I plugged my iPod into my Mac this morning. I got a picture of a file folder with an exclamation point inside a triangle on it for about five seconds, then it went to the “Do Not Disconnect” with the circle-slash symbol. iTunes didn’t launch even though it’s set to. I launched iTunes and it indicated iPod was automatically updating. It completed the update and I ejected it. This afternoon I come to find iPod is bereft of music. I turned it on and it went to the Languages screen. I selected English then went to playlists and they’re all gone.
I’ve been monkeying around for the last half hour and I’m stumped. The same sequence of events keeps repeating, and there’s some slight grinding of the iPod’s drive, of very short duration (2-3 seconds). When I set the iPod to manual update all of my playlists and songs are listed under its icon in iTunes. I click on the iPod icon on my desktop and they aren’t listed. What is listed is:
Calendars folder (empty)
Comms Regulatory Info.pdf
Contacts folder (contains instructions and sample that came with the iPod)
iPod Installer Mac OS 9
iPod Installer Mac OS X
iTunes 2.0.4 for Mac OS 9
iTunes 3.0.1 for Mac OS X
But I seem to be playing songs off the iPod through iTunes (when I eject the iPod in the middle of a song the song stops) Under “About” iPod says 0 songs and full disk capacity is available. I’m running OS X 10.2.8 on an eMac and version 1.3 of iPod. Any suggestions?
Also, can I get rid of the OS 9 stuff to free up some space on the iPod, assuming it’s not toast?
Have you tried Ephpod? The Windows version has an option to find “lost” songs. I don’t know if macs have an option to defragment hard drives but it does, defrag the iPod. That will help with the slow load time.
You could try resetting it… Hold down the light (stop?) button and the play/pause/on/off button at the same time until the little dude reboots. I’ve used this to find my songs again after dropping it and giving it too hard a jolt.
The file list thingie is…confusing. Perhaps it’s trying to act as a backup hard drive? The instructions for toggling that should be in the instruction manual.
If you still have all your songs on your hard drive, then it’ll be okay to reset the iPod back to factory settings, at least, and start over. You may want to run Software Update (OSX’s System Preferences) and see if that’ll wipe it for you.
The music files are stored inside of invisible folders on the iPod and you should not normally be able to see them. I don’t know if it will help, but you can use the amazingly powerful PathFinder from http://cocoatech.com/ to see invisible files (choose “show invisible files” under the “view” menu).
So I ended up restoring the software. Now I’m trying to re-import my music back on and iTunes keeps going into non-respond just shy of 550 songs loaded (I have about 1100 in my iTunes library). It goes at the same approximate amount of data (about 2.5 GB) whether I try an automatic update or loading the songs one playlist at a time. I’ve tried about four times and the first three times I lost all the data on the iPod again and did another restore. This last time I was finally somehow able to keep the 2.5 GB on the iPod.
My current bright idea is to let the equioment and the programs “rest” for a while and try again later. This is how stupid I am about how computers actually work, I think letting them “rest” will help. Anyone have any better ideas at this point?
I don’t have an iPod, but since you’re in Madison, can you hike down to Milwaukee? Apple’s got an Apple Store at the Mayfair Mall, and you can let the Mac Geniuses™ there take a crack at it. And if it’s under warranty, they might just give you a new one on the spot. If nothing else, you get to spend some time at an Apple Store, which is always a good thing.
(Not to say other local Mac techs can’t do it, but I don’t know what Apple service guys are in Wisconsin)
About once every 35 dockings my iPod will exhibit the exclaimation mark icon like yours did. I simply yank it out of the dock and reset the device by holding the play/pause and Menu buttons for at least 5 seconds until the Apple logo appears. I also restart my Mac. 95% if the time, this works. When it doesn’t, I shut down my Mac, wait 45 seconds, and then restart the Mac. That always fixes the problem.
Have you tried this?
When you eject the iPod from within iTunes, the “do not disconnect” flag on the iPod should disappear.
Yes, if you are strictly running OS X, then you can delete the OS9 files on the iPod. It may save you half a song’s worth of space. You should not be able to see music files in the finder (desktop) (they are considered invisible) without the use of special revealing software.
Consider updating your iTunes to version 4.1 or so. It will work better with 10.2.8 (which I also run).
Regarding resources, you have obtained good advice here. Genius bar at the Apple store is good, iPodlounge is good, the Apple online iPod support discussions is also excellent.
