USB connection issue with Alpine car radio Solved

Question

Hello,
We recently purchased an Alpine CDE-9880 Series car radio that allows us to connect a USB key or an iPod. We have 2 USB keys, one with 2GB that also plays MP3s and another with 4GB that I just bought. The MP3 key works perfectly on the car radio, but the new 4GB key doesn't work at all. Why? What should we do?

Configuration: Windows Vista Internet Explorer 7.0

mcjeangab1 · Accepted Answer

Hello everyone, the requirements are as follows:

You need a USB drive formatted in FAT 32 (for those who want to use a hard drive, I recommend a self-powered one, meaning a hard drive that powers itself through the USB port; in other words, the device will power it, which avoids potential power supply issues)

The second condition is that you must put a maximum of 99 files (tracks) in a folder; otherwise, the device will have trouble loading the tracks (cache issue)

A third condition for those using a hard drive is that some car stereos do not support 250 GB, while others do, so it's up to you to find out what size the device can handle.

HOMBOURGEOIS · Answer

because often the compatibility is 2 GB, so the 4 GB stick is unusable in this case!

mimiquagh · Answer

I don't understand, nothing is specified on the notice or on the website regarding compatibility with the size of the key. It states USB key 1.1/2.0 and that's what I have...

mimiquagh · Answer

It can't be a matter of the key size, the manufacturer Alpine assured me...

HOMBOURGEOIS · Answer

Well, if Alpine says it, it must be true (although salespeople often say nonsense if you ask them questions other than pricing).
But this story about the 2GB limit is so classic that ..............
In your case, we could say that the key is faulty.

jogger · Answer

1 The USB drive must be formatted to FAT32; if you use the NTFS file system, it won't work.

mimiquagh · Answer

It was almost that; the key was actually in FAT and not FAT32, so I formatted it to FAT32 and it worked. Thank you.

jean-luc · Answer

Hello everyone
I just found your discussion which interests me
Indeed, I own an Alpine car radio (CDE-9882Ri)
I have an 8GB USB stick and only about a hundred songs play and always the same ones even though the stick currently holds more than 500. It is properly formatted to FAT32
DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY IDEAS TO HELP ME WITH MY PROBLEM,
Thank you for your insightful responses

mimiquagh · Answer

Hello,
Honestly, apart from the story about reformatting the key, I don't see anything else. The guy from customer service told me that some keys don't work with it, but I don't know which brand, though. Contact them to see if yours is one of those. Otherwise, only mp3 formats should work; if you have something like wav, I don't think it will work. One last thing, redo your formatting completely and make sure it's FAT32.
Good luck.

lolo2608 · Answer

Hello,

I have a "DANE ELEC" 2GB USB flash drive and my car radio does not want to read it. It says "NO FILE".
What should I do to make my USB flash drive work?
Are there specific files that need to be kept on the drive? If so, which ones?
Do the music files need to be in a specific folder?

Thank you in advance!

maxx53 · Answer

Hello
I have an alpine 101r and I have a kingston data traveler usb stick and I have the same problem, it shows unit error. According to the responses I see, I believe that kingston sticks are not compatible with alpine car radios.

ben · Answer

Hello, I have a 2GB Kingston USB drive in FAT that works well with my CDA 104 BTI, but I also have an 8GB Lexar in FAT32 that is not recognized. !!!!????

ben · Answer

Oops, I also have a 16 GB Kingston USB drive in FAT32 that is recognized fine, so it's not a size issue and the Kingstons are indeed recognized. However, my Lexar USB drive is recognized once out of ten times!?!?!?

insiem · Answer

Hello,
I have an Alpine CDE-104BTi and I had the same issue as you: as soon as I inserted a USB stick (mine is a 4GB unbranded one or my girlfriend's the same), I always got the same messages: NO DEVICE or UNIT ERROR. Very frustrating for a car radio... So I came to this site, I read your comments and... I have no more problems!! The car radio accepts everything.

To do this, I:
1- backed up the content (just MP3 files) from my USB sticks to my Mac
2- reformatted my USB sticks to FAT32
3- reinserted the content (MP3 files) to the root of my USB sticks
4- turned on the car radio, inserted my USB stick and selected "USB KEY" as the source

For your information, I tested it with 2 USB sticks of different capacities and a 120GB hard drive. And it works in all cases. So it's neither a matter of brand nor capacity.

I wish you as much luck/success.
Good luck ;-)

zeufparis · Answer

Hello everyone,

A little additional information.

In the official documentation (which can be found here: https://www.alpine-electronics.fr/support/archive.html depending on the product).

For the Alpine CDE-104BTi for example, it is clearly stated:

This device can recognize at least 100 folders and 100 files per folder stored on the USB drive. If a USB drive exceeds these limits, it may not be readable.
The playback of a file must not exceed 1 hour.
This device supports the FAT 12/16/32 file allocation table.

See you later!

suz750 · Answer

Hello,
If after formatting your USB key it still doesn't work (whether it has a capacity of 2, 8, 16, 32 GB or any brand), format it properly in FAT 32 but with an allocation unit size of 4096 bytes and quick formatting is enough.
This way, all USB keys will work in Alpine car radios.

qs'u- · Answer

Gregoire

KSFD?J. · Answer

Récupère une clé 4G car celle-ci ne doit pas marcher, essaie avec une autre clé 4G.

vts27 · Answer

That helped me a lot, thank you! The Alpine is brand new, I have the USB key problem... Fortunately, there's the forum, thank you very much!

