On my brand-new 160GB iPod classic, I can only get the interface to display up to the 57th playlist. My understanding was it should show 255, based on the instructions.

I have all my playlists in a single-layer list (no nested folders) and most of them are well under 255 items. I am at an utter loss as to what to do. However, I do know that this is the 2nd ipod that I have had this issue with. That there is a playlist limit at all is frustrating enough, but to have it not even get to 1/4 of that limit before giving up... well, bad show Mini!

Anyone have any insights to share?
Thanks,
JMelrose

 

I wonder if you add more artists, or genres, or alter the number of songs or artists in your playlists if it will allow more or less playlists. 57 is a strange number, there are other forces at play there methinks.

 

Mine won't show ANY playlists at all. And, it will only play in artist name order or random. Will not play in song title order or album!!!! (I don't have the NAV system). My hunch is that it has something to do with how my ipod is synced, but I haven't tried any fixes yet. (at this point I am not very pleased with the iPod adapter...) Update: fiddled with it, wiped the iPod, synced it over again and voila everything shows up like it should (However I have nothing remotely close to 57 playlists or 5000 songs)

 

Sounds like I won't be ordering the iPod adapter. Sounds like the AUX input is the way to go. Do all new MC/MCS stereos have an AUX input as standard?

 

Ok, in an experiment of playlist management, I tried making a folder with Mini playlists in it, each of which have an "asterisk" in front of the name so on the Mini Interface (which just shows all playlists, regardless of if they are in a folder or not, in alphabetical order) will have the ones flagged for it at the top.

Should be good, right?

Well, no. In fact, adding 4 "test" playlists resulting in my in-car list being TWENTY playlists fewer.

So I'm really confused on what might be causing this kind of an issue.

If anyone else has a big ipod with a lot of playlists and can report if they've had success, that would be appreciated.

 

How long are you waiting for the iPod interface to load? Our seems like it takes a long time to load all the playlist, but I agree 57 is odd number.

 

It's not set at 57. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but never, ever all of them.

It almost seems like it's limited on the number of total songs in the playlists that are loaded (for CD1). Like, the number unique songs, maybe?

I dunno. All I know is I have now put a star in front of all the playlists I think I would want to use in the car, and I am rapidly growing frustrated with the amount of management this process needs. I deleted a few playlists, as the number of starred ones (currently 55 plus "iPod"), was 2 more than the interface would display. I added a few tracks to a different playlist to try and get some of the songs from the playlist I figured I wouldn't be needing/able to access via the interface, and I was still 2 playlists over the interface's ability to display.

Very frustrating. I'm putting this issue in Mini's corner, and not Apple's, but I have no idea who to write that it would make a shred of difference so I'm going to just grin, bear it, and suggest that anyone with a large ipod choose a different product unless they are using the large ipod to keep very high-quality encodes and not have a very diverse library.

If anyone else has:
R56 +SatNav +iPod Interface +30 (or More) GB iPod and can weigh in with their experiences, I'm all ears.

 

Ok update.

I tried moving from the "Mini list" to "not-Mini" list by removing the asterisk in front of its name, which is how I've been designating which ones should be loaded by the iPod interface first.

By moving the playlist of 155 songs to the "B team" I was able to get on 3 more playlists. Well, all of the last one (which was only partially loading), as well as 2 more plus a 3rd which loaded partially. (And was, coincidentally, the one I moved to the B-team.)

So, I'm not sure how the "255 items" came about in the directions but clearly the number of playlists is based on a total number of unique songs. I working on finding that number now.

Edit: about 5000 songs. I'm not about to go through looking for all the duplicates across the playlists but the limit seems to be 5000 songs worth of playlists. I was thinking this theory fell apart because the interface uses the Library as a playlist as well, but the 255 limit keeps that list from getting too big and shutting out the other playlists.

 

I have had a few questions about this issue, notably by some people with very large collections who had hoped for an elegant (and safer) solution to managing their ICE.

I posted this in Skeeter's thread and wanted to recap here:

iPod playlist issue

I don't know if anyone else is seeing this, but hopefully some outside experiences can help me out.

I have the 160GB ipod classic, and planned to have issues accessing all the artists on it, so I made playlists. I figured if I pick my favorite artists, make "best of" playlists, as well as a bunch of mix playlists, I should be fine. Sure enough, made 'em and had around 90 playlists, none in excess of 255 tracks. I figured I'd connect up and be good to go!

