USB mass storage in car - Droid X General

One thing I continue to miss from my blackberry days is my phone being recognized by my car stereo in mass storage mode. It was nice to control the phone music from my stereo. Has there been any hacks to get the Droid X to work like this? Putting it in mass storage mode doesn't seem to work. Im assuming thats because it really doesn't show up as a USB drive unless connected to a PC>

Sadly, not that I've found. I believe the issue is that Motorola forces a disc image containing worthless Windows drivers to mount when connected via USB. It mounts first (regarless of which USB setting or debugging mode is selected), which causes my stereo, and many others, to not recognize a USB source for music. This sadly came about with the update to Froyo last year. Motorola doesn't seem interested in unbreaking it

openbox9 said:
Sadly, not that I've found. I believe the issue is that Motorola forces a disc image containing worthless Windows drivers to mount when connected via USB. It mounts first (regarless of which USB setting or debugging mode is selected), which causes my stereo, and many others, to not recognize a USB source for music. This sadly came about with the update to Froyo last year. Motorola doesn't seem interested in unbreaking it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I figured it had something to do with that. Sucks though I hope there is a hack at some point for this.

One thing that you can do is use blue tooth. If your auto doesn't have blue tooth you can buy something like a Jabra and go that route. I know it sucks having to spend money for something that should just work. But these do work rather well so at least it is a option.
http://www.jabra.com/Sites/mobile/NA-US/Pages/home.aspx
fasthair

My car has bluetooth, but sadly not for audio. Yes, it sucks since it used to work just fine before last year's Froyo update. I've been forced into using the USB connection for charging only and using a 3.5mm cable for audio, which impacts quality a little bit, looks fugly, but at least it works. I'll dust off my iPod Touch before I buy another piece of gear to [email protected]$% Motorola's screwup.

Related

quick question about the TP2 and car stereos.

most car stereos today have a USB in for connecting an IPod, Zune, whatever.
do these work with the TP2?
crazy talk said:
most car stereos today have a USB in for connecting an IPod, Zune, whatever.
do these work with the TP2?
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Click to collapse
Probably yes (haven't tried it myself), but when you connect your TP2 to an USB-host (which the car stereo is), the TP2 asks you which mode you want (Active Sync, Disk Drive or Internet Sharing). If you select Disk Drive, the microSD card shows up as a diskdrive in windows (or your car stereo...)
Yup, what andrehj says.
All devices that show up as Mass Storage will definately work on car stereo's. Worked on mine. But I never use it. Because mine has Bluetooth 2.0 A2DP support (stereo streaming). It works flawlessly.
No wires for me. Except the charger itself. xD
Simultaneous program access?
I can confirm that the TP2 works in drive mode as an input for a car stereo. However it appears the phone restricts access to the storage card in this mode and programs cannot access it, which means things like TomTom cannot access maps.
Does anyone know a way around this? Is it a WinMo restriction or something else?
Please specify "drive mode"?
I've used mine playing music through A2DP in combination with Tomtom Navigator 7 + Benelux maps.
The only downside I experienced was that the Tomtom voice was much louder than the music I played. Thus when adjusting the music volume to a much louder level, that Tomtom woman scares the heck outta me. Like when needed to take a turn, it's more like "GO LEFT!!!!!! W$E%T#@$%[email protected](#%|(!# ". In between the music.
No problem with tomtom reading the maps though.
'Drive mode' via USB
Thanks Crix84. By 'drive mode' I meant the Disk Drive mode that you can select when connecting via USB. I expect accessing via the BT profile is quite different which is why things work for your setup.
That TT girl would be scary at high volume!
Ohhh okay now I understand. You mean't the mass storage function I was talking about in a previous post of mine.
Well for what I've found and experienced. That mode makes the phone really function like a USB stick aka Mass Storage Device. At that moment only the MicroSD card is blocked from access within the phone. For what I know, the driver used for Mass Storage (any windows system or other) is a standardized universal driver. Wich means it must be as illogic to access the card both from within the phone and the computer/car-radio through USB at the same time. Like using 1 usb stick on 2 pc's by using a usb splitter. Device in use means in use.
Active Sync in the other hand uses a different kind of USB connection. It accesses the phone itself, through that, the card. Mass Storage is a direct function to the microsd card. Kind of a bypass. For compatibility issues. When you just want to put something on your card without the hassle of installing drivers (on old pc's) etc. Wich would really mean that the maps on the card for Tomtom are inaccessible. That would really be indeed a problem. The only solution for that is either use the phone as I do. Bluetooth A2DP not available? Then the car-audio system should change the access mode to the phone. Maybe an active sync like solution/connection. Problem is most manufacturers do that. Thinking of only using a USB stick on the radio. Mine does that too. Only mass storage devices are accepted through my radio's usb.

