[IAmATeaf]

How in idrive can I select multiple folders to play music from? Background, I created a usb stick with music, individual folders for all artists, imported the lot to the internal hard drive so I now have a folder called rock/pop with loads of sub folders.

When I browse folders I get rock/pop when I click on it I get a list of all the artists/folders, I want to be able to play all the songs in this folder, how?

[wilbur_the_goose]

Have you considered loading your music files to the BMW hard drive?

Just make sure your tags are correct on your files.

[radiation]

Pick a song -- Options button on clickwheel -- Randomize

This will play all the songs on the main rock/pop folder in shuffle. The only problem is it resets every time you get in the car and starts playing in order from where it last left off.

[IAmATeaf]

Thanks for the replies. I do have the songs on the hard drive but I have 2 folders which have sub folders within so wanted to select all the songs at the top folder.

I’m looking at creating an m3u playlist, going to do some playing around today so will report what I find.

[IAmATeaf]

Today I tried getting an m3u file to import. Just a file on the usb and it’s not having it, no success. Then tried deleting my entire colllection and then reimporting with an m3u file, tracks import with no issues but the playlist doesn’t.

So again I deleted my collection and this time added a few m3u files with differing path formats and this time 1 imported from a stick but an m3u file in he same format refused to import from another stick.

I’ve got yet another set of sticks prepared so I’ll try again tomorrow.

[IAmATeaf]

Had some success today. Managed to get a playlist to import. What worked for me was to get rid of all the artist folders and have all the files in the root of the usb. In the m3u you then simply remove the drive letter and simply have the name of the song. I saw some posts suggesting that the collection name should before and also another where it said to put ../ in front but neither of these formatted m3u files imported.

I’d hazard a guess that I could put all the artist folders back and then change the m3u to match and it should work but I’m happy with what I’ve done.

[IAmATeaf]

Quick update in case it helps others. I tried putting all the artist folders back in with the m3u file in the root of the usb and although it imported all the music it refused to import the playlist. So as a test I put a single mp3 in the root of the usb and this time it imported the playlist. So some success but I’m still playing around and testing.

[IAmATeaf]

Update in case it helps others, given up on using the onboard hard disk, it’s just simply too hassle if you want to add a song or maybe update the tag info on an existing song. It looks like the onboard collection management was put together by a person at bmw who never used or wanted the feature.

So I’ve gone back to using a usb drive, took a few attempts to get playlists to be picked up, tried putting them into a folder called Playlists but on my car they have to be in the roof of the folder. If I need to make a change then I can whip the stick out and make the change on my laptop in a few seconds.

I’ll just put up with the problem of it randomly not being picked up and needing to be unplugged and plugged back in.

[sone]

Hi Guys,
My BMW X3 plays USB folder/album and when finished, start playing the same folder/album again ? Is it possible to set somehow a continuous play, ie play next folder/album after previous folder/album finished ?

Thanks

[IAmATeaf]

I gave up on using the inbuilt hard drive and now just use a usb stick with playlists. Just create a playlist on the usb and then select the playlist. Also the usb makes things so much easier to update/change whereas with the built in hard drive it was nigh on impossible to make a change to an existing album that had already been copied.

[Jvac]

Originally Posted by IAmATeaf

I gave up on using the inbuilt hard drive and now just use a usb stick with playlists. Just create a playlist on the usb and then select the playlist. Also the usb makes things so much easier to update/change whereas with the built in hard drive it was nigh on impossible to make a change to an existing album that had already been copied.

I have been using the USB stick as well, but it seems like I drive can only handle 500 songs per playlist. I created some big playlists because I have a lot of songs, but each of them only shows 500 songs even though they are larger. Have you or anyone else noticed this? I am in a 2015 335i with the nbt nav display if it helps.

[Fedorov]

Originally Posted by IAmATeaf

I gave up on using the inbuilt hard drive and now just use a usb stick with playlists. Just create a playlist on the usb and then select the playlist. Also the usb makes things so much easier to update/change whereas with the built in hard drive it was nigh on impossible to make a change to an existing album that had already been copied.

