Pauses with music on USB

[beatle]

I have a small 128GB Sandisk "ultra fit" USB stick for music and sentry clips. It is partitioned to hold both. I rarely play music off the stick, but when I do, there is always at least one pause in each song from 2-20 seconds. This pause doesn't show up at any particular time, and it does not coincide with an attempt to save data from the camera to it. They seem completely random. I've had this problem since I bought the car last December. My 2015 that had both MCU 1 and 2 had no problem with this drive.

The drive is no rocketship, but it should get the job done for playing MP3s:

The threads I've read about music pauses don't seem isolated to the USB drive - they persisted across all sources and then disappeared after a software update. Streaming via Spotify , Slacker, or BT is reliable for me.

With the demand for playing music off the drive being extremely small, I can't imagine this is a drive bandwidth problem. The same files play fine on my desktop or laptop. Is everyone just playing music off a USB SSD or should I open a ticket?

 

[DerbyDave]

The Dashcam is writing constantly to the drive when driving. The last 60 minutes is in a separate folder, and overwrites constantly. I don't think it is good to have one drive doing both, for the reasons you are seeing. Saving saves a 10 minute clip from the continuous folder, plus buffer up to the time the save was requested.

 

[beatle]

Sheesh, I figured they'd hold the dashcam footage in RAM unless you tapped the save icon. I guess the system doesn't have much RAM.

With only one available USB port (the other powers my phone charger), I might see what a faster drive would do, or perhaps a USB hub and two USB sticks would help as long as there is sufficient bandwidth available to the port.

 

[DerbyDave]

I got a surface flat cigarette plug adapter with 2 high speed USB ports for charging, using one plug for the Tesla wireless charger. I still have a USB port open, then, for charging other devices. Also, the rear ports are not hard to use for charging from the front seat with charging cable(s).

 

[beatle]

I suppose the USB hub could both power my charger and provide a connection for one USB stick. Then any concern about bandwidth contention at the port would be mitigated.

I realize this is a very small problem to fix.

 

[DerbyDave]

I think the MCU processing may also be a problem. It will have to separate and process the data from the single usb drive to music and dashcam. The dashcam is intensive video from 8 cameras being written simultaneously to a single drive, along with you wanting to output music from it. I know people do it, but I think you need a faster USB drive if you are going to do one drive. Tesla specifically says in the manual not to use a hub:
From manual:

Note: Do not connect multiple devices using a
USB hub. This can prevent connected devices
from charging or from being recognized by
the Media Player.

 

[BitJam]

have a small 128GB Sandisk "ultra fit" USB stick [...]

Those sticks are particularly dreadful. I worked for many years on a Linux system that runs from usb sticks which is used by thousands of people. Those usb sticks are the worst by a country mile. They run really hot and they often generate a large current spike when they start which can cause them to fail when used by Linux (which is what runs on Tesla cars). Almost every time someone had a weird problem that made no sense they were using one of those sticks.

In addition to the many complaints from users, my personal experience with them has been bad. It was the only usb stick that outright failed without warning when nearly new. Another one was probably responsible for burning the motherboard of a new laptop (that was still under warranty). It's many failings may not be responsible for the problems you are seeing, but I still suggest you do yourself a favor and switch to a more reliable usb device.

I recommend the Samsung Endurance Pro microSD card together with a high quality adapter/reader such as the one sold by Samsung.