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SD Card for Cherokee

37K views 34 replies 20 participants last post by  tianic  
#1 ·
just ordered a 2015 cherokee Limited. Have about 50 GB of music I want to put on an SD card. Seems to be lots of different info on whether it will work or not and what kind of SD card I need. Appreciate help from anyone.
 
#21 · (Edited)
"FAT32" it the convention by which the "File Allocation Table" is set up and formated, and had nothing to do with the size of the card in capacity or how much the reading device will "see". Some readers are very slow, some are faster. The bios of the device may be limited in the maximum size it will read just for the purpose of speed and ease of use. Cards are getting cheaper all the time, just buy a couple more... after all, how many CD's would you need to have in the car for all your music?
 
#6 ·
Our SD slot worked a the start and then stopped. Won't recognize a 32 GB card any longer. I'll have to look at it again just to make sure it is Fat 32. I'm fairly sure it was but we are on vacation and will be home late tomorrow and I"ll check. 64 GB is SDXC I belied and as pointed out it can't use beyond 32GB.
 
#15 ·
I talked with the people at Uconnect last November and posted the info I got from them here --> SD Card Recommendations from Uconnect - 2014 - 2015 Jeep Cherokee Forums. As @macrho posted above, people with large collections have used SD cards much larger than 32GB and formatted them NTFS with success. File type and folder rules may be an important restriction: MP3 or WMA files; No more than 8 folders in root; No more than 255 songs per folder. With a directory structure like \Music\artist\album\song, it ensures accordance with the Uconnect folder recommendations.

The problem of album art not displaying consistently was also solved and posted here --> SD Card Recommendations from Uconnect - Page 2 - 2014 - 2015 Jeep Cherokee Forums.
 
#16 ·
As for the SD card itself... I saw where someone posted the following information back in November...

"Uconnect says they've found the following configuration works best. However, exceeding these recommendations may still work.

Size - 32GB or less with less being better
Class - 2 through 8 with Class 8 being better
Format - FAT32
Brand - Some brands work better than others, but they would not specify which brands work better
Music Content - MP3 or WMA files. No more than 8 folders in root. No more than 255 songs per folder.
Album Art - Embedded JPEG 240 x 158 megapixels
Gracenote (formerly CDDB) - Does not support it"

When we got our Cherokee, I purchased a SanDisk 16 GB Ultra Plus SDHC UHS-I Memory Card... it works perfectly, and holds more music than I'll probably ever even begin to be able to listen to (especially with all the other available media sources.. AM/FM/SXM)
 
#17 ·
a repost ,might help


Solved!!!
Recap: About 90% of my MP3 music tracks with embedded JPEG album art on a Transcend Class 10 32GB SD card formatted FAT32 would not display the album art on the 8.4AN RA4 Uconnect screen. Instead it displayed the disheartening black/white default music note.

Problem: Some music players like the current Uconnect will not display a JPEG if it is too large. Uconnect recommended resizing all JPEGs to 240 x 158 megapixels.

Solution: Found and downloaded free automation that works like a charm. It is a single purpose very easy to use program:

Sanse MP3 Art Sizer

Did not follow Uconnect size recommendation. Instead set the program's Resize Settings to 600 x 600 with 100% quality, and skipping any JPEGs that were already less than 600 x 600. Click the Add Folder button. In my case \Music which included sub folders \artist\album\song. All the songs from each folder/subfolder populate into a list on the screen. Then click the Resize All button. Then go get a Hot Coffee. It progresses through the MP3s at a rate of about 90/minute. For each one, it extracts the current JPEG album art, resizes it if it's larger than the setting, then writes the JPEG back to the MP3.

100% of the MP3s album art now displays.
 
#18 ·
When we had R01 done last week I informed them that the SD card slot was not working. They ordered a new one and it was installed today. 32GB card now working perfectly. took them less than 25 minutes for swap.
 
