Sansa ZipClip & Impala/Silverado Radio

I handle IT for an auto dealership and one of our customers just purchased a new 2014 Impala. He connected his Sansa Clip Zip MP3 player to the radio and it recognized the device, but showed no media on it. The sales person tried it on a 2014 Silverado and it had the same trouble, though it works fine with the radio in a 2014 Malibu. The customer has also tried it in a 2013 Malibu he rented and it functioned properly. The Malibu has a lower-level MyLink radio in it whereas both the Impala and Silverado have a more advanced MyLink radio with more features than the one in the Malibu. The radios in both the Impala and Silverado are identical. Here’s some of the troubleshooting I’ve performed: First thought was that the firmware was outdated. Manually (since I don’t have the sandisk software loaded) updated it from 1.01.12 to 1.01.21 - unfortunately this had absolutely no effect on the problem. Copied all the MP3 files from the Sansa onto a regular flash drive and the radios in all 3 vehicles play the files from it as they should. This proves that the files are fine and that it’s a problem with the interaction between this particular player and the radio. Copied an MP3 album of my own, which I know plays fine off of a flash drive in all 3 vehicles (tested this immediately beforehand), to the Sansa player. The Impala and Silverado radios again didn’t show anything, but the Malibu showed and played everything fine. Reset and re-formatted the Sansa from the ‘system settings’ menu on the player. Confirmed that the file system was FAT32, then tested with a known good album as the only thing on the Sansa player; same exact trouble described above. Whether the Micro-SD card is in the player or not has no impact on the problem. The Silverado/Impala radios only detect the device if the USB mode setting on the player is set to ‘auto’. In either MTP or MSC modes, it simply does not recognize anything being connected. (I *really* don’t understand this - figured ‘auto’ just picked one or the other modes.) The sales person has contacted GM about this problem and the technical support guys for the MyLink radios are at a loss. They’re going to escalate the problem, but the problem seems to be specific to this player; we’ve not heard of the problem before with any other brand/model MP3 players. Has anyone tried this specific MP3 player with either of these radios? What was your experience? I have to wonder if it’s specific to this particular player or a problem with the brand/model player when interacting with these radios. I’m presently copying all of the customer’s music onto a flash drive which we will give him to use in his vehicle. We’re going to give him both this flash drive and his player back shortly, so I unfortunately won’t have access to try any further troubleshooting with it. The player is inexpensive enough that we’re considering purchasing one just to see if it has the same problem or if there’s something wrong with his specific unit. I’m hopeful somebody has input. I’m the kind of guy who likes things to make logical sense and frankly, this does not. An unrelated, but interesting tidbit about this player: If you plug in the USB cable while the player is ‘refreshing your media’, the player doesn’t show as being connected and it shows up as an unknown USB device in windoze.

(With the greatest of respect, you might try recasting your inquiry with some line breaks in it, etc., to make it easier to read–VERY hard to read as is, and I suspect many people just won’t even try . . . .)  

My original message was typed in several paragraphs, but the formatting wasn’t preserved when I posted. Is there any special trick to getting line breaks in this style forum? (In others, the white space is preserved normally.)

I haven’t figured out a way. The sandisk forums software is really broken. (Each of these sentences was typed as its own line)

Personally,the only time I’ve had issues with the site has been when I’ve been on a proxy service.  Even then, I’ve been able to edit a past comment and “fix” it when not using the proxy service.

Described the problem is less than three lines which would have made it much easier to follow. There is something wrong with the radio and this player. 

Flash drives are very inexpensive and while not answering your query is a much better solution, no cables or charging problems and the radio should do a pretty good job of  navigation and play options. It’s easy enough to duplicate the music data off the clip to one or more drives. There is also the problem of turning off the Clip when the radio is turned off.

I could have described the problem in 3 lines, but then people would be saying that I didn’t include enough detail.

How does one edit their posts using this forum software???
Speaking from an IT perspective, why on earth would it matter how I’m connected to the site? (I’ve got a direct connection BTW, so the line breaks not showing up must be caused by something else.)

I did find that if I go into HTML mode to compose the message and manually add the break (< br >) tags myself where I want line breaks, they display properly. (This is assuming the preview function works.)

Yes, it appears that the preview function does indeed work and that one needs to use HTML mode to compose messages and insert break tags themselves in order to create line breaks using this forum software. I’m more than a little curious why it was designed this way, but it really doesn’t matter.

