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Indexing Time and Wi-Fi iTunes Synching

rworrell

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Hello,

I'm the new, proud owner of a 2013 Explorer with MFT. During my research, I've lurked in these forums for quite some time and have taken in a lot of information about the ups and downs with people's systems.

I, too, am now experiencing the rollercoaster ride of the experience with MFT. On one car ride, nothing goes wrong. On another car ride, strange things occur.

Please bear with me while I talk about one of the strange things... I performed a search for this topic, but I couldn't find any posts with my exact question.

I leave a 64 GB iPod Touch in the Explorer. When I first connected the Touch, it built the index and the voice commands, and after about twenty minutes, I was using my voice to play song after song, and it was awesome!

The Touch can access my wi-fi network in my garage and also synchronizes with my Mac iTunes. I bought a couple of songs on my Mac and synched to my Touch while the Explorer was off.

When I fired up the Explorer, I saw the "Indexing" and thought, "No problem. It's indexing the new songs." That's what you would expect, right? Then, it went to "Building Voice Commands", and it has been churning on that for quite some time, much longer than it did initially. I have a long commute to work (~1 hour), and it still wasn't finished. Moreover, the rest of the system was a bit sluggish. When I headed out for lunch, I saw the same message. As you can imagine, I can't do the voice commands for songs while it's working on the index, and the sluggishness is a bit annoying.

I've been hesitant to unplug the iPod, fearing that that would corrupt the index or something.

Here's the question. Does it start over the indexing every time I power off the vehicle, or does each drive get me closer to having everything indexed? I may obviously have to rethink my music strategy if I'm never able to get fully indexed whenever I add a new song.

Thanks for reading about my minor, little problem. Any insight would be incredibly helpful.

Ray.
 



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You might want to try the SYNC My iTunes utility on the syncmyride.com website.

After you log in go to SYNC Updates
Scroll down to SYNC Utilities
Download SYNC My iTunes

Let the utility run on your iTunes library and see if that helps.
 


















Okay. I ran the tool. It found a number of songs that had invalid file names, mostly songs with caps (e.g. Breathe (2AM) to Breathe (2Am), etc.) I applied the changes to the library, pulled the Touch from the vehicle, and synced it using the cable. When it finished, I took the Touch back to the Explorer, plugged it in, and fired it up for about ten minutes. It was still saying "Indexing" when I had to go back inside and help with the homework, dinner, etc. So, I had to shut it down.

When I start the car back up in the morning, will it pick up where it left off? Or, will it have to start over?

Thanks for your continued help!
 






Okay. I ran the tool. It found a number of songs that had invalid file names, mostly songs with caps (e.g. Breathe (2AM) to Breathe (2Am), etc.) I applied the changes to the library, pulled the Touch from the vehicle, and synced it using the cable. When it finished, I took the Touch back to the Explorer, plugged it in, and fired it up for about ten minutes. It was still saying "Indexing" when I had to go back inside and help with the homework, dinner, etc. So, I had to shut it down.

When I start the car back up in the morning, will it pick up where it left off? Or, will it have to start over?

Thanks for your continued help!

It generally continues from where it stopped, depending on how long your vehicle has been turned off. If it still hasn't finished indexing, soft reboot you iPod and perform a Master Reset on your MyFord Touch:

MENU > SETTINGS > SYSTEM > MASTER RESET

Keep us posted!

Rebecca
 






When I drove in this morning, it had moved on from Indexing to Building Voice Commands. I went to lunch, and on the way back to the office, the Building Voice Commands went away, and I'm back in voice-iPod-controlled bliss.

Thanks for your help!

I have to say it's comforting to see Ford well-represented in these forums. Keep up the excellent work!
 






Sweet Glad it all worked out.
 






When I drove in this morning, it had moved on from Indexing to Building Voice Commands. I went to lunch, and on the way back to the office, the Building Voice Commands went away, and I'm back in voice-iPod-controlled bliss.