Well, surprise, surprise, only half the playlists showed up. I was getting around 55 instead, and weird thing is that the last playlist would cut off part-way through.

So, last Saturday I spend a lot of time running back and forth between my Mac and my car rearranging the lists and trying to find the rhyme and reason behind what I could access in the interface.

To backtrack, I have the Sat Nav, and just got Sirius installed last week as well. The software is definitely as up-to-date as it can get for now.

Anyway, to make a long process a shorter story: it turned out the playlist list (CD 1) is not solely based on items inside the folder. I don't have the exact number, but the number of playlists is based upon the number of tracks in them, up to around 5000. For example, if I added tracks to a playlist that appeared earlier alphabetically, it would cause the number of songs in that last playlist to decrease by the number of songs I added. If I shorted or removed lists from the top of the order, the number of lists added at the bottom was based not on the number of lists I deleted but the number of tracks in those lists.

Anyway, this wasn't what I expected, and so I give the warning to those with very large libraries that there really is no good way to access all your music without a great deal of advance planning, and even then the best you seem to be able to do is access 5000 of your tracks. Which is actually a ridiculously large amount of music, unless of course you have 11,000 on your iPod and got the interface expecting to be able to access just about everything. However, for most users, it is still a pretty great product.

If anyone finds they have a different experience with their ipod adapter, I'd love to hear about it. I sure hope it's not a situation specific to my car. My Mini has had enough of those in its short life already.

Jmelrose

 

Hi again.

Hey, if anyone has this problem with their own iPod and can let me know, that would be great. I really have no way of knowing if the software has an issue, or if somehow there's something about my playlists that is causing a problem... I mean, a playlist should be a playlist, but other than re-doing my entire music library (which, obviously, isn't small), I have no way of doing any testing on this and I'm not getting a lot of love from MiniUSA. It's like that one joke:

Patient: Doctor, it hurts my elbow when I bend it like this.
Doctor: Well, then don't bend it like that.

Anyone who would be able to confirm this issue on the own, I'd really appreciate it. PM me if you have questions. Basically, it would need an iPod with enough tracks in playlists that the number of songs in the CD1 directory numbers over 5,000. Since each playlist is limited to 255 tracks, that would be at least 20 playlists, I guess... Fewer tracks should give more playlists. (The wealth would be spread around.)

 

I'm no help obviously, but since you've probably messed with this more than anyone let me verify: I you have 400 artists are you shut out of ever being able to select the bottom 150? I select by artists and playlists. Or if my top 100 artists have 5000 songs do I only get to see the top 100? Sounds like Mini needs the software inside the iPod, at least the music selection part.

 

Hi Newt,

I haven't looked at the Artists List. I am referring only to the Playlist slot (CD1). I have made about 90 playlists, loosely into "greatest hits" based on favorite artists as well as some mixes and other collections.

Of the 90 playlists, I can see 55ish. The 55th is cut off halfway through the tracks. I went and added up the number of tracks in the 55 playlists, and it is around 5000. If I add tracks to the first playlist, the last playlist ends that many tracks earlier.

Example: I have 55 playlists. Playlist 1 has 60 tracks, playlist 55 has 60 tracks. If I add 10 more songs to Playlist 1, Playlist 55 now only will have the first 50 songs in it.

I have not messed with Artists, since I know that there's no way I'll be able to see even close to all my artists in that directory. In fact, Playlists is the only one I need access to, and so it's obviously quite frustrating that one falls well short of displaying the advertised 255 items in its directory.

By the way, the sig pics of your Mini are gorgeous. I love it.

 

I think this is worth making a stink over. It clearly doesn't perform all the functions one would reasonably expect, especially at the $500 price point. If Mini refuses to (or is incapable of) fixing it, you'd be perfectly justified in demanding a refund.

 

Not to mention what he went through last spring just to get it installed in the first place. The car was in the shop for like a week and they still didn't get it working before he had to leave for the summer as I recall.
I honestly agree. If I owned the Mini dealership I'd give him his money back and more. And I'd definitely warn customers before adding it to their cars. They should have a demo unit on the lot to show people how it works and its limitations to avoid disappointing people. It's not their fault that it's a jerryrigged CD changer arrangement, but they are the ones on the front lines, not some suit in Oxford or Munich.

 

All I've asked is to have my issue passed along to Mini USA's software people in the hope they can fix it with an update. However, the only response I've gotten from the dealership was an email asking if I was talking about the iPod or the iPhone, since "no one's complained about the iPod". Sigh...