New App Idea for TP2

Hey All, I came across an Idea for the TP2, could be used for any for the most part. But As I was coming here I hooked my phone to the usb cable to sync, and then it dawned on me, unless there is one out there already.
Is it possible or could it be done to have the usb cable also act as a sound relay? What I mean is, we all hookup our tp2 to the computer to sync, but I also use MyMobiler to see the screen, so I was wondering since some of us used wired headsets, could an app be created to send the sound signals through the USB cable to the computer, and have the computer work as a handsfree speakerphone? You could use the phone mic since it would be close enough to you.
Just a thought
Well, there's this... http://www.bluesoleil.com/products/Default.aspx?TID=14
Can't remember whether it was Panasonic or Motorola who had this PC sync program which also allowed phone calls though the computer. Loved it! It isn't a new idea, but it is certainly a good one.
devis said:
Well, there's this... http://www.bluesoleil.com/products/Default.aspx?TID=14
Can't remember whether it was Panasonic or Motorola who had this PC sync program which also allowed phone calls though the computer. Loved it! It isn't a new idea, but it is certainly a good one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used to be able to do that with my old samsung
devis said:
Well, there's this... http://www.bluesoleil.com/products/Default.aspx?TID=14
Can't remember whether it was Panasonic or Motorola who had this PC sync program which also allowed phone calls though the computer. Loved it! It isn't a new idea, but it is certainly a good one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Only downfall is you have to have a mic on your computer, I figured you'd just use the phone mic itself. But damn someone beat me to the idea
i would like to see the usb send an audio signal out from the phone to lets say the cd player to hear music playing from the phone...
After reading it further, that works off bluetooth, not a usb cable, so the hunt is on still

USB Mount

Not sure what fixed it, but the CM on G1 allowed me to mount my SD using my car stereo's USB (JVC KW-AVX820). Native G1 and none of the 3 USB modes on the Vibrant work. Any idea what file system feature did that?
Reuven
Same here. My Genesis Coupe keeps showing either 'Media Connection Error' or 'No Media Connected'. It even rebooted my nav/stereo this morning and then froze it on the FM screen with no audio. Had to turn the car off, then back on for it to be fine. Not sure why the Vibrant would have issues like that.
Actually, with my G1, I hadn't got USB Mount notifications for awhile. Other rom's however worked fine. My wife's MyTouch works no problem, so I know it shouldn't be the car.
I don't know anything about car computer usb, but I'll share one experience I had working with a copier at work: USB running in a mode that simulates a USB thumb drive works. USB running in a mode that shows a micro SD card READER (as opposed to a single solid-state unremoveable drive) does not. That discrepancy could be responsible for what you are experiencing.
Make sure after you select mass storage you then mount the usb (its a two step process)
But also, it still might fail as I've noticed when you do this the device is actually mounted as well (oh that glorious 16gb of onboard space!) so the stereo might not have any idea of where it should be looking.
You need to go into settings and enable USB debugging
I think it's under settings application development
that didn't do it
Try disabling USB tethering
Sent from my HTC Dream using XDA App

USB on PC not working.. tried everything in threads..