#23 ·
Ha ha. Working perfectly - so I thought. NOT.

We just towed our Jeep behind the motorhome for a 4 night stay at an RV park about 20 miles south of Grand Rapids. So, while we were there I got to drive the Cherokee a lot (it is HER car). She asked me why a song on the SD card showed twice and played twice. I said "what are you talking about?" She showed me. Sure enough. We have 6000+ songs on the 32 GB SDHC card and for songs it now shows as 12,000+. Everyone shows twice.

So, I figured the USB thumb drive can't be doing that - and it wasn't. I shows the same 6000+ songs as 18,000+ and everyone is listed 3 times. If you play an album you get each song played not twice but 3 times consecutively.

Anyone else encountered this problem?

I'm beginning to see why the ratings for the Cherokee are not so good. While we love the transfer case and the way it tows, I am really wondering just how well designed and built it is given all the quirks we've encountered.

I now wonder if the dealer is going to have to solve this problem (which is unacceptable to us and I will not live with it) by replacing the entire infotainment center?
 
#20 ·
No thanks. We have four iPods and two of them have 6600+ songs on them. We like the controls in the the Jeep for browsing songs, artists and so on. Will leave it just as it is now.

The Jeep is DW's and I have a T&C and I loaded the 6600+ songs into its hard drive. Works fine as well but not as nice as the Cherokee.

GR
 
#26 ·
Hey @grandriver125, How's it going?

Others have reported the same phenomenon. Not absolutely sure what causes this loaves and fishes feature. :confused:

However, I talked with the folks at Uconnect about their recommendations for SD card and this is what they said >> SD Card Recommendations from Uconnect - 2014 - 2015 Jeep Cherokee Forums.

I'd pay particular attention to the directory structure recommendation: No more than 8 folders in root & No more than 255 songs per folder. The Uconnect head unit has limited memory and too many files in the root directory or too many files in a single folder might blow its mind. Hope this helps.
 
#29 ·
Changing the name and locking didn't work. I erased the SDHC card and reformatted, loaded 6617 songs, locked it and it now works properly - but slow startup that annoys "she who must be obeyed."

I'm now in the process of doing the same thing with the USB drive and hopefully it will work (no lock though). It starts up a lot faster and that will keep SWMBO happy and off my back.
 
#30 ·
I just bought 2 Sony SDXC UHS-1 70 MB/s, Class 10, 128BG SD cards. They were initially formatted in ex-FAT and weren't recognized by the Model RA4 radio.

I reformatted one of them in NTFS, added 202 albums/folders (over 2000 tracks @ 26GB). Everything seems to be working fine. Album art is showing up for the albums I've played so far.

It does not seem to be rebuilding the albums list after turning the vehicle off and opening the door, so that's a plus. I know I've seen some complaints that the list repopulates each time. I guess I'll see if this behaves differently over time or after I change to Sirius and back.

I tag/name all of my "Jeep Music" albums as "band name-album name" since I searched by album on my last 2 radios (RER & RHR I think), so I kept them the same. Plus at 200+ albums, I can't always remember the band just by album name.

The only slight difference is that the older radios allowed an ABC search by the first 2 (or more) letters. The current Model RA4 jumps right in with the first letter. Though it looks like I can use the regular "search" function for more than one letter.

In short, so far so good.
 
#31 ·
Glad to hear the 128 GB SD cards worked formatted as NTFS.

Over the past 1 1/2 years, the only time Uconnect has rebuilt the index is when I change the content on the SD card.

<<I tag/name all of my "Jeep Music" albums as "band name-album name" since I searched by album on my last 2 radios (RER & RHR I think), so I kept them the same. Plus at 200+ albums, I can't always remember the band just by album name.>>

Thanks for the tip. I'm going to reorganize my tags in a similar way. I was a noob the first time organizing music on the SD card. Now after using it for a while I have a better appreciation for search arguments such as album name and genre. Especially when using VR.