# My iPod has suddenly stopped playing **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 31, 2011, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-ipod-has-suddenly-stopped-playing/583890 "2011-05-31T20:32:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2011, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-ipod-has-suddenly-stopped-playing/583890/1 "2011-05-31T20:32:37Z")
That is to say, it still shows that it is playing the song dutifully, and has a full charge, but it won’t play through to any speakers. I have a car hookup and a iPod stereo at the office. The car hookup is through a tape deck and I’ve had it for years. The office stereo I’ve had for at least a year. They both hook up through different parts - the car through the headphone jack, the stereo through the thing on the bottom. When I get home I’ll try it on my computer but has anyone heard of this? I tried resetting it, no dice. Some doohickey inside the presumably tells the iPod to “convert music through these parts” has broken, I guess. It’s a 5th generation iPod, I think, with 30 GB in it. Please help! ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2011, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-ipod-has-suddenly-stopped-playing/583890/2 "2011-05-31T20:46:22Z")
My guess is that you have lint in the speaker wire hole. Edit: Ah - just saw that it’s not playing through two sources… Did you turn the volume down? ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2011, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-ipod-has-suddenly-stopped-playing/583890/3 "2011-05-31T20:50:38Z")
No, I checked that. And upon hitting the right combination of google terms, it seems it does happen to the 5th generations - some kind of hardware issue. I am way past the warranty. ☹ I guess I will try a wipe, if I have to, but I lose all the music on it. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2011, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-ipod-has-suddenly-stopped-playing/583890/4 "2011-05-31T21:05:43Z")
As long as you can still get data on and off the iPod, you can use a backup program such as Pod to Mac or another piece of software (I don’t remember at this point what I was using on WinXP) to copy everything back onto another hard drive, preserving all the metadata. Why would you lose all the music on it, anyway? Do you no longer have a library on your computer that corresponds to what’s on the iPod? ---
**Author:** ![randomface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/5fc32e/32.png) [@randomface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/randomface)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2011, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-ipod-has-suddenly-stopped-playing/583890/5 "2011-05-31T22:00:23Z")
I had something like this happen to my old iPod. If you flex the case as it is plugged in and should be playing, it should momentarily play/crackle the speakers. Or at least mine did. If you put it in the freezer for about thirty minutes it may play again, but only for a few minutes. It was something about a decoder chip coming unsoldered. I had to buy a new one. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2011, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-ipod-has-suddenly-stopped-playing/583890/6 "2011-05-31T23:54:28Z")
My iPod stopped playing, too - after I washed it. :smack: My first fix for you would be to take it home and plug it into iTunes and sync it all up again - that fixed my iPod when it got stuck a couple of times, for whatever reason. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2011, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-ipod-has-suddenly-stopped-playing/583890/7 "2011-06-01T12:57:24Z")
> [@randomface](#): > > I had something like this happen to my old iPod. If you flex the case as it is plugged in and should be playing, it should momentarily play/crackle the speakers. Or at least mine did. If you put it in the freezer for about thirty minutes it may play again, but only for a few minutes. It was something about a decoder chip coming unsoldered. I had to buy a new one. That’s exactly it. And no, I have most of the music, either on my PC or his or the backup disk, but still, it will be a major PITA. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-ipod-has-suddenly-stopped-playing/583890/8 "2011-06-03T04:57:41Z")
TechRestore and iRapidRepair might be able to help you.