My ipod has the flu.

August 5, 2007 12:14 AM

Sigh. iPod problems and I can't figure them out. They key obstacle is "Sync failed: unknown error (-124)", followed by "iPod cannot be synced: required folder cannot be found". More fascating details inside. Fun for the whole family!

It's an old model, a 3G, back when they still had the row of menu buttons. I'm using windows XP and the latest version of iTunes.

Everything worked fine on the old computer (windows 2000, old iTunes version). Upgrade, and the problem starts.

For a while iTunes just wouldn't recognise the iPod was connected. I played around, and eventually I found out that if I plug the iPod in before starting iTunes, it will appear in iTunes. It will let me manually sync playlists, but if I tell it to just upload all of the music it will get half-way through before the error message. Once that happens, the iPod dies and I need to restore it to get it healthy again.

I've done the 5 Rs and looked around for other suggestions, but nothing magical has happened yet.

So: what do I do?

And, for a bonus question just to see if a theory of mine works, is it possible to downgrade iTunes 7.1 to an earlier version?

posted by twirlypen to computers & internet (3 comments total)

OldVersion.com
posted by B(oYo)BIES at 12:20 AM on August 5, 2007

If you haven't turned off System Restore, you may be able to revert back to the old version of iTunes that way.
posted by Effigy2000 at 12:28 AM on August 5, 2007

The poster indicated the the old version was on a different computer, so System Restore won't help. An old version is also unlikely to fix this. If you are sure that the 5 R's have been carried out successfully, the only other tips I have heard are to change the device's name and to turn on and off disk use.

This post indicated it may have something to do with the name of the iPod.

Another thread I found where people indicated they fixed this message through various methods. It sounds like there is still a cache somewhere in either the iPod or your iTunes that is looking to sync files from a directory (probably a directory on your old drive) that is no longer a valid path on the new machine.

If all else fails, you could always call Apple support.
posted by sophist at 4:06 AM on August 5, 2007