This thing is supposed to be easy, right? I can’t figure out the following:
My library is an unmitigated mess. Isn’t there some way to organize the song list? I have the song files organized into folders under My Music, but the library is an ugly mess.
I plugged it into my computer for the first time, and it’s been telling me not to unplug for nearly an hour. Should I be concerned, or is that normal?
I’m not sure how it works on PCs, but when I transfer from my mac all the tag information (artist, song, album, rating, genre, etc) is transferred as well, so I can browse by any of those subjects when I use my iPod.
Also, when it’s done updating, you may need to right-click and ‘eject’ the ipod before removing it. Again, not sure if it works the same if you’re using windows. Have you tried that?
Is the song information correctly sorted into the Song Name, Artist, Album, etc. columns?
Or is all your song information in the “Song Name” column? If so, you need to import your music into iTunes.
If you still are getting the “Do Not Disconnect” message on your iPOD and it’s done updating, you need to reset it.
On the older models, you had to press “Menu” and “Play” simultaneously and hold them down for a few seconds.
Not sure what the click-wheel models have, but it should have a similar setup
Are you using playlists?
Are the MP3 tags for your songs correct? iTunes uses those to get the music information; if your tags are not set properly, it won’t be able to make heads or tails out of your collection.
Not sure what you mean by “song list,” but if you mean a customized playlist, you can arrange the songs in any order you want. If you’re browsing your Library, you can click on the column headers (Title, Artist, etc.) to sort the library by those criteria.
I believe you need to “eject” the iPod before you’re supposed to unplug it. Just unplugging it at any random time might screw up your data – this is true for any removable media, not just the iPod.
There are two ways to eject an iPod, assuming a Windows box. One is to eject it from within iTunes. The other is to go to the Remove Hardware option. That might be in the taskbar or you can get to it from the Control Panel.
Is this in iTunes? What software did you use before to manage your MP3 files? iTunes does not use folders. Instead songs are organized according to the artist and album information stores within each MP3 file. Songs can also be grouped using playlists. If you were organizing your files into folders, you may need to use some other software to write proper artist/album info into the MP3 header.
If you have tens of gigabytes imported into iTunes, it can take over an hour to synchronize the first time (i.e. copy everything onto the iPod). You should get some indication of what’s going on, though. Does it look like the program is still “working”? (hard drive being accessed, computer not frozen, etc).
I just got an iPod this week, and had the same problem with “Do Not Disconnect” not going away–for three hours. The thing had to be formatted (PC user here), but even for 40 gig that seemed awfully long. I called tech support, and it turns out that this is a standard problem: just CLOSE the formatting window on your computer, and it will come back to life and let you go on with the iTunes install process.
Many many people have this problem, apparently.
Thanks for all your replies.
As it turns out, my iPod and/or iTunes was acting wonky. After I fiddled with it awhile, things started working like they’re supposed to, and it’s all self-explanatory now.
Strange.
As far as I have always known (had an iPod for about 7 months now), the “Do Not Disconnect” message and the big flashing “NO” symbol looks a lot more important that it really is.
AFAIK, it will display for as long as the iPod is connected to a computer, even if data is not currently writing, because it is ready to write at a moment’s notice.
As mentioned earlier, you have to “eject” it (close the waiting connection) and you’ll get the big check mark and the message “OK to disconnect”.
In Windows you can also right-click on an icon in the system tray (I think it’s called “Remove Storage Device” or something similar) to eject the iPod.
Yes, this is exactly the sort of thing that can cause a lot of trouble with large collections of mp3s from P2P services. iTMS has very thoroughly filled-out ID3 tags and most CD ripping utilities have a subroutine to connect to CDDB to get the track information and write at least the artist/title fields. On file-sharing networks you’re going to get whatever the idiot before you wrote, which is likely what the idiot before him wrote.
If you currently just organize them by information in the filename, try sitting down and putting all the ID3 information you can; at least artist/title if not album and track numbers. Then sit back and see how beautiful iTunes can be.
If you have a firewire connection use that. Through my troubles with my iPod I found that USB support was added as an ‘afterthought’ and is buggy as hell.
I don’t have Firewire.
The stuff that happened sounds a lot like what Sattua described. Then it just stopped happening, and everything’s working fine.
Thanks everyone!
I have both Firewire and USB-2 connections for my iPod. Which one I use depends on which computer I’m using. I’ve found that USB-2 is quite fast and has been perfectly reliable, but if I accidentally plug into a USB-1.1 port, it takes forever to transfer!
Slight hijack:
I just replaced the dead battery in my 3rd gen iPod, and I’m not as pissed at Apple as I used to be.
That is all.