I finally got fed up with new music not showing up in iDrive after adding it to my USB stick, and the constantly-disappearing album art every time I turned off the car. The music on my USB drive is copied from my iTunes library. iTunes shows over 6500 songs; iDrive only shows 5300. Every time I added a new album to iTunes, I would add it the USB drive. But, as I found out from all of this trial & error, iDrive didn't always "see" newly added music.
I've seen a lot of posts about issues with music & album art in iDrive when using USB drives, so I know I am not alone in my frustration. And, my previous post about a fix didn't work in the long run.
BUT - after lots of searching in Windows & BMW forums, this time, I think I've found the right fix!
I can't tell you what step - if any - fixed these issues, but I can tell you after doing this, I can see my entire library & I no longer lose album art after turning off the car. (Where you have to reboot the head unit, change mode or just wait for songs to cycle for album art to come back.)
Here is everything I did. I don't know which step or steps fixed it all. But since doing this, I can now see my entire music library in iDrive - all 6.543 songs - and I've not lost album art once after shutting off the car.
I will be curious to know if anyone else experiencing the disappearing album art, or missing, newly added music resolves these issues with this fix.
First, I reformatted my USB drive using a 3rd party application that would format to FAT32 (iDrive only reads FAT32). Windows 10 does not have an option to format FAT32.
I think that step is optional. Just make sure your USB drive is FAT32 (not NTFS, or FATEX). If it's not, you'll need to reformat it to FAT32.
After reformatting, I copied my iTunes library back to the USB stick.
But,
iDrive would only see either the first album or the last - even though my entire library was on the drive, and even after driving around or leaving the car on for a while.
Several posts in Windows forums said to look for particular Windows system files (extension .txt or .dat) and delete them. And also look for a system folder, "System Volume Information". If you see that folder - delete it.
BUT Windows will not allow you to delete it using Explorer. You have to do it from the CMD prompt.
Do the following:
1) Type CMD in the Windows search box & run as administrator.
2) Change the directory to whatever Windows shows as your USB stick (mine is F
3) Type the following after your drive label (e.g.: F:\) exactly as shown, no space before the "rmdir":
rmdir "system volume information" /s /q
4) Then eject the USB stick & remove it from your computer.
Sure enough, I deleted that folder & voila - my entire library showed up in iDrive (aftter iDrive read the USB stick) & I've not lost album art after shutting off the car since. And many of my CDs are so old there is no album art - I had to save an image from google or amazon, and add artwork via iTunes. iDrive even retains the art on those CDs now!
NOTE: every time you insert your USB stick into your computer, Windows will add that folder (you can edit the registry to prevent that) and you will have to delete it each time.