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My car is installed with JVC KW-AV50, a multi-purpose system.

Now I'm facing a weird issue while trying to play MP3 songs via USB drive (recently bought new SanDisk Cruzer Blade 16GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive). The Problem is when I attach USB drive to car system, it'll read the drive but won't be able to play songs stored on it. When I tried to explore the drive using directory explorer of car system, nearly all of the songs were having "._" (dot underscore) appended to their names, so for car system these songs were unreadable. When I checked drive on my MacBook Pro, every song has correct name (nothing prepended to the name), and all songs are playable on MacBook without any trouble!!

I'm not sure what is wrong here!! Previously, with my old drive everything was fine, which I lost somehow. :( Now with this new drive this weird issue is happening?!!!

NOTE:I have taken care of per-conditions (drive is formatted with FAT32 as mentioned in manual)

Any sort of help is appreciated.
Thanks in advanced.

EDIT:

After encountering this issue, formatting & copying songs from Mac, I also tried using Windows system: Formatted driver again with FAT32 and copied all songs again.

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    I believe that the ._ files are being created by your Mac, apple.stackexchange.com/questions/14980/… seems to have more information about them. It's possible these files are confusing your head unit? – Steve Matthews Jan 22 '20 at 14:04
  • Use a terminal window to look at the filenames, there may be some insight there. Also see if you can play them using a windows device or something like VLC. – GdD Jan 22 '20 at 15:05
  • @SteveMatthews, thanks for quick response. But I forgot to mention that, I have formatted my new drive on windows system as well after encountered this issue via Mac. But still the result remains the same. – Novice Jan 22 '20 at 15:06
  • @GdD, I did not get you, could you please provide more details. – Novice Jan 22 '20 at 15:07
  • @SteveMatthews, let me check one more time with dot_clean command on my Mac. Will update you once done. – Novice Jan 22 '20 at 15:15
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I believe that the " ._ " files are being created by your Mac, possibly these files are confusing the head-unit of system.

Look into Why are dot underscore "._" files created, and how can I avoid them?, which seems to have more information on these files generation and getting rid-off them.

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I think you probably need to take an approach of changing things, possibly changing everything, until functionality is restored:

  1. Change the USB disk for another capacity, speed and brand. Perhaps even format it using the head unit if you can
  2. Ensure the files are named correctly by your mac (plug the drive into another device like a smart TV or computer and check the filenames), particularly something more dumb than a computer and see what it makes of the filenames
  3. Check that your MP3 files are valid MP3. Open them in a hex editor and look at the internals. A valid MP3 frame typically starts with FF FE, and on the right hand side of the hex window will be a jumble of characters. In this screenshot I've highlighted the start of such a frame: enter image description here

If your mp3 has no ID3v2 tag, the first two bytes in the file (offset 00000000) will likely be FF FE or FF FF. (You might also see FF FB or some other character in last place). If your file has an ID3v2 tag it will start with "ID3" on the right hand side:

enter image description here

ID3v2 tags also contain things that look like frame headers but they aren't; they're either byte order marks or they're a way of spreading tag data out to look like mp3 frames that are to be silently ignored as invalid frames and skipped by the player, as a way of allowing players that don't understand v2 tags to still play the files. It could be that your file has a tag and the player is choking on it. It could be that the files aren't MP3 at all. If your file has an ID3v2 tag and you'd like to try removing it there will be loads of software that can do it. If your file has none of the characteristics listed here it might be another data format named as mp3 by mistake

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  • Your #2 is a salient point. Computers are smart enough to show you what you want to see, even if it isn't what is exactly there. In Windows, open an explorer window and look at a list of files ... it won't show you the extension, but you know it's there. The OS on your computer may be truncating the file name because it knows what you want to see, not the rest of the garbage, which of course, the head unit doesn't understand. Great answer. +1 – Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2♦ Jan 23 '20 at 14:44
  • Thanks @CaiusJard for the insight, I know this header part, but issue was different for me. But your answer could be helpful to others. – Novice Jan 27 '20 at 6:37

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