Iphone Usb Connection Problem In 250hs

[efusco]

Hi everyone,

I'm a Prius owner/driver who won a 1 week test drive of a Lexus 250HS Premium + NAV for a week. I've had the car about 4-5 days so far and am really enjoying the luxurious vehicle. When getting my walk-through at the dealer they had a bit of trouble getting my iPhone 3Gs to connect and play via the USB input. It charges fine and shows connected on the USB, but sometimes plays, but mostly doesn't.

I found a few other comment on other Lexus that the interface wasn't ideal with the iPhone, but I've had others tell me it works fine in their 250. I've taken some photos of the various screens and thought I'd post those here to get some input. I'll be doing a bit of a summary of my test drive and will post that in a new thread after my week is over.

The first screen I see on my iPhone when I connect it. I just click "No" here:

Sometimes the connection works, music plays, and I see this screen:

Then most of the time when I connect I get the following screen:

Then the warning goes away and all I see is:

or

Welcome ideas to get this working.

[SW03ES]

Welcome to the LOC Doc!

[efusco]

Welcome to the LOC Doc!

Thanks Steve...sure wish someone knew the answer to my question tho

[Buk]

Have you tried a different cable? It almost looks like a bad cable or connection.

How many songs on your iPhone?

I loaded my iPhone up with 1600 songs and no playlists and the car/iPhone combination seemed to slow down.

Sorry, if I've been no help.

[efusco]

Have you tried a different cable? It almost looks like a bad cable or connection.

How many songs on your iPhone?

I loaded my iPhone up with 1600 songs and no playlists and the car/iPhone combination seemed to slow down.

Sorry, if I've been no help.

That's a good thought, I'll try another cable. I have about 2000-3000 songs on the iPhone organized into 2 playlists. But I'm not seeing a slowdown,just the works, then crashes.

[efusco]

Tried another cable, and was super excited..it worked perfectly on the trip to pick my kids up from school. But once I restarted the car to bring them home...nothing. Same error messages as above when I disconnected and reconnected and no music would play.

Good thought, but no luck. I hate intermittent problems.

[SW03ES]

Yeah unfortunately not a lot of owners of the new cars with the new audio setup on here yet...

Lower volume than the Prius!

[Buk]

Tried another cable, and was super excited..it worked perfectly on the trip to pick my kids up from school. But once I restarted the car to bring them home...nothing. Same error messages as above when I disconnected and reconnected and no music would play.

Good thought, but no luck. I hate intermittent problems.

I'm sorry to have caused you extra work swapping cables. I was able to duplicate your problem today, almost exactly actually, based on your photos. The bad news, I'm not sure what specifically causes the problem. I'm now guessing it's something to do with the file structure on your iPhone.

Here's what I believe caused the problem in my case. I only had two small playlists and 1600 songs not in playlists. I'm wondering if all the songs need to be in playlists (folders) rather than just floating around not in playlists.

If you have time, try changing the arrangement of your music into playlists, no songs not in playlists.

The other possible situation that may have not caused this intermittent problem is I have music videos on the iPhone. As your photo shows when it acts up, you have no clue what is playing because it doesn't indicated it in the nav window, nor can you hear any music. So possibly it is when a music video is playing, although that is really far fetched. It would be strange the video component of the song would cause this crashing.

I haven't put my iPhone back into it's normal state (multiple playlists and no "loose" songs) so maybe if it screws up tomorrow that will give us a better clue. Then I'll put my on iPhone back in it's normal state and I'll bet the problem disappears.

Good luck.

[Buk]

Your trial period is probably over and I don't have a definite answer for you. I drove another day with my iPhone disorganized and it crashed three times during the day. Once when I restarted the car and nav system indicated the problem. I turned the car off and restarted and all was fine.

Yesterday I reloaded the iPhone in a more traditional manner (all songs in playlists) and not once did I have the problem after starting and restarting the car at least 10 times.

[benfb]

Your trial period is probably over and I don't have a definite answer for you. I drove another day with my iPhone disorganized and it crashed three times during the day. Once when I restarted the car and nav system indicated the problem. I turned the car off and restarted and all was fine.

Yesterday I reloaded the iPhone in a more traditional manner (all songs in playlists) and not once did I have the problem after starting and restarting the car at least 10 times.

I'm willing to believe the problem is not using playlists. I was preparing a digital photo frame as a Christmas gift for my mother today and kept having problems copying all of the photos (500 or so) onto the SD memory card. What I had forgotten is that most memory cards has a limit to the number of files they'll accept in the root directory. So I created a folder and was easily able to copy all 500 photos into it. This doesn't apply directly to the Ipod, but I could easily see the same kind of limitation existing in the way the Lexus audio system reads the Ipod.

I only got my HS last night and I tested it today with my son's Ipod touch, where he has about 3000 songs. Scrolling through the longs lists was a list slow, but we had no crashes at all.

[steilkurve]

Your trial period is probably over and I don't have a definite answer for you. I drove another day with my iPhone disorganized and it crashed three times during the day. Once when I restarted the car and nav system indicated the problem. I turned the car off and restarted and all was fine.

Yesterday I reloaded the iPhone in a more traditional manner (all songs in playlists) and not once did I have the problem after starting and restarting the car at least 10 times.

I'm willing to believe the problem is not using playlists. I was preparing a digital photo frame as a Christmas gift for my mother today and kept having problems copying all of the photos (500 or so) onto the SD memory card. What I had forgotten is that most memory cards has a limit to the number of files they'll accept in the root directory. So I created a folder and was easily able to copy all 500 photos into it. This doesn't apply directly to the Ipod, but I could easily see the same kind of limitation existing in the way the Lexus audio system reads the Ipod.

I only got my HS last night and I tested it today with my son's Ipod touch, where he has about 3000 songs. Scrolling through the longs lists was a list slow, but we had no crashes at all.

I have an iPhone as well with my HS250h. I'm not experiencing crashes like you are but I do get the initial error message you do. I found the way to work around that is to turn off the iPhone, connect it to the car vis USB and then turn it on. It then works fine and never crashes. My iPhone is a 3GS. I do have to say the interface on the Nav system is not the best. Scrolling through songs is not as smooth as it is on the iPhone itself. The car's manual specifies that the iPod touch and iPhone are not compatible. Perhaps that's the best we an expect given that.

The other option is to connect it through Bluetooth and stream the music that way. You can't control it from the Nav system (aside from pause/play and volume) but it connects everytime for me with no error message.

I'll let you all know if I find anything else.

[Argelius]

I had a (vaguely) similar problem with my GS (with an aftermarket iPod connection).

Here's what I would try (if you haven't already done so).

Resync your phone/ipod with iTunes, but only select a handful of songs to sync. If that works, then start creating playlists. I use "smart playlists" for things like Artist and Genre.

Create a few playlists (with a bunch of songs in them), and then sync those.

I suspect this is the issue. The iPod interfaces seem to do better with having things broken up into play lists, rather than in one giant library.

[Laundryczar]

Hi:

I know this isn't the ideal answer, but....

The problems seem to stem from using iPhones, which for a variety of reasons, are notoriously finicky.

I have had an old iPod attached to my HS250H since November and it has worked flawlessly with an excess of 3000 songs and multiple playlists. I leave it and it's retractable cable in the car. Find a beat-up old iPod and sync it and leave it in the car.

As an aside, I was disappointed with the in-cabin storage in my HS250H and had pockets of matching leather made that are attached to the front of each of the front seat cushions. My iPod lives in the one in front of the passenger seat. The black cable is nearly invisible against the dark gray interior so if I forget to unplug it, it is less likely to draw attention to itself in case somebody looks inside for something to steal.