Can't figure out folder/track ordering logic on Axxera AXM230

[odigity]

Just joined the forums to ask this because it's driving me nuts.

I recently purchased an Axxera AXM230 from Crutchfield:

Axxera AXM230 Digital media receiver at Crutchfield.com

I think it's a great value for the price, but there's one major problem -- I can't figure out the logic of how the unit sorts the folders and files (mp3) on the USB drive. It's not alphabetical. It's not in track order. It's also not random -- it plays the folders and tracks in a consistent order, it just seems to be a completely arbitrary one. This is very frustrating because it makes it impossible to navigate to albums or tracks I want without cycling through everything until I stumble on it.

I've tried every way I can to contact them to ask (phone number on website, email on website, phone number and email on their domain's WHOIS listing, posting on their Facebook page) and have yet to succeed, so I ask all of you now:

Any idea what the logic might be, or how to affect it -- or work around it -- for sane folder/file navigation?

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[divestoclimb]

Just registered to post that I'm having the exact same problem with the same model headunit, bought a month ago. My guess is that it's reading out the FAT in order which has nothing to do with the names of the files. With a lot of patience and research it should be possible to copy files over the filesystem in such a way that they end up on the disk in the desired order.

My solution is to return the piece of junk. They obviously didn't even bother testing this thing with USB devices, focusing instead on iPhone integration or something. And this isn't the only stupid, obvious bug I've discovered.

 

[divestoclimb]

Update: I discovered you can fix this problem with basic FAT filesystem sorting utilities. For Windows, try FATSorter. On OSX or Linux, try fatsort.

I also discovered that this headunit officially supports a maximum of 500 folders on a USB device. My 30GB iPod running Rockbox has over 1000 folders.