Sansa Fuze not recognized

I tried plugging my Sansa Fuze into the USB port. Not recognized.
OK, tried the "Aux" port. Nothing.
Took the car to the dealer. They said that only Apple devices, and only some Apple devices at that, will work on the USB port. They also said that the 'aux' port is very touchy and will only work with some audio cables. Between the three of us we had three different audio cables. Only the Service Mgr's worked. Couldn't see any difference between them. My Sansa Fuze worked on the 'aux' port with the Service Mgr's cable, so I know it can be done.
If anyone knows of a certain brand of mini-headphone jack audio cable that works reliably in the 2010 Prius I'll buy it.
If anyone knows how to get their Sansa Fuze working on the USB port, I'd sure like to hear how they did it.
Also, I just saw a thread on here about using a plain old thumb drive loaded up with audio files. I'll have to try that!

 

I'll have to check about that. Right now, when the Sansa sees a USB connection, it does seem to go to some sort of data transfer mode instead of remaining 'just a music player' so that might be the problem. I have the Sansa here in front of me. Don't see an option under 'system settings' that says anything about behavior when plugged into another device.
I might look around/post over on the Sansa Forums and see if someone can help out.

As far as the Aux connection goes, I agree with you, any stereo mini-jack should work. But we sat right there and tried three different cables out and only one did. The dealership ordered a new cable port for me but the Service Mgr. didn't think it was gonna make a difference.

I haven't yet wiped a USB thumb drive clean and tossed a few songs on there to see what happens.

 

Your Sansa works on the USB port??! Do you have a Fuze or a Clip or something else?
What settings are you referring to? Sansa or Toyota? Any help would be appreciated. The dealership people said the Fuze just wasn't going to work. They said that Toyota made the car compatible with Apple products and nothing else, and even some Apple products don't work. So I kinda gave up on getting the USB port to work.

 

I asked around at the Sansa forum. One of the guys said I had to find out whether the Prius uses [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Transfer_Protocol"]MTP[/ame] or MSC.

Since we use Linux at home for most of our computing tasks, I set the Sansa Fuzes to MSC right from the start. If the Prius uses MTP that would explain why our Fuzes aren't being recognized.

I can set one or both Fuzes back to MTP, but any data that was loaded in one mode will not be read if you switch to the other mode, so that creates a bit of a roadblock. We'd have to start using Windows every time we load anything to the MTP Fuze.

Does anyone know if the Prius uses MTP or MSC? This is a rather arcane bit of knowledge so I'd expect the dealer to go, "Um, what?"

EDIT: So I emailed Toyota, asking specifically which file transfer format works, and why the Prius seems to be so touchy about mini-jack audio cables. Here's the reply:

"Thank you for contacting Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc.

We appreciate the opportunity to address your inquiry.

We apologize; the USB port for your 2010 Prius only recognizes USB flash drives formatted with file systems FAT 16 or FAT 32, and some iPod models. The Prius' audio system was not designed to enable control of the Sansa Fuze when it is connected via the vehicle's USB port.

The best way to use your device with the audio system in your Prius would be to purchase a male-to-male 1/8" (3.5mm) cable, connecting the headphone jack of the MP3 player to the AUX port on your vehicle. Alternatively, you may wish to load a FAT-formatted flash drive with your music for in-vehicle listening.

If we can be of further assistance, please feel free to contact us."

Not completely useless information, but they didn't answer either question. We're waiting on the dealer to get another USB/audio connector, then we'll try a few things and report back.

 

New developments -
The Service Mgr. was skeptical about this because the TRS jack is so generic, but they replaced the little port inside the center console (we have the nav package). The port has a 3.5 mm stereo TRS jack and a USB port.

Our Fuze continues to be non-functional on the USB port, but I think that's largely because it goes into what I call the "data transfer" mode. The screen just says "Connected" and you're supposed to use your computer to interface with the Fuze.

However, the Fuze does now work on the TRS jack! Weird. I plug it in, turn on the radio, go to the Audio screen, tap on AUX tab, and we've got tunes. The music isn't very loud, so I have to crank the Fuze up.

However, a plain old thumb drive works just fine on the USB port. That's simpler than using the Fuze on the TRS jack. Also louder.

I used a very basic USB thumb drive. A lot of thumb drives nowadays come with a 'start-up' utility that tries to get in the way when you plug it in. The utility is Windows-based. Since we use Linux, all my thumb drives are devoid of those pesky utilities.

I used one thumb drive that was wiped clean - just 2 .mp3 files and 2 .ogg files. The Prius played the mp3's but ignored ogg. The SCAN function even worked!

I took another thumb drive that was cluttered with numerous non-music files and tossed two .mp3's on that. The Prius found the two mp3's and ignored the rest. Perfect!

So that works for us. I'll just load up a bog-standard thumb drive with music & audiobooks, and not worry about the Fuze.

 

Please do report back if you find a way to make the Fuze work on the USB port. I tried going to MTP from MSC and it made no dif. Prius still couldn't see the device.

Having said that, I'm not sure that I care much about the Fuze not working. It's simpler to plug a thumb drive into the Prius USB port. An 8GB or so thumb drive would work for days of driving!