I have all mp3 files in the root of the usb. I also have two m3u vfiles (two different playlists) in the root. Still, my idrive cannot find the playlists.

Was this not your successful setup?

My m3u files look like this (only top of file with first two songs as example):

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:149,Artist1- song1
10%20song1.mp3
#EXTINF:201,Artist1 - song2
11%20song2.mp3

Idrive finds all songs but like I said, none of the playlist files..

[cesaroctavio_80]

Originally Posted by Fedorov

I have all mp3 files in the root of the usb. I also have two m3u vfiles (two different playlists) in the root. Still, my idrive cannot find the playlists.

Was this not your successful setup?

My m3u files look like this (only top of file with first two songs as example):

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:149,Artist1- song1
10%20song1.mp3
#EXTINF:201,Artist1 - song2
11%20song2.mp3

Idrive finds all songs but like I said, none of the playlist files..

Hi did you make it work?

[Fedorov]

Originally Posted by cesaroctavio_80

Hi did you make it work?

Nope, I gave up and can live with it...

[cesaroctavio_80]

Originally Posted by Fedorov

Nope, I gave up and can live with it...

hahahaha damn it, if i solve it it let you now.

[tympj]

Totally agree with OP that the person that designed this playlist feature didn't have a clue what they were doing. I use the hard drive exclusively when playing my 1600+ songs. The only way I can get playlists to work is to create the playlist I want on my computer then copy to the root of flashdrive like OP has done. Once imported to hard drive, it creates a new import that must be renamed to whatever you want like Oldies etc. However, it will not play one playlist after another automatically. Again, very bad interface design. You have to manually go in music collection, music search, browse directory then highlight playlist you want which will play all the songs in the selected list. Then, browse to another playlist select what you want and play. Very cumbersome especially if you want to create a playlist from songs within idrive. That's a whole different procedure which again was poorly designed and not worth my time.

As bad as this interface is designed, I still prefer having my songs installed on the hard drive because it is very fast to play my library. Using a plugged in USB for me, is a little slower on my version of Idrive as well as using my iphone. Bluetooth from iphone forget it way too slow. So right now I have all songs in root of the hard drive. I don't have any playlists for good reason. If I want to update my library, on my version of idrive I have to delete entire list and reimport list with added songs. Any playlists will all get wiped out as well so then you have reimport each playlist. Very bad design of delete feature which wipes out everything instead of allowing you to specifically select what to delete. So I live with zero playlists but enjoy the speed of the hard drive to play all my songs. I only use usb in armrest to charge phone or import into hard drive.

I just did new 2020-2 Nav upgrade which is 29G so I still have 66 % free disk space even after having 1600+ songs installed which is excellent. If anyone has suggestions, I would like to hear them. Forgot to mention if anyone needs the 2020-2 NAV upgrade, I get it from one of our posters for $50.00. He just needs the last 7 of your VIN.

[tympj]

To jvac, if you install your playlist from your laptop and put all your songs in the root of the usb flashdrive with no sub folders, it should install more than 500 songs assuming you have plenty of diskspace. Once imported, you have to go to Music Collection, Music search, Browse Directory, where you will see your new imported playlist with BMW specific number sequence. Then, you want to use rename the list to whatever you want using options on wheel where you will see renaming function. You can have as many playlists as you want assuming available diskspace but you have to activate each one manually to play them. If you done this already and it still doesn't work, I'm not sure what the problem is unfortunately.

[IAmATeaf]

I’m still using a USB stick, took a while to find a stick that works almost immediately as soon as the car is switched on, a Kingston stick is what I’m using.

Only have 2 playlists and have multiple folders on the stick and everything in the playlist is detected and plays.

When I want to add/remove songs it’s easy enough to do it on a laptop/PC and using an M3U playlist generator to recreate the list.