Is it worth paying to have my iPod Touch fixed?

February 24, 2011 9:53 PM

2nd generation iPod Touch isn't syncing properly. Is it worth fixing or should I just look into buying a refurbished one?

For the past 2 months, I've had the following problem with my 2nd gen iPod Touch: When I connect the iPod to my Mac via USB, I can't get iTunes to recognize that the iPod is even connected. I've been able to recharge the iPod, but it doesn't show the battery life bar as it usually does when charging.

I've used a variety of different cables and chargers, and I think this may be an issue with the iPod's USB connection.

My question is: Will repairing this through Apple potentially cost more than the price of a refurb unit? I checked the Mac store and refurb iTouches are $149 for an 8GB unit.

Thanks!

posted by reenum to Technology (7 answers total)

Response by poster: Sure have. Now I can't sync and restore all my info back on to the iTouch.
posted by reenum at 10:09 PM on February 24, 2011

It might be corrupted settings on your Mac, I just ran into this problem a couple weeks ago, and the following instructions got me back up and running:


http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1591
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3540
posted by dcjd at 10:15 PM on February 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

Basically the above has you delete a few files from your system and then reinstall iTunes. If you are uncomfortable deleting system files, you can try just reinstalling iTunes first and see if that fixes it.
posted by dcjd at 10:16 PM on February 24, 2011

Response by poster: I did reinstall iTunes a month ago, and it didn't work. Looks more and more like this thing is fried.
posted by reenum at 10:36 PM on February 24, 2011

Ah, but did you delete the .plist~orig file as dcjd's second link says? That's the kicker; deleting and re-installing iTunes alone won't do it (not permanently anyway).

My 8G 3rd Gen (essentially, a 2nd Gen) started doing the same thing a while ago (I suspect due to either an OS X or iTunes update, as it happened on 2 different machines a week apart). Deleting the file and re-installing iTunes fixed it.
posted by Pinback at 11:48 PM on February 24, 2011

I just had a second generation 8GB iPod Touch replaced (out of warranty) at an Apple Store after my daughter spilled a can of coke into it. It cost $99 before tax. They won't actually repair it in the store, they'll just swap it. They also told me that if I wanted to recycle it, I could get 10% off the new one if I bought it in the store but it's for an 8 year old so I didn't go that route. I don't know if they all do that, but the one by me does.

If you have an Apple store near you, they can check it out for you at the Genius bar. But if you don't, a fairly simple way to test if it's the iPod or something with your computer would be to connect it to a couple other computers and see if it's recognized on any of them. If it's recognized somewhere else and it charges on a wall charger, the dock connector probably isn't bad, it's most likely a software thing.

We've had about one million iPods around here over the years and I've found the two articles that dcjd linked to (especially the one with instructions on deleting the plist file) usually do the trick if you follow the instructions closely.
posted by howrobotsaremade at 6:48 AM on February 25, 2011

I had similar problems and it was because my iTunes library was corrupted (on the computer). It took hours to fix. It was a huge pain in the ass. I lost some data. It took the Genius bar people hours to diagnose, and then they kept my computer overnight to fix it (I suspect using the methods dcjd mentions). I suspected it was a problem on the computer (because the problem exactly coincided with my purchasing a new MacBook Pro) but they did not believe me until they hooked up a new iPod to the computer and the same problem happened.
posted by mskyle at 7:30 AM on February 25, 2011