Save my senile ipod

November 20, 2005 7:14 AM

My ipod (4G, 40Gb, monochrome, firmware version 3.02) keeps forgetting the ratings that I've given to songs.

I'm trying to rate all of my songs. I have a smart playlist that contains unrated songs. When I start rating songs, I can see the number of unrated songs in the playlist. Then I rate 100 songs. The next day, when I refresh the playlist and go to rate songs, the songs that I rated the previous day are still in the playlist and are still unrated. Since I didn't connect to iTunes in between, I'm pretty sure it's an ipod issue.

It seems that I'm not alone:

http://forums.ilounge.com/showthread.php?s=51ab3ee2e35b9ed03cc4ffc4d982eb2f&threadid=113108&highlight=losing+ratings

http://forums.ilounge.com/showthread.php?s=51ab3ee2e35b9ed03cc4ffc4d982eb2f&threadid=71507&highlight=losing+ratings

However, I can't find any solution. I'm not sure if updating to the latest firmware (3.1) will help since I can't find a list of fixes.

Any ideas?

posted by Could it be, El Guapo ... to Technology (4 answers total)

You lost me. Your description doesn't make any sense to me:

I have a smart playlist that contains unrated songs.

In iTunes, right?

When I start rating songs, I can see the number of unrated songs in the playlist.

Again, I assume this is in iTunes as the iPod won't tell you how many songs are in a playlist.

The next day, when I refresh the playlist ...

iTunes, again, right? You can't refresh a playlist in the iPod.

Since I didn't connect to iTunes in between, I'm pretty sure it's an ipod issue.

Wha? I don't understand.
posted by dobbs at 9:29 AM on November 20, 2005

The 4G iPod no longer refreshes smart playlists on the fly; it only does it when synced with iTunes. This is a bug in the latest iPod updater. I discovered it, then restored the iPod firmware from the software included on the CD and everything works fine again.
posted by bonaldi at 9:34 AM on November 20, 2005

Also, this iPod (I have the same model) seems to crash/reboot every now and then. You can recognise when this has happened if it greets you with the big Apple logo on the display.

Perhaps it doesn't save ratings on the disc but keeps them in memory and thus forgets about them all when it crashes/reboots.
posted by LanTao at 12:27 PM on November 20, 2005

Response by poster: Dobbs:

-the smart playlist is on the ipod
-I can see the number of songs in the smart playlist on the ipod.
-as bonaldi mentioned, version 3.02 of the firmware did refresh smart playlists on the ipod. Version 3.1 does not.

LanTao:

I have seen this behaviour too, but I'm pretty sure this doesn't happen every time I lose ratings.
posted by Could it be, El Guapo ... at 2:13 PM on November 20, 2005