So I can't get my desktop OR laptop running XP Pro 32 to even recognize the phone. As in no audio plays and nothing appears in the system tray. Tried with/without debugging mode, installed the samsung drivers etc. The phone doesn't even show up in device manager at all- not even as something unrecognizable. Its as if the port is dead. The phone does 'ding' though and charge ok so it is receiving power... though nothing at all appears in the android notification tab when connected. Any ideas or anyone know of any apps on the pc or android side to take a closer look at whats happening on the bus?
The only way that I can get it to work is to put it in media mode. It shows up as a media device in Win7. If I put it on, "ask every time" or whatever it doesn't work and in mass storage mode it shows up as two unreadable drives, they are grayed out in Explorer... Basically...don't use the "ask every time" for USB function.
This function seems like such a simple thing, not sure why Samsung has so many issues with it considering they have been making media devices for a long time.
Anyway... do you have access to a newer OS to at least rule that out as a cause. Not saying it shouldn't work with XP 32 but just something to check out.
I was having similar issues at first. I take it adb doesn't work either? Well my fix was to delete my whole Android SDK folder, then I redownloaded it (though I just kept the "tools" folder this time). Then I downloaded "USBDeview" (google it) to delete every USB driver that had to do with android (basically just left the printers, HID, and my Sansa drivers), restarted, then I downloaded the samsung drivers from the thread on here, plugged my phone in and manually pointed the driver search to the drivers.
ADB and Mass Storage has been working fine since. All I can tell you is to keep checking cause there's something you're missing, I also thought to myself "what the heck else can I do?" since I had done each one of those steps previously, but maybe I just had to do them all together. Good luck.
another possible solution is to change cables if you're not using the samsung provided cable - some cables are charger only (no data) - some of the motorola cables are charger only and we've already had one poster that had that issue
I couldn't get it to work at first either. I more or less did this.
I plugged in my phone. I did not enable mass storage mode on my phone. Walked away and let my PC think for a while. I came back and I noticed I had two new drives. I then enabled mass storage mode and could connect.
Two of my machines I had to do this. I'm not sure why it wasn't instant, but it just took a bit of patience and walking away from the machine to let it think for a while before I guess it installed the drivers and made its peace with the fact it wasn't the G1 any more.
Say into voice dialer "Open SD card" -> check "Enable USB mass storage". That works if port on PC is OK.
If it's a driver issue, open device manager and uninstall the usb ports. Unplug everything from usb and when you reboot the computer it will automatically reinstall the usb ports.
Sent from my Vibrant
I ran into the same issue. It was a problem with the USB cable I was using. As soon as I tried a different cable it worked fine.
larryccf said:
another possible solution is to change cables if you're not using the samsung provided cable - some cables are charger only (no data) - some of the motorola cables are charger only and we've already had one poster that had that issue
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I second this, I forgot my sammy cable at work on Friday and on way home stopped at T-Mo and picked up a charger w/cable and realized right away this was just a charging cable as soon as I connected it to my PC. I'm returning the cable back to T-Mo tonight. At least I was able to charge my phone over the weekend.
UPDATE: You guys are right, it is the goddamn cables! I bought an extra wall charger + cable at the t-mobile store and was using that at home. I had left the original in-box cable at work. Tried the cable at work today and now the drives pop up. Still don't appear writeable but I can look into that when I have time, probably the typical driver issue. As far as I can tell those separate cables are power only! $15 for a two wires + dc adapter. Thanks Samsung. Grr.
i suspect the mfgrs have gone to charge only cables to help keep folks from tethering - just a suspicion
if the "drives" are popping up, have you "mounted" the phone (pull down notification bar, clik on USB connected and it should give you a window asking to mount the cards or drive)
FYI....The Rocketfish cables you get from Best Buy do not work. They are only capable of charging.
@larryccf...I don't think certain manufacturers are implementing this on purpose so we can't tether. I think their just being cheap.
Where I got my cables on the cheap! and my problem.
I got my cable at monoprice.com. Check it out that is a 10 foot usb cable for $1.69 and it works for me. They have different lengths and even some colors. Now my Mass Storage issue . . .
My Mass Storage via USB works fine unless I enable "USB Debugging" which one of my apps needs to work. Once debugging is enabled I loss the ability to see my sd card and internal storage on my XP netbook. any ideas????
Same Problem
I have the exact issue, tried many things have'nt found a fix yet. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!
Thanks,
crx
larryccf said:
if the "drives" are popping up, have you "mounted" the phone (pull down notification bar, clik on USB connected and it should give you a window asking to mount the cards or drive)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
this worked for me Thanks
Yes phone is mounted, and can be seen w/o usb debugging enabled. However with usb/debugging on it does not read the phone being connected. Meaning that I cannot connect to ADB which is my main concern.
thanks for response tho,
crx
crxforya said:
Yes phone is mounted, and can be seen w/o usb debugging enabled. However with usb/debugging on it does not read the phone being connected. Meaning that I cannot connect to ADB which is my main concern.
thanks for response tho,
crx
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is my issue exactly, and I haven't found a fix either. Called T-Mobile and they thought turning off debugging was the only fix I needed.
Most of them, sorry to say are half retarded. They think a data reset is the cure-all
crxforya said:
Most of them, sorry to say are half retarded. They think a data reset is the cure-all
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ain't that the truth!
If you are running windows (x86 or x64), it would be wise to install the samsung drivers. I was having this exact problem, but as soon as I installed the drivers from samsung, viola!
I had the latest drivers from google, and they did not work for me.
Here is a link to the thread containing the links to the drivers, thanks to TGA_Gunnman:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=728929

