Audio playback from USB flash drives skipping or glitching

[StangTime]

So I've always used a USB flash drive for music playback. Every once in a while the audio stream will glitch, like the music has skipped ahead a fraction of a second. There is no pause or silence, just a discontinuity in the timing. It would be like singing the word "hippopotamus" and hearing "hippoamus". I noticed it more when I first bought the car. Now that there have been some Sync updates (now on the latest Sync3 ver 3.4.21020), the problem happens less frequent and is less severe. But on any given day, driving the car, it will happen. I have tried multiple USB drives, they all do it. I have tried formatting the drives in Fat32, exfat, etc and in varying block sizes, copying the music back onto them with no improvement. The same song will not repeat the same glitch. Skipping back over the glitch point results in the music playing normally the second time around. This happens on any bitrate MP3 file. Some high quality ones that I have purchased and also on MP3 files I have ripped from CD. I haven't found FLAC files to be a problem (at least none that I have noticed yet).
Not a terrible thing but a minor annoyance that I want to fix. Anyone else having a similar issue? Do I have a bad USB hub?

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[Soulja4187]

So I've always used a USB flash drive for music playback. Every once in a while the audio stream will glitch, like the music has skipped ahead a fraction of a second. There is no pause or silence, just a discontinuity in the timing. It would be like singing the word "hippopotamus" and hearing "hippoamus". I noticed it more when I first bought the car. Now that there have been some Sync updates (now on the latest Sync3 ver 3.4.21020), the problem happens less frequent and is less severe. But on any given day, driving the car, it will happen. I have tried multiple USB drives, they all do it. I have tried formatting the drives in Fat32 and in varying block sizes, copying the music back onto them with no improvement. The same song will not repeat the same glitch. Skipping back over the glitch point results in the music playing normally the second time around. This happens on any bitrate MP3 file. Some high quality ones that I have purchased and also on MP3 files I have ripped from CD. I haven't found FLAC files to be a problem (at least none that I have noticed yet).
Not a terrible thing but a minor annoyance that I want to fix. Anyone else having a similar issue? Do I have a bad USB hub?

Have you trying resetting the radio and plugging the battery. If that doesn't fix it then take it to ford they can run a diagnostics on it.

 

[StangTime]

Have you trying resetting the radio and plugging the battery. If that doesn't fix it then take it to ford they can run a diagnostics on it.

Yes. Forgot to mention that. I have had the battery disconnected numerous times and also have done a few master resets on the Sync unit. No change.

 

[Soulja4187]

Yes. Forgot to mention that. I have had the battery disconnected numerous times and also have done a few master resets on the Sync unit. No change.

Then it looks to be an issue with the radio because if you had a bad usb hub it would also affect the FLAC files

 

[Superspirit]

I have over 120 CD's on a thumb drive all in flac and I've never had that problem, i wonder if it's the mp3 format it isn't liking?

 

[StangTime]

I have over 120 CD's on a thumb drive all in flac and I've never had that problem, i wonder if it's the mp3 format it isn't liking?

Purchased MP3 music should not have playback issues. Ever. I need to dig deeper into this problem. Sounds like it's not common.

 

[frank_white]

Will any usb drive work? Cars ordered but not here yet but I'd like to order one and load it up in the meantime

 

[The Demon]

I have over 120 CD's on a thumb drive all in flac and I've never had that problem, i wonder if it's the mp3 format it isn't liking?

This here. Re-record everything in FLAC files. That’s all I use and I’ve never had a problem.

 

[Mike Pfeifer]

So I've always used a USB flash drive for music playback. Every once in a while the audio stream will glitch, like the music has skipped ahead a fraction of a second. There is no pause or silence, just a discontinuity in the timing. It would be like singing the word "hippopotamus" and hearing "hippoamus". I noticed it more when I first bought the car. Now that there have been some Sync updates (now on the latest Sync3 ver 3.4.21020), the problem happens less frequent and is less severe. But on any given day, driving the car, it will happen. I have tried multiple USB drives, they all do it. I have tried formatting the drives in Fat32, exfat, etc and in varying block sizes, copying the music back onto them with no improvement. The same song will not repeat the same glitch. Skipping back over the glitch point results in the music playing normally the second time around. This happens on any bitrate MP3 file. Some high quality ones that I have purchased and also on MP3 files I have ripped from CD. I haven't found FLAC files to be a problem (at least none that I have noticed yet).
Not a terrible thing but a minor annoyance that I want to fix. Anyone else having a similar issue? Do I have a bad USB hub?

I don’t use a plugged in usb drive as you are, but I use my iPhone in CarPlay mode plugged into the USB port and at times have the same issue. I can tell it’s a data disruption by the sound of the “skip” if you can call it that. It happens infrequently, and inconsistently, but enough to be an irritation every few days or so. My daily drive is only about 15 minutes. Now I do have a mix of formats on the iPhone, some AAC, some MP3, some ALAC. Now I’m wondering if it’s only on certain formats that it happens. I honestly don’t remember which songs are what, with the exception of a few specific ones that I know are ALAC. I will keep a mental note of when I hear it happen and check what format the songs are and see if there is a pattern.

 

[Widow]

For what its worth, I've had the same issue while on bluetooth since I purchased new in December 2020. Base sync. It happens very rarely, but often enough to be slightly jarring, maybe once every other drive. My steering wheel and radio controls are like a second behind when I press them too. Like if I press back to restart the song it takes a second to do it.
Honestly pisses me off slightly because my 2017 V6 didnt have this issue and radio controls gave instant feedback. If anyone has a solution, let me know.

 

[Michael_vroomvroom]

I play music from the usb drive 99% of the time, mostly mp3, and have never noticed the problem.
Might see if it makes any difference if you change what usb port you use (I use the one in the storage box behind the arm rest), though sounds like a weird problem. :-/

 

[StangTime]

My setup was 64gb USB memory in the front port. Phone with Android Auto plugged into the armrest port. I have since swapped the USB port devices around. Sat in the car and listened for 20 minutes. No skips as of yet. Needs further testing. Maybe AA is hogging the USB bandwidth? Or AA is interjecting causing it to glitch. Next step, should there be any more skips, will be to try without Android Auto running.

 

[Mike Pfeifer]

Now that you mention it, I'm thinking you are on to something with the android auto. Obv, its not the same as CarPlay, but I bet its similar enough in terms of how the car does it. Anyway, I wasn't sure if my issue was the car, the phone, or the cable, or what. But I remember when I would use CarPlay in my wife's Jeep, it would do the same thing. So maybe it is that taking the bandwidth up or some other communication happening that causes a momentary glitch.

 

[StangTime]

Update: Since switching the USB music thumb drive to the armrest port, it has been behaving itself. It did skip one time but that was when I was jumping forward and back through a bunch of tracks rather abruptly. No skips with or without Android auto running also. So it seems like this USB port is the better of the two. I'm going to run with this for a while and continue to take note of how it plays. Then I will try switching the ports back to the way I had it before to see if the skipping returns. I don't like have the phone connected to the front port, I prefer it hidden in the armrest.

 

[Vlad Soare]

Same here. Todd and Mike have described it perfectly. Those are the exact symptoms I'm having.
I think there's a bug in the latest versions of Sync 3.4.
For me it started last fall, with music played via bluetooth from my phone. By pure chance it started happening just shortly after iOS 14 was launched, which is why I suspected that the new iOS was the culprit. Only later did I realize that the USB drive did the same - which exonerates iOS and indicates a Sync problem.

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