Dekado · Answer

hum, I bought two 4 GB EMTEC USB keys. I was able to read MP3s on my car radio but had to put them directly in the ROOT folder. While looking for a solution to have folders with the names of the artists, I formatted to FAT32 and since then I have the message UNIT ERROR, so in my opinion, it must be something other than just formatting. I will look into it and keep you updated.

Mykeulkeul81 · Answer

Hello, I'm having the following problem with my CDE 112 ri. It works perfectly with my 4GB Emtec USB stick, which doesn't have many folders but is packed with sessions longer than 1 hour each. However, it doesn't recognize my 16GB Cybox USB stick, which contains, admittedly, more folders but the same type of files... the same goes for my 4GB Kingston USB stick...  Please HELLLLLP !!!!!  P.S: All the USB sticks are in FAT 32 by default and have been formatted at least once each.

Nnoitra · Answer

Hello everyone, I'm here to add my two cents, as I've also had issues with this infamous Unit Error on an Alpine CDE 102 Ri. I followed all the procedures, and it still didn't recognize my USB stick (8Go) So I tried formatting it by unchecking the quick format option...  And then everything worked!  However, once I created folders on the USB stick, it stopped working again, so I deleted the folders and just dumped the music files directly onto the stick. And the problem was solved.  And for any other issues with the Alpine, I believe that the Reset is our friend ^^ (that's from experience)  Thanks everyone for your help.

Mykeulkeul81 · Answer

Hello everyone, for my CDE-112ri, the only solution was to use other brands of USB drives because it only accepts certain brands from what I've seen. All my drives are in FAT 32, 4096 in allocation units and for now, I know that my unit does not accept either Cibox, TDK, or Kingston (various sizes). It only accepted Emtec (4 and 16GB) and one Sony (32GB).

nico · Answer

Hello, I have a Kenwood KDC 4047U car stereo and a Dane Elec 8 GB USB stick. Every time I plug the USB into my computer to add music, the stereo takes a long time (searching) and then shows NA device, which is really frustrating. So I have to mess with the USB on my computer by creating different folders or deleting and then adding other music, but it's really annoying. I don't know where it's coming from or why, but I'm going to end up breaking this USB stick in two.

djnivek · Answer

Hello, I have a CDE-112Ri car radio and a 2.5" external hard drive, self-powered, with a capacity of 1TB from Western Digital, and it recognizes it very well even though I have exceeded the limits set by Alpine since I have around 13,000 tracks organized by folders and subfolders, some of which contain more than 200 tracks.

sef-sef · Answer

Hello, I have an ALPINE CDE-111R car radio that has the same issue; my USB key won't read, and the message "unit error" appears every time... I followed your instructions by formatting my USB several times, both quickly and normally, I reset the unit, but it's still not working, and I don't know what to do anymore... please help me thank you.

baouai · Answer

Hi everyone, I'm probably going to look stupid, but how do you reformat a USB drive to FAT32?

TnX · Answer

Hello everyone, you need to format the USB stick to FAT32 and convert these music files using the Nero software and there will be no more problems...

Tangaroa · Answer

Hello everyone,

I've been using my Alpine 110 "thing" for several months now, listening to my music via USB (lambda stick...), with no problems until this morning when the infamous UNIT ERROR appeared!!!

I quickly turned to our friend Google and came across your discussion, which was quite interesting.

I followed your advice (formatting to FAT 32, resetting the unit, changing folders and subfolders...) but nothing worked...

So I went back to the source of the problem, asking myself "what music did I add since it stopped working?". There were 4 songs... I right-clicked on one then Properties, Summary, Advanced and noticed there was a lot more information than on the files of my other songs, especially website addresses. Without hesitation, I deleted everything (made multiple trips to the car...) and OH MIRACLE !!!! EVERYTHING WORKS.

So if you're stuck after trying everything, check the files of your songs and delete the information in the "Summary; Advanced" tab.

Hoping this helps some of you, I wish you all good listening ;-)

nicolas · Answer

Hello, I have a little problem with my Alpine CDE-112RI car radio. It doesn't play all my music; when I come across a song that it won’t play, it pauses for a few seconds and displays the word "searching."  When I take out and put back the key, it still shows the word "searching." I cannot change songs or do anything else (except change the source...)  So I have to go back home and completely move the folder because I have no idea which song doesn’t work since the car radio didn’t display it...   In my friends' car radios, the songs work perfectly.  What should I do?   PS: I'm not very good with computers ^^'

NiK · Answer

Just a passing thought: do those who have issues with their USB keys have folders and/or files with titles that contain accented characters? (a classic problem in computing)

FaRtgirl · Answer

Hello everyone,

As also the owner of an Alpine CDE-112RI for over a year, I just received a Kingston USB stick as a gift. I tested it with various folders on the stick, everything worked fine.
The next morning, when I turned the unit on: "unit error." I removed and reinserted the stick several times. Sometimes it worked again, but there was no sound. Neither in CD mode, radio, nor aux jack... All the wires are properly connected, no blown fuses. Subsequently, the USB stick no longer works either, still "unit error."
What should I try?

USB connection issue with Alpine car radio

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