USB Mass Storage for Car Stereo

Just picked up the G2 a couple days ago. I've owned an Android before but never got into the rooting and rom flashing process. My problem is mostly that I used my iPhone in my car (a Kenwood head unit) for the stereo. I was able to control the music and sounds via the phone. However, the G2 doesn't work this way. Most I can get so far is the ability to select and play songs via the headunit, which with 1000+ songs is extremely inconvenient. I owned a Samsung Infuse years ago and that was able to work, but it was done by selecting USB Mass Storage I believe. I've done some research but I can't seem to find a straight answer on how to go about enabling that. Is there any way around this? It be awesome to be able to use my phone in the car.
What's the model of your car stereo? Maybe you can connect it with an AUX cable or Bluetooth, if your stereo supports it.
robogo1982 said:
What's the model of your car stereo? Maybe you can connect it with an AUX cable or Bluetooth, if your stereo supports it.
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Click to collapse
It's a Kenwood MP345-U. It does have an aux cable, however there is sound quality loss with that. Bluetooth I'm honestly not sure whether or not it has, I've read somewhere I can purchase a Bluetooth USB that the phone can connect to. My main concern was I was able to charge my phone before along with it pausing the music during a phone call, etc.
chiefnwa said:
It's a Kenwood MP345-U. It does have an aux cable, however there is sound quality loss with that. Bluetooth I'm honestly not sure whether or not it has, I've read somewhere I can purchase a Bluetooth USB that the phone can connect to. My main concern was I was able to charge my phone before along with it pausing the music during a phone call, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since the phone can function only in media player mode (MTP), I don't think you can play it any other way than through the AUX cable. CWM recovery has the option of mounting internal storage as USB storage, but that's a highly, highly impractical solution.
You CAN do this but it is specific to CM ROMs. Probably 10.3. I don't know if its working on CM11 KitKat yet.
Its called USB Audio or something.
I'd also check out a Bluetooth solution if it would work. Then you could just plug in audio and use an NFC sticker to turn on BT and launch a music player. If you have a Verizon, you can also do wireless charging, so you can just drop your phone down on a mat and have everything just start working automatically.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
There is only quality loss with anything OTHER than AUX. The AUX and only the AUX on this phone is capable of delivering 24bit audio. The downside is, well, 2 cords.
Problem Using Bluetooth
The problem with using Bluetooth is that you can't use voice commands to pick tracks to play.
Danester said:
The problem with using Bluetooth is that you can't use voice commands to pick tracks to play.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use multi- mount SD card from the play store...you need to be rooted
Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk
vivebatu said:
Use multi- mount SD card from the play store...you need to be rooted
Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I rooted my phone last night and downloaded multi-mount Sd but no luck, it won't mount the phone, what could be wrong?Do I need an OTG cable?I just want it to work USB to the Ford Sync System.
Danester said:
I rooted my phone last night and downloaded multi-mount Sd but no luck, it won't mount the phone, what could be wrong?Do I need an OTG cable?I just want it to work USB to the Ford Sync System.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need to enabled mtp fix and then place the widget on the home screen...once you connect the normal USB cable just click on the widget
Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk
vivebatu said:
You need to enabled mtp fix and then place the widget on the home screen...once you connect the normal USB cable just click on the widget
Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did that. I enabled MTP fix rebooted and plugged in,what I did notice is that it seems to mount for a second or 2 sometimes and then it unmounts right away. I tried it on 2 work computers also and under my computer, the LG pops up as a drive for a quick second and then it un mounts. What the heck is going on.,I have screen shots of what is happening.It always pops up on the top of the screen with SD Card Unmounted when I tap the widget to mount. Something is causing it to Unmount it appears, any ideas?Since I Rooted the phone, when i hookup the usb cable it says that i am connected as installer, could that have anything to do with it?

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