COMAND USB Storage problem

[martyd1901]

I have recently bought a W204 and I have been trying to connect my hard drive up to the COMAND system through the USB Storage. The system picks up some of the songs up to a certain amount but not all of them.

I have around 9,000 songs and from what I gather the system can handle up to 15,000 songs. The most sub folders I have would be 3 but I've been told it will go up to 8.

The hard drive is in FAT32 format. I have also tried an NTFS formatted hard drive but the system can't read it even though it says it should.

All songs are in MP3 format and have the right naming convention "Track1.mp3"

The hard drive came straight out of my old car (the old car picked everything up).

Is there a limitation on the size of hard drive/USB drive?

Any help would be appreciated, Thanks

 

[daveenty]

I have heard that, as you say above, there is a size limit on what COMAND will read.

Alfie or Richard will hopefully be along to advise (I saw one of them posting something similar recently in another post). Apparently there may be an upgrade available for COMAND which may possibly address this issue. I only use memory sticks on mine (32GB formatted in FAT32) which work fine. Never tried NTFS though, as you mention, it probably wouldn't work.

 

[martyd1901]

I'm not sure if the COMAND has been updated at all on the car. It doesn't say anything in the service history. Although I do think that would be the solution to the problem.

It does say in the Manual that it can read FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS but it doesn't seem to read the NTFS. I have tried 2 USB hard drives (both run off the USB power and don't need external power) one is a 500GB (NTFS) which didn't get recognised and the other is 250GB (FAT32) which does but it only read half of the songs on it A-F.

It's about 27GB of songs around 5,500 songs so it should be well within the COMAND limits. I just find it a bit strange... Although I am thinking it may have a limit of 32GB read capacity or something.

I've got a 32GB USB memory stick so i'm going to try this and see what happens.

 

[martyd1901]

I have tried the 32GB USB stick but it does the same thing as the hard drive.

Although I have noticed when you do the media scan thing it only picks up 4202 songs. doesn't matter what I any of the hard drives or the USBs I have. Is this a limitation before the update?

 

[chrisdean]

I think that it can only cope with the first 4gb or so. My experience is the same as yours. Just out of curiosity, whilst it is connected to COMAND press "search by cover" in the menu and follow the prompts to download album art and see how much it downloads.

 

[martyd1901]

It definitly sees at least 27gb of music and it downloads all the album art for them. That's where indeed the 4202 number but that should be at least 5500. So there is roughly 10gb/1300 songs not being picked up...

 

[chrisdean]

I have about 160gb/25000 songs on a hard drive and it doesn't see them all. It definitely won't download the art for them in one go, I had to offer them up in 32gb chunks on a USB stick to achieve that and even the when I reconnected the 160gb drive it could still only see the first four or five thousand items which was basically artists A-D. Doing that does however provide another source for album art if some is missing from an ipod.

 

[martyd1901]

Did you just partition the hard drive into the 32gb chunks?

 

[chrisdean]

No, I just pulled 32gb chunks onto a 32gb stick. Had I partitioned the drive I think that it would still just recognised the first partition. I was experimenting really because I had a spare hard drive and I was following a lead to display more album art on an ipod.

 

[ExW205and204]

I can only presume it will only read upto 32gb?

I assume all your tracks are MP3?
because it only accepts MP3 and WMA

 

[chrisdean]

Yes, mp3.

 

[martyd1901]

I can only presume it will only read upto 32gb?

I assume all your tracks are MP3?
because it only accepts MP3 and WMA

All mine are mp3 as well but I have a 32gb usb stick completely full but it won't recognise everything on it. It always stops on the 4202 when I have about another 100 songs on it. There definitely seems to be a limitation but I'm not sure what it could be

 

[chrisdean]

The whole COMAND experience is a disappointing one, just a jack of all trades, master of none. It would have been so much better if it was just set up to drop a tablet into it and allow some consumer interaction.

 

[martyd1901]

I was down at Mercedes today and asked them about the problem. Apparently that the 3 years of upgrades only came in in 2012 and if I want I can book the car in for a diagnostic check at £99...

 

[martyd1901]

does anyone know if this is true bout the upgrades? and did it come in in 2012?

 

[chrisdean]

Well mine's a September 2011 car and that was last updated in May. Contact MB for confirmation and then you can put the dealer straight.

 

[martyd1901]

To be honest I thought she wasn't making sense when she said that. Especially because I thought it said it in the service manual.

Also as soon as I said to her that I had been on the forum and said that it could possibly be a firmware upgrade she sniggered and said ignore the forums...

I'll give them a shout and see what they say.

 

[Simon_M]

I was down at Mercedes today and asked them about the problem. Apparently that the 3 years of upgrades only came in in 2012 and if I want I can book the car in for a diagnostic check at £99...

That's BS, my Sept 2010 C Class had the 3 years of updates included.

S

 

[martyd1901]

I thought so that's better to know that. I'm just trying to find out where it says it in the manual so I can refer them to it. I also specifically remember the update follows the car not the owner so therefore they can't say I'm not entitled to the upgrade as I just bought the car.

 

[richard]

The "eligibility" for free map updates is shown on the car's data-card (which is in a big database called VeDOK). Cars with comand retrofitted wouldn't be eligible for instance.

Of course map updates vs firmware updates is open for interpretation.

Given your vin i can look it up.

R