Thanks for your help!

I have to say it's comforting to see Ford well-represented in these forums. Keep up the excellent work!

Awww... Thanks! :D

Rebecca
 






I'm glad the recommendations here worked for rworrell but they don't work for me. I done everything recommended here but my MFT indexes and/or builds voice commands for a hour or more every time I start my vehicle. Since most of my trips aren't that long, I can almost never use voice commands. I don't have an Explorer but I do have a 2013 F150 and came across this thread while trying (once again) to find a fix for this problem. It's very frustrating. I have a 80 GB classic iPod plugged in the USB port with about 5,000 songs on it which uses up something like 26 GBs of space. I've synced my iPod with SyncMyIpod and I have latest MFT software. No luck at all.
 






Mine has been working fine for a couple weeks now. I did have trouble until I ran the 'sync my itunes' utility which disables ALL 'compilation' flags and does a few other undesirable things (such as changing case) to make track names, is seems, more navigable by SYNC.

I also notice - if I get in the car, start it up, and immediately use a voice command to hunt down a playlist (Lets say all within 1 minute of startup) - I am playing with fire. Chances are good that MFT connection to the USB device will hang up therafter be non responsive. I will then need to use the reboot utility to free it up since even after disconnecting the iPod - MFT reports that it is stilll connected and it is frozen that way.

BUT.

If I give it a minute after startup, all is good in the world. I am ok with this - but its infuriating that I have had to figure this out by trial and error. I would almost prefer a 'SYSTEM NOT READY' message on the screen.

If I ever need to update/index/regnerate voice commands for it... it takes about 30 minutes. Once done, its fine. (14,000 songs, 80 gigs of music give or take, another 70 gigs of movies and videos, few hundred playlists, artists... 1,100-ish)

So - for me - if I give MFT and SYNC a little time to get up and going.. a minute or 2.. I have no problems. I also am willing to allow the 30 minutes of indexing... its a ton of music. Hopefully they will find a better way to deal with it but Im not holding my breath. I leave the iPod connected in the system full time unless I need to update it.

Personally - I believe a big weakness of the system is the little bit of time that it takes for SYNC to get up and running cleanly with MFT. I can tell this thing is doing alot when it starts up with Bluetooth and Navigation and Sirius and Sync and MFT...

OVERALL - I am reasonably happy with it and it is working smoothly for me with these predictable (and annoying) issues that I know now to avoid. You simply cant ask much of the system for a solid few minutes after you startup.
 






I'm glad the recommendations here worked for rworrell but they don't work for me. I done everything recommended here but my MFT indexes and/or builds voice commands for a hour or more every time I start my vehicle. Since most of my trips aren't that long, I can almost never use voice commands. I don't have an Explorer but I do have a 2013 F150 and came across this thread while trying (once again) to find a fix for this problem. It's very frustrating. I have a 80 GB classic iPod plugged in the USB port with about 5,000 songs on it which uses up something like 26 GBs of space. I've synced my iPod with SyncMyIpod and I have latest MFT software. No luck at all.

ZoneIII did you ruin the SyncMyITunes utility over your iTunes library? I think this is a must based on my own experience - and let me tell you - I have very meticulously tagged music.

It also might help to reboot your ipod once. Yep. Reboot by holding down the center and 'up' buttons until it restarts. You should never have to do this.. but the does do some housecleaning when it starts up so it cant hurt.
 






I'm glad the recommendations here worked for rworrell but they don't work for me. I done everything recommended here but my MFT indexes and/or builds voice commands for a hour or more every time I start my vehicle. Since most of my trips aren't that long, I can almost never use voice commands. I don't have an Explorer but I do have a 2013 F150 and came across this thread while trying (once again) to find a fix for this problem. It's very frustrating. I have a 80 GB classic iPod plugged in the USB port with about 5,000 songs on it which uses up something like 26 GBs of space. I've synced my iPod with SyncMyIpod and I have latest MFT software. No luck at all.

