mp3 playback order in car stereo (USB stick) Options

[maggior]

I have a new car (Volvo XC70) which has the ability to play mp3 files stored on a USB memory stick. I copied a bunch of mp3 files to a USB stick and put it into the player. It worked well except for the fact that it played the tracks in a seemingly random order. The files and albums are organized like this:
artist\album\## TrackName.mp3

The files are LAME mp3 and are tagged with artist, genre, track number, track name, and year.

The album/artist/track name information all appeared correctly in the display, but the track order was totally wrong. Even listing the tracks in an album show them in the incorrect order. I did verify that "shuffle" is turned off. The tracks do maintain their grouping as an album, but are a random order within the album. Of course, the owner's manual is of no use.

Older posts here have talked about the play order being determined by when the file was created on the medium (CD-R at the time) rather than by the file name.

Does anybody know if this is the case? Any simple methods to resolve issues like this?

Thanks.

This post has been edited by maggior: Mar 22 2010, 20:17

[probedb]

I have a Kenwood stereo which takes USB sticks and the filenames have to be 32 characters or less otherwise you get random sorting. I'm not saying this is the same issue but you never know

[DonP]

I have a Kenwood stereo which takes USB sticks and the filenames have to be 32 characters or less otherwise you get random sorting. I'm not saying this is the same issue but you never know

That suggestion was in the first reply.

I would start by filing a warranty claim. That playback scheme is totally brain dead.