. This is with the latest usb type. That would be even more frustrating with audio books. I wrote in a previous post that the stereo system in the Maverick almost makes me miss 8-Tracks.

 

[Nosrepmodnar]

I have not had any issues with it not picking back up where I was even after the disconnect/reconnect. If the volume difference wasn't so high I probably wouldn't care. Maybe I should re-rip and see if new technology would be better results

 

[Dmthomp32]

When using a USB it worked okay for me. I didn’t have 1,000’s of songs, maybe 400? It took a bit to scan and load but was pretty good about staying connected. Now the issues I have are between the Bluetooth and the wired Apple CarPlay connection. My radio drops one or the other, forgets they exist, turns off the radio and refuses to turn it back on. The list goes with issues with the radio for me. That being said the truck is great for me outside of the radio. Makes my old Volvo seem like the peak of stereo technology in comparison. It always found my phone and picked up right where I left off every time.

 

[Dad]

I have been using USB sticks in my cars for the last dozen or more years. Great way to do audio books instead of carrying dozens of CDs in your vehicle.
The radio in the maverick (lariat) is constantly losing the USB drive though, switches to FM and since the volume is up to hear spoken work the radio is at a ridiculous volume.
I turn the radio off before I turn the car off, then when turning on I wait for a while, long enough that the drive should be ready, before turning the radio on.
Defective radio or is this a widespread issue? or am I the only weirdo using USB drives?
I am not leashed to my phone and do not want to use that to play the music, believe it or not I actually drive places without having it on me

A bit off topic, but your post prompted me to report something equally annoying: every time I start the truck the radio comes on automatically. I instantly turn it off, but it comes right back on the next time I start up.

 

[WannaMav]

I have been using USB sticks in my cars for the last dozen or more years. Great way to do audio books instead of carrying dozens of CDs in your vehicle.
The radio in the maverick (lariat) is constantly losing the USB drive though, switches to FM and since the volume is up to hear spoken work the radio is at a ridiculous volume.
I turn the radio off before I turn the car off, then when turning on I wait for a while, long enough that the drive should be ready, before turning the radio on.
Defective radio or is this a widespread issue? or am I the only weirdo using USB drives?
I am not leashed to my phone and do not want to use that to play the music, believe it or not I actually drive places without having it on me

Agree that not being able to browse via the screen while in motion is ludicrous.

But you can kind of, sort of get around that while moving by using the physical tuning (right hand) knob of the radio while already playing something on the USB to go forward or back.

Other than that have experienced none of what else you describe. Have you tried doing a soft reset of the system? See here:
https://www.mavericktruckclub.com/forum/threads/screen-issue.13883/#post-273930

 

[billbillw]

....
I was hoping to make it easier to at least bring up a playlist of all albums by each of my favorite artists, so I put 24 M3U playlists on my USB stick, each for an artist with all their albums in chronological release order. Turns out the playlist feature is broken too. Out of those 24 M3U, it only sees two playlists, and in those playlists, it only shows about 1 album worth of music, and they aren't in correct order! WTF?
....

After doing some digging, I found this old post at the F150 forum:
https://www.f150forum.com/f118/playlists-sync3-usb-jump-drive-351129/index2/#post5267206

It is pretty tedious, but I took out a spare laptop, put the USB in, installed iTunes, created a new library of just the USB songs, and re-did all my playlists using iTunes. Then I used Notepad to replace the drive letter with ../
It probably took an hour or more.
I took the little USB drive out, planned a little drive and was initially met with frustration. The head unit took forever to scan, it locked up on USB playback multiple times, I did a system reset a couple times. Nothing seemed to work. I was about to give up. In the meantime, I did some shopping at Walmart (parked way out in the far end), came back drove home and I had a couple dozen properly working playlists!

That is at least one step forward. I will have to see if it is reliable or if I have issues with it freezing up or having extended scan times. Hopefully it works.

 

[Bargeld]

I exclusively use my USB with about 25,000 files on it. All of the negative things above do occur but they can also be mitigated with a few know-hows:
Turn the power off before turning the engine off. When starting, do your navigation prior to powering up the audio. Typically, I don't turn it on until already moving.
There is a better way thatn browsing. The audio (and even the AC controls and a ton of other things) are all voice activated with pretty extensive menus:
Play songname by artist
play albumname by artist
play artist
play genre
play playlistname
"find" is another good one that works across systems
try things that make sense. My favorite is "go home" and "go to work", where it starts the route and everything with no additional input needed.

Also, you can edit your USB name and enter MAVERICK (upper/lower case doesn't matter) and it will display on the gauges and screens as well as the "MAVERICK is ready" message when the USB is loaded.
When formatting a new drive, use EXFat.

 

[Ozarkbeard]

...I am not leashed to my phone and do not want to use that to play the music, believe it or not I actually drive places without having it on me

I, too, sometimes drive without my phone, or drive with it on airplane mode, just so I won't be bothered with distractions.

One thing you could do if you don't succeed in getting the USB feature to work to your liking, is get an old used phone with sufficient storage. Remove all the apps on it except for a music player, then load all of your music on it. Use the phone's music player for navigation, instead of the truck's infotainment system.

You shouldn't have to do this, and the USB reader in the Maverick should work better. But the reality is, it doesn't.

 

[billbillw]

I exclusively use my USB with about 25,000 files on it. All of the negative things above do occur but they can also be mitigated with a few know-hows:
Turn the power off before turning the engine off. When starting, do your navigation prior to powering up the audio. Typically, I don't turn it on until already moving.
There is a better way thatn browsing. The audio (and even the AC controls and a ton of other things) are all voice activated with pretty extensive menus:
Play songname by artist
play albumname by artist
play artist
play genre
play playlistname
"find" is another good one that works across systems
try things that make sense. My favorite is "go home" and "go to work", where it starts the route and everything with no additional input needed.

Also, you can edit your USB name and enter MAVERICK (upper/lower case doesn't matter) and it will display on the gauges and screens as well as the "MAVERICK is ready" message when the USB is loaded.
When formatting a new drive, use EXFat.

You have a Sync3 version, so its not really a comparison. Voice commands do not work with the USB files on the Non-Sync3 vehicles (everything but Lariat Lux). Also, exFAT is not needed for file sizes under 4GB. FAT32 offers better compatibility.

 

[Snowbird]

Looking for some advice.

I am going to have a friend transfer music from cd's to a SanDisk Ultra Fit USB 3.2 Gen 1 Flash Drive 64GB that I bought. I have a Hybrid XL with the base stereo.

Which format should I use?

Sponsored