Sync gone crazy... lots of USB devices

[WattsUp]

I've been driving my 2013 FFE for about two weeks now, getting used to SYNC (first time I've had a Ford car, or used SYNC).

Anyway, it used to be that I could use voice recognition to say "USB", then the system would confirm "USB, say a command", and then I could say something like, "play artist <whoever>", and music would play.

Suddenly today, this routine stopped working. When I say, "USB", the system now responds with "there is more than one device named USB, say the line number of the device you want", and shows a screen with four devices listed, all named USB. I only have (and have only had) a single USB device plugged into the car (a thumb drive with music on it).

Three of listings don't even work, if chosen. Doing so causes the system to say, "sorry, no device is connected". For some reason, the 3rd listing does work. Wtf?

There is no difference after turning the car off/on, the same four devices show up again. There is no difference after unplugging and plugging my one USB device.

I don't particularly want to do a "master reset" and I couldn't find any other ways to clear the USB devices (if there is such a procedure). Is there some other type of reset command I can try? Or, I could just wait for this SYNC 3.5 update that is supposedly coming soon for the FFE, and hope that squashes some bugs.

(This SYNC software is acting a lot like Windows.) :roll:

 

[Fluke]

Sorry, I can't help you on the USB problems you are experiencing. My car has USB issues also though.

Sometimes it reads the USB drive fine and other times it can't access it. Recently, it has been switching to the first song of the first folder of the USB whenever the car is started regardless of what the source was when the car was shut off. I've tried reformatting the USB drive and changing brands of drives. After reformatting the last time, the car could not read it at all.

Looking forward to the rumored software update. There are tons of bugs in the Sync software that need to be addressed.

 

[WattsUp]

Thanks Fluke.

Tonight I tried the "delayed reboot" tool that I found here http://outofmytouch.com/reboot.html. It causes the SYNC system to reboot after you turn the car off. Apparently, this is an alternative to pulling the fuse for the SYNC system. Alas... rebooting made no difference. The weird list of four USB devices still shows up after I say "USB", three of which don't work, one that does.

And then, I tried another thing... on my computer, I changed the USB thumb drive volume name from "USB" (yes, I named it this) to "MUSIC". Well, back in the car, this made one of the four devices named "USB" in the voice prompt list go away. But, still, the voice prompt doesn't understand what I mean when I say "USB" --- it now offers me three devices named "USB". Worse, none of them work (though voice prompt) -- the entry that went away, I guess, was the "real" one! I just always get "sorry, no USB was detected" now, regardless of which "line" I pick.

Keep in mind that, all through this, I have always been able to play music from the USB source via the main touch screen, whether the source button said "USB" (presumably my old volume name showing up) or "MUSIC" (my new volume name which now shows up). It's just that that using voice commands to select my *one* USB device suddenly stopped working (as I described at the top of this thread).

*sigh*

I sure hope Ford will work to decrease the bugginess of the MFT software soon. The level seems excessive, like this stuff was written by developers who were just phoning it in, and either don't know how poorly the software behaves, or don't care. I really hope this upcoming 3.5 release primarily addresses bugs and doesn't just add yet more badly-implemented features.