Infotainment System - Movies from USB

[James_Yukon]

After a week of troubleshooting I am finally posting this in hopes of some tech guidance! I am trying to play movies from the USB input. I have figured out that MP4 is the only format that works (I think?).

But, when playing with a FLASH DRIVE, About 5 minutes into each movie, the whole system reboots and starts over.

Here's the weird thing. It does NOT do this if I play the movies though an EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE.

1) Can anyone tell me if this is normal, or if this is the system not operating correctly?

2) Is MP4 the only format we can use? I'm wondering if there is another format that might work fine on the flash/thumb drive.

Thanks for any guidance!

 

[dbbd1]

How is your ext hard drive vs thumb drive formatted?

 

[James_Yukon]

USB is FAT32; HDD is NTFS. Interesting - you think that's the issue?

 

[James_Yukon]

I'll try changing to NTFS and let you know

 

[dbbd1]

USB is FAT32; HDD is NTFS. Interesting - you think that's the issue?

IIRC, I had issues with an older thumb drive that I just threw some music on.

 

[billium39]

I got so happy reading the title of the thread thinking I was going to see an answer to my issue, but no . I have a Samsung 128gb usb stick I have media on, not sure what its formatted as, I never changed it, used to use it for my bmw and worked fine for music. When I plug it into the USB port behind the infotainment screen the music will play fine, and I'm able to scroll thru folders and such.

Now my issue is with the movies I'm trying to play from it. I have mp4s in a separate folder, but they won't play if I have the usb plugged into the same port. I switched it to the back port but it will just autoplay the first file. I don't get the issue of the system rebooting like you mentioned James, but I have to just click next to get to the movie I want in the folder which is a pain bc you don't really know what you're watching till it starts playing and you can tell what it is.

 

[Off1c3r]

Anecdotally I've noticed (in previous vehicles) that NTFS caused more issues than FAT32. I'd gamble the reboot had something to do with NTFS and the file size of the media being played.

 

[dbbd1]

Anecdotally I've noticed (in previous vehicles) that NTFS caused more issues than FAT32. I'd gamble the reboot had something to do with NTFS and the file size of the media being played.

^ yup...

 

[James_Yukon]

I spoke too soon above, the external HD has the same problem. FAT32 v. NTFS doesn't make a difference either.

So after no luck, I took my truck to the dealership, and 20 days later, they couldn't figure it out (as well as the useless HDMI port). Apparently GM is aware of these issues and is working on a software upgrade/fix.

Whatever!

 

[Ct Pirate]

unreal! They are working on it, wonderful!

 

[dcyy]

Am having a similar problem with using a thumb drive in my new Denali. Used the same stick in my 16 and 19 without any trouble but when plugged into the new usb the system will recognize the songs/artist/album but if you make the selection it will skip over to the next recorded playable song. Old drive formatted NTFS so I burnt a new stick in Fat32 format -same thing. Happens on about 20% of 200+ songs. I'm lost Any help?

 

[p1zaul]

I have had success formatting sd cards to fat32 and putting one movie per card. I bought a while bunch of used 4gb sd cards for next to nothing on eBay. Now I just pop in whichever card and it just starts playing. Super simple and seems to work perfectly.

 

[dcyy]

Am having a similar problem with using a thumb drive in my new Denali. Used the same stick in my 16 and 19 without any trouble but when plugged into the new usb the system will recognize the songs/artist/album but if you make the selection it will skip over to the next recorded playable song. Old drive formatted NTFS so I burnt a new stick in Fat32 format -same thing. Happens on about 20% of 200+ songs. I'm lost Any help?

After further trial/error I found out that the thumb drive formatted in Fat32 is not the problem-it's how the song was recorded. In my case most of the non playable songs were in a WMA format. I had to go into their specific file and convert from WMA to MP3 or 4 and then re-record to thumb drive-Now they are recognized and play as intended.

 

[addam]

A few years later but I *think* I've figured out why it resets 5 minutes into each movie. I had the exact same issue. It worked great for a while, then I added a few movies to the USB drive, and a few minutes in it would skip to the next movie. At first I thought someone shorted the controls by spilling on it, and even that the USB drive was bad. I gave up. I tried it again a few months later and I changed the movies that were on it. It started working again. They were all mp4 files, but there is something to do with the encoding of the files. I used Handbrake to encode the files to use H.264 video and AAC audio, and it's all working now! The USB drive is formatted to FAT32. I hope this helps someone else who has run into this issue.