Having just taken delivery of a brand new Honda GenIII Jazz (Fit) I was keen to try out the audio system which has a 7" touch screen and 2 USB ports for input. I like to download MP3 podcasts from radio stations using iTunes and was disappointed to discover that the screen displayed "UNPLAYABLE FILE" for the vast majority of my MP3 files. These were all downloaded from the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) using iTunes. I then noticed that a few that I had downloaded from the BBC all played fine.

Long story short, the unplayable files were 64kbps or 128kbps bit rate and 48kHz sample rate. The BBC files that played were all 44.1kHz sample rate. If you list your podcasts in iTunes, you can right click in the heading row and select bit rate and sample rate. You will then see the bit rate and sample rate for each file.

If you highlight the unplayable files in iTunes, you can create new MP3 files. Go to File, Create New Version, and click on Create MP3 Version. The ding sounds when the conversions are complete and the new files will have a suffix 1 added to the filename. All of these have then played in the car. I should say that I am running Windows 7 and iTunes 12.1.2.27. I was using 4GB and 8GB USB sticks FAT32 format. I did not try connecting an iPod.

Believe me it took a whole day to get this far after reading posts elsewhere that blamed the USB stick, or blamed the MP3 ID3 tag or blamed the player. I explored varying ID3 tags using "MP3tag" freeware and that didn't help. I tried converting the unplayable files using "NCH Switch Sound File Converter" freeware, to bit rates between 80kbps and 160kbps and sample rates ranging from 22.05kHz and 32kHz. All the converted files played fine and the audio quality, being mostly speech, was indistinguishable regardless of rate.

The simplest solution seems to be to use iTunes as decribed above using the default settings. I have read that you can vary rate settings under Edit Preferences but it wasn't obvious to me how you would do that. I hope this helps somebody with a similar problem.

 

That's very interesting. Now I have to find out why some of my song files won't play in the car. In every case, these were albums bought as MP3 downloads on Amazon.com. The unplayable/unrecognizable song files are the files that were listed in the Amazon price list as "album only", meaning they were only available as part of the album purchase and not for individual sale.

Not sure if this is the same thing, but it gives me something to look for.

 

I tested out the USB thumb drive when I bought my car last month and discovered only some songs were recognized. After experimenting a bit I realized the file names were too long (I use artist-album-track number-song title). Once I shortened the names, everything was fine. I only have a handful of songs that are smaller than 128k bps on the iPod; in the next day or so I'll put them on a playlist to see if they work in the Fit.

 

I use a SansaClip+ as my favorite MP3 player, and I've found it works fine - except it can't see "album titles" and goes only by folder names. It remembers where I was (which file, what minute) the last time in the car, even if I take the SansaClip out and walk around with it, listening to other books/podcasts.

At first I was worried that the Sansa wouldn't be happy with the FIT (for my husband's car, a Subaru Outback, he did some aftermarket radio thing, and there's an audiojack, so I had to always pump the volume up really high, draining the power. In the Fit, the MP3 guy charges itself while playing!

 

Shortening the file names worked!
Thanks.

 

All my low bit rate songs from the iPod played through the sound system just fine, even the 19kbps Sonic Youth cover of the Simpsons theme.

 

..........