I'd ask for a refund but for fear they'd take it out, and I'm not looking to have extra work done on the car, particularly the computer system.

 

Fair enough, I understand. But I would still push to get this fixed. This falls in the same class as, say, a radio that only plays stations on the left side of the dial, or a 6-CD changer that only plays 3 CDs.

 

This is pretty ridiculous. I am looking for an elegant solution to get my library to play in my mini. I have a 30GB ipod chock full and I am going to get a 160GB ipod to hold all my music, almost 27K songs.

The sad thing is that it's true that it's almost too large an amount of music to bother with, but the main thing is that I want to hear what I want to hear when I want to hear it. I don't want to be limited to what I thought I would want to listen to.

Are there any elegant solutions out there that work? I can use the Aux input as I have been, but I also have a portable sat. radio that I use for Stern in the morning. I originally wanted the Sat. radio installed, but settled for a car they had on the lot that I got for below MSRP which wouldn't have happened if I custom ordered. Also, I'm very impatient.

 

My advice to you after reading your expectations, is to get yourself an $8 iPod dock-connector-to-aux wire and just use your iPod itself and when Stern comes on swap the radio with the iPod. It'll sound just as good as the adapter, you'll have access to all your music, and you'll save enough to buy any DAP you want (or 2). What you give up is being able to select (some of) your music using the car controls. And if it's anything like selecting names from the address book in my phone using bluetooth I can't see but the first few letters of the name anyway. If it's Robert Home or Robert Mobile I have to guess.

 

I have contacted MiniUSA CR, the dealership, and even a Mini exec directly. No luck with any of them doing more than reading my email and telling me someone else needs to deal with it. Not very Mini.

If ANYONE with the SatNav system and iPod interface (or even without the SatNav system) can make a bunch of playlists and fill them to capacity (254 tracks) with random tracks, and see what happens, I'd really appreciate knowing if this is a MY car issue, or a general one with the adapter. By my math, to get to the "cap" that I'm seeing on mine, it would take 20 or so of these mega playlists to do it. I think they only thing I'd be sure of is that they are all different tracks, so you'd need to have 5000+ songs on your iPod. However, as they are playlists, they won't take up any more space on your ipod and can be easily deleted after seeing what happens.

Anyone who can help out, it would be greatly appreciated. I have posted a similar thread on Mini2's 2nd Gen ICE forum in the hope the wider audience there might get more of a response, but so far I haven't gotten a single reply yet. **KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK* "Is this thing on?"

No, seriously, thanks in advance for anyone who can take a few minutes to see what happens on their own rig.

 

I don't think this issue has anything to do with having satnav or sirius. I think its the janky ipod interface. The fact that it comes up as cd changer rather than ipod should be a clue. But for 300 plus install it should say ipod on the screen and allow access to the whole ipod however you want to. I am glad that my MA talked me out of the ipod adapter. Because it's fairly ridiculous to pay these fees and no one at MINI or BMW think this is a problem. My understanding is the ipod adapter works the same in the BMW's.

 

Yep, sounds like a hack. BTW, I just saw this - maybe they fixed something for the benefit of the adapter?:

 

Well, I just wiped my 160GB iPod and re-did all the playlists, cleverly titled "Test 1" through to "Test 25."

The result: I could see 20 playlists, each averaging 240 tracks. Around 5000 tracks again. This doesn't seem to be an issue with my iPod, it seems to be the adapter.

 

I got my MCS (european version) with bluetooth/usb audio - using the y cable I can control iPod classic 160GB with no limitations regarding number of playlists etc. But the sound quality is not any good, really. I am getting much beter reproduction from USB sticks !
As I understand you are using the dedicated ipod interface (iPod in the glove compartment) - how is the sound ?

 

I have found the sound to be great. I do use 256kps files for the big iPod however, 128 for my iPhone.

I still have been unable to get confirmation from anyone that this is an issue for anyone but me, and MiniUSA and my dealership are uninterested in the issue. I give up.

I again re-iterate that if you have a large library and hope to use many playlists to manage your music in your Mini, you may be better off using a different solution than Mini's. I have no idea how the USB function works.

 

That's too bad as the sound quality from the OEM iPod adapter is awesome. This probably has something to do with the fact that the USB port (when used with the y cable adapter for the iPod) uses the headphone output for sound whereas the iPod adapter uses the line-out from the dock port.