Seems this problem is pretty common. Once again (for the 100th time) I'll post the solutions to the problem:

1.) speed up indexing by pausing playback from the device. It takes twice as long if you are playing music from the device. It's common sense. The USB bus is only so fast and if you aren't playing music while indexing it goes MUCH FASTER. (in my experience, its about twice as fast).

2.) Use syncmyitunes.

3.) Sometimes the index it builds upon startup is corrupted. Not sure why, but sometimes it just is. This seems to happen more if you don't completely finish building the index and you shutoff the car. This causes a cycle of constant indexing everytime you start the vehicle. To fix this, wait until it's done at startup, then go into the media settings and have it manually rebuild the index.

there are other solutions, but they are more time consuming/drastic.
 






Seems this problem is pretty common. Once again (for the 100th time) I'll post the solutions to the problem:

1.) speed up indexing by pausing playback from the device. It takes twice as long if you are playing music from the device. It's common sense. The USB bus is only so fast and if you aren't playing music while indexing it goes MUCH FASTER. (in my experience, its about twice as fast).

2.) Use syncmyitunes.

3.) Sometimes the index it builds upon startup is corrupted. Not sure why, but sometimes it just is. This seems to happen more if you don't completely finish building the index and you shutoff the car. This causes a cycle of constant indexing everytime you start the vehicle. To fix this, wait until it's done at startup, then go into the media settings and have it manually rebuild the index.

there are other solutions, but they are more time consuming/drastic.

I have to say - these are not solutions. They are work arounds to try and get the system functional which may or may not work.

And no... pausing playpack while indexing is not 'common sense'. I have not noticed a great deal of difference in indexing time with or without playback and you are, I am guessing, flatly speculating about USB bus capacity and its role in the in the process. Indexing and voice command build time may have just as much - perhaps more to do - with processor load than the transfer of the raw song data from the device.

So - post it for the 101st time - it certainly cant hurt, but lets not pretend that manually forcing a rebuild of the index or pausing playback to 'help' MFT & SYNC work more quickly are going to comprehensively fix anything. It might. It might not. SyncMyItunes is a good tip if you use iTunes.

The more I use MFT & SYNC the more I am coming to see the entire system is *barely* functional. Yeah, it works.. but only with an entire boatload of "Sortof"s and "yeah but"s, "Mostly"s, "Dont Do That's" and inconsistent behavior. Particularly with the Entertainment interfaces to external devices as well as Phone&Bluetooth connections.
 






I have to say - these are not solutions. They are work arounds to try and get the system functional which may or may not work.

And no... pausing playpack while indexing is not 'common sense'. I have not noticed a great deal of difference in indexing time with or without playback and you are, I am guessing, flatly speculating about USB bus capacity. Indexing and voice command build time may have just as much - if not more to do - with processor load than the transfer of the raw song data from the device.

So - post it for the 101st time - it certainly cant hurt, but lets not pretend that manually forcing a rebuild of the index or pausing playback to 'help' MFT & SYNC work more quickly are going to comprehensively fix anything. It might. It might not. SyncMyItunes is a good tip if you use iTunes.

The more I use MFT & SYNC the more I am coming to see the entire system is *barely* functional. Yeah, it works.. but only with an entire boatload of "Sortof"s and "yeah but"s, "Mostly"s, "Dont Do That's" and inconsistent behavior. Particularly with the Entertainment interfaces to external devices as well as Phone&Bluetooth connections.

I don't appreciate the tone in your post. If you are frustrated at MFT, take it out on MFT and Ford, not people trying to help you.

Don't post on a forum looking for help and then be rude to those who are trying to help you.
 






I don't appreciate the tone in your post. If you are frustrated at MFT, take it out on MFT and Ford, not people trying to help you.

Don't post on a forum looking for help and then be rude to those who are trying to help you.

Rude?

Sorry - not trying to be rude - but I think passing this advice off as a 'fix' or 'common sense' is misleading.
 






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