Category: General

I have a 2012 Toyota Yaris, that can play mp3 / aac audio files from an USB key.

So, I bought a 128G usb key, load it with my audio files on it, and it works fine for months.

Then, I decided to update the usb key with new songs. Before copying my files to it, I format it using Windows format utility. Then, I copy all my new mp3 files on it.

And now, what? I can’t read them! My car player always displays the “USB READ ERROR” message. I thought I put too much files on the USB key, so I tried with only 1 album, with the same result.

After lot of research, I found that, using the windows format tool, I changed the original “FAT32” partition, to a exFAT partition type. And, most car player can’t read that partition type.

So, I tried to format it using the command prompt: “format f: /fs:FAT32”. It took almost 1 hour, before completing with the error: “The volume is too big for FAT32”. I tried the “/q” method before, with the same result. That’s why I retry without the /q, but don’t lost your time, it doesn’t work.

I searched again… then I found that, only third party apps can format a large USB key with the real FAT32 format. There were lot of tools that can do that, but I choosed the one that looks the more simple, as I don’t always trust apps from unknown sources…

The app I used is this one: FAT32 guiFormat from Ridgecrop Consultants.

It was just simple, nothing to setup, and does the job perfectly.

I was able to copy all my mp3-aac, and now my can read read them!

Now, I strongly suggest you to make them a donation on their web site if you like this tool.

You like stingray music. But when you work on your PC, you want to listen to it from a real Windows Desktop App, independent from your browser, instead of using your phone.

Actually, that product doesn’t exists.  But, they offer a Web Player, available at
https://webplayer.stingray.com

If you’re using Google Chrome, you can use “pin tab”, to make it locked on the left side of your tabs, in a mini-size tab.  But, if you close chrome, the music stops playing.

Fortunately, there’s a workaround that will almost do what you want.

You can use a quite unknown feature from chrome, to convert any web site to a look-alike windows application, that run outside of the regular browser context.

These are the steps to achieve that.

First, open your regular chrome browser, and open the Stingray web player URL.

Then, click Options (3 dots) / More Tools / Add To Desktop.

Next, you can type any name you want for the app, then click Add.

You can now see that new icon in your desktop, that looks like a standard application.  Double-click on it to launch it.

As you can see, the web site is opening inside a non-browser-like window.  You only see the title of the page, and there’s no browser address bar, or navigation buttons.  Only the web app is visible.

Also, on your Windows Taskbar, you can see the Stingray app besides the Chrome app.  Even if it’s the chrome.exe engine that run that app, it’s independent from the browser.
So, you can open only stingray, or only the browser, or both.  And you can now close or restart your browser without losing your currently playing music!

One final step, right click the stingray icon on the taskbar, and choose “Pin to taskbar”, to make it easier to start or navigate to directly.

That’s all! Have a nice listening to Stingray Music with your new Desktop App.