Here’s the original message with break tags manually inserted to create the line breaks as they existed when I originally wrote it; hopefully, this will make it easier to read.

I handle IT for an auto dealership and one of our customers just purchased a new 2014 Impala. He connected his Sansa Clip Zip MP3 player to the radio and it recognized the device, but showed no media on it.

The sales person tried it on a 2014 Silverado and it had the same trouble, though it works fine with the radio in a 2014 Malibu. The customer has also tried it in a 2013 Malibu he rented and it functioned properly.

The Malibu has a lower-level MyLink radio in it whereas both the Impala and Silverado have a more advanced MyLink radio with more features than the one in the Malibu. The radios in both the Impala and Silverado are identical.

Here’s some of the troubleshooting I’ve performed:

First thought was that the firmware was outdated. Manually (since I don’t have the sandisk software loaded) updated it from 1.01.12 to 1.01.21 - unfortunately this had absolutely no effect on the problem.

Copied all the MP3 files from the Sansa onto a regular flash drive and the radios in all 3 vehicles play the files from it as they should. This proves that the files are fine and that it’s a problem with the interaction between this particular player and the radio.

Copied an MP3 album of my own, which I know plays fine off of a flash drive in all 3 vehicles (tested this immediately beforehand), to the Sansa player. The Impala and Silverado radios again didn’t show anything, but the Malibu showed and played everything fine.

Reset and re-formatted the Sansa from the ‘system settings’ menu on the player. Confirmed that the file system was FAT32, then tested with a known good album as the only thing on the Sansa player; same exact trouble described above.

Whether the Micro-SD card is in the player or not has no impact on the problem.

The Silverado/Impala radios only detect the device if the USB mode setting on the player is set to ‘auto’. In either MTP or MSC modes, it simply does not recognize anything being connected. (I *really* don’t understand this - figured ‘auto’ just picked one or the other modes.)

The sales person has contacted GM about this problem and the technical support guys for the MyLink radios are at a loss. They’re going to escalate the problem, but the problem seems to be specific to this player; we’ve not heard of the problem before with any other brand/model MP3 players.

Has anyone tried this specific MP3 player with either of these radios? What was your experience? I have to wonder if it’s specific to this particular player or a problem with the brand/model player when interacting with these radios.

I’m presently copying all of the customer’s music onto a flash drive which we will give him to use in his vehicle. We’re going to give him both this flash drive and his player back shortly, so I unfortunately won’t have access to try any further troubleshooting with it.

The player is inexpensive enough that we’re considering purchasing one just to see if it has the same problem or if there’s something wrong with his specific unit. I’m hopeful somebody has input. I’m the kind of guy who likes things to make logical sense and frankly, this does not.

An unrelated, but interesting tidbit about this player: If you plug in the USB cable while the player is ‘refreshing your media’, the player doesn’t show as being connected and it shows up as an unknown USB device in windoze.

@ruler2112 wrote:
Yes, it appears that the preview function does indeed work and that one needs to use HTML mode to compose messages and insert break tags themselves in order to create line breaks using this forum software. I’m more than a little curious why it was designed this way, but it really doesn’t matter.

You shouldn’t have to do this. By default, it is set up as Rich Text, and I have never had a problem posting with line breaks. It might be the browser you are using. I know it works with IE 8 & older, and I’m using IE 10 at the moment. I seem to recall IE 9 had some compatibility issues with posting here, but I believe one would just end up with a blank post. I use Firefox at home and have never had a problem with it either. Also Google Chrome is used by some people here with no ill effects.

My wife has a 2010 Equinox, in either MTP or MSC it works.  Now in the case of my Samsung Galaxy 4 smartphone, the Equinox won’t recognize the it via the USB port (of course my old iPhone 4 worked just fine).

In MSC setting the file structure in the CZ looks just like a USB stick.  Does using a regular USB stick with the same MP3’s using the same folder structure as the Clip (ie the files in the MUSIC folder), does the player work?  You’re right, it’s bizarre that when in auto mode it works.

I’ve also heard on GM owner’s boards that GM cars have the biggest problems among car makers with anything but an iPhone/iPod, Ford being the most forgiving.

When you say “other MP3 player”, what other brands?  My daughter has a Samsung Galaxy MP3 player and the 'Nox sometimes has fits connecting to it, especially when an SD card is installed.