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Sync "Indexing" each time new music added? What?


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So I have noticed that each time I add a new song or TONS of songs, when I plug in the Ipod the Sync says "Indexing" at the bottom. This takes several minutes and THEN goes to "Building Commands".

 

Its not a huge problem but its a bit of a PITA. When its doing these things it makes it near impossible to go to a playlist or new artist.

 

Basically the ipod starts playing alphabetically when doing this so I have to use the steeringwheel advance button to get to a song in the "A's" I want to listen to.

 

Whats up with this thing?

Denicio.

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So I have noticed that each time I add a new song or TONS of songs, when I plug in the Ipod the Sync says "Indexing" at the bottom. This takes several minutes and THEN goes to "Building Commands".

How would you expect Sync to play your songs without searching for them first?

 

Building commands for voice control could be deactivated in settings if needed.

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How? By simply accessing it. The ipod touch screen on a good infotainment needs to be nothing more than a remote screen for the MP3 player.

 

The previous year model Mazda's infotainment had to index each time the car was turned on. I have a 120 gig ipod full of content. It would take 30+ minutes of indexing before playing.

 

I cant see a good reason the Sync needs to index the device. All it needs to do is access it. Its the way the Honda's have done it without issue.

 

Now, this is not a HUGE thing but it seems odd that if I add one song the Sync has to do 20 minutes worth of indexing. Thanks for the heads up on building voice commands. Again, never understood why this was being done when it was only a new song being added. Do I lose anything by turning off "Build voice commands"?

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Every time a change is made to it Sync must relearn everything on it - it does not have a starting point. If the device has a different set of files on it than it originally recognizes it has to index it. It isn't an issue with Sync, all USB players in vehicles would reindex.

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Not trying to be 'thick', but I just don't understand why it has to do anything at all. The easiest way to explain it is the interface in my previous Honda's that worked without a glitch were essentially a 'second monitor' for lack of a better example. It plugged into the USB jack and it work instantly and had fast access with no extra stuff going on. With the Mazda and now the Ford Sync it seems seemingly 'intrusive'. I just don't understand why it needs to know about the changes, that's all. Seems very unnecessary. Just cant think of a real reason it needs to 'know' whats on my ipod.....OTHER than Voice commanding my way through the library.

 

Again, this is not a huge problem at all. I was more curious than anything.

 

Peace,

Denicio

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Because sync isn't just providing a second monitor - that would be apple carplay. Essentially it treats a mp3 player as a hard drive with music files and playlist files. It has to keep a list of all of the songs and playlists for voice recognition because all of the voice recognition is done within sync.

 

Why? Because sync is generic and works with all mp3 players AND (this is probably the most important) it works with raw files on a usb drive where there isn't any onboard app.

 

They had to make sync work with many different mp3 players and with raw files so that's the only way to do it consistently.

 

What you're asking for is Apple CarPlay where the app controls playback through the car monitor.

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  • 1 year later...

I have a 500GB ipod (specially built with a larger drive) and since i bot my edge (3 months ago), the longest i have been in the car is about 45 minutes. If I leave the ignition on overnight and have the car hooked up to a charger and manage to get the whole ipod to index, will it hold and not index ach time i start the car after that unless i change the content on it> I am just wondering since I do not want to do this unless the whole indexing process holds. until it is completely indexed, i cannot select other playlists on the ipod through the MyTouch. Any insight is appreciated...

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I have a 500GB ipod (specially built with a larger drive) and since i bot my edge (3 months ago), the longest i have been in the car is about 45 minutes. If I leave the ignition on overnight and have the car hooked up to a charger and manage to get the whole ipod to index, will it hold and not index ach time i start the car after that unless i change the content on it> I am just wondering since I do not want to do this unless the whole indexing process holds. until it is completely indexed, i cannot select other playlists on the ipod through the MyTouch. Any insight is appreciated...

I have a 1TB drive hooked up to mine. intial indexing is long, not overnight long though. Changing stuff on the drive makes it another long wait. Sync puts a read ony file on the USB to assist it. That's why it's a 1 time long index or another long index when it reads the file and the file no longer matches the data anymore

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I had been wondering about the indexing myself - especially since the original Sync has a bug that causes it to declare that its index is full even when nothing has changed on the USB stick. I used to have a Kenwood head unit that would play tracks or playlists from a USB drive without indexing so I did some research.

 

The difference is that Sync gives you the capability to find music by playlists, tracks, artists, albums, and even genres. In order to do that, it must have a complete picture of what's on the media which it gets by indexing the metadata tags within the music files. The Kenwood (and probably the Honda mentioned earlier) simply allowed selecting music by files or folders - basically what Sync's "Explore USB" option does. So you could browse albums (folders) and tracks (files) and playlists (M3U files) but you couldn't search for music based on the metadata in the files such as genre. You couldn't even select music by artist unless you structured your device with album folders within artist folders... and even then you would miss out on tracks in compilation albums (you know - those "various artists" albums).

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I have a 500GB ipod (specially built with a larger drive) and since i bot my edge (3 months ago), the longest i have been in the car is about 45 minutes. If I leave the ignition on overnight and have the car hooked up to a charger and manage to get the whole ipod to index, will it hold and not index ach time i start the car after that unless i change the content on it> I am just wondering since I do not want to do this unless the whole indexing process holds. until it is completely indexed, i cannot select other playlists on the ipod through the MyTouch. Any insight is appreciated...

 

I would suggest that you try using a USB stick. I have a 128gb USB drive (samsung MUF-128BB/AM), which is barely is larger than the USB plug itself, and it cost all of about $30. With a SYNC 3, it indexed 12000 songs in about 5 minutes. When I add music to it, it indexes less than a minute now. A 500GB iPod is MUCH slower than a good USB stick, and you are putting another OS in the middle between the SYNC and the music.

I do also play music via my iPhone, either plugged in or via Bluetooth stereo as well.

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I would suggest that you try using a USB stick. I have a 128gb USB drive (samsung MUF-128BB/AM), which is barely is larger than the USB plug itself, and it cost all of about $30. With a SYNC 3, it indexed 12000 songs in about 5 minutes. When I add music to it, it indexes less than a minute now. A 500GB iPod is MUCH slower than a good USB stick, and you are putting another OS in the middle between the SYNC and the music.

I do also play music via my iPhone, either plugged in or via Bluetooth stereo as well.

 

EXACTLY! There is a reason Apple got rid of the classic!

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  • 1 month later...

Thanks for all the input. I am going to leave the car on a charger and leave the ignition on and see if it indexes completely. The problem with just a USB stick is that I have a lot of music organized by playlists which the iPod accommodates since all of them are organized in iTunes.

 

The real solution is that I can take an iPod Classic and convert it to a 1TB flash drive and still use the same OS on the iPod. it should increase my storage and also be incredibly faster. I will definitely follow up to let everyone know how that goes. I think the iPod build costs about $300 with parts and labor.

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You can use the same itunes playlists on a usb stick. I use a free program called itunes export and it works perfectly as long as all your music files are accessible. If some were moved, deleted or only available via cloud it gets stuck. You can also create playlists manually with the right format.

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You can use the same itunes playlists on a usb stick. I use a free program called itunes export and it works perfectly as long as all your music files are accessible. If some were moved, deleted or only available via cloud it gets stuck. You can also create playlists manually with the right format.

This! I use iTunes Fusion. It is paid, but does a good job!

Edited by Ray Heath Jr
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  • 1 month later...

Does anyone know how to leave the car's ignition on for an extended period of time? I want to connect a charger to the battery and leave the ignition on until the ipod indexes completely, but the ignition and stereo turn off after 1/2 hour.

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