iPod and iTunes are no longer on speaking terms.
October 17, 2007 5:20 PM Subscribe
My iPod and iTunes are no longer cooperating. Every attempt to sync maxes out my memory use and hangs the iTunes app.
I seem to have offended iTunes.
I have a 30GB iPod Video. At the moment, it has about 27GB of content, all music. Until the other day, I had my iTunes library (PC) sync'd with my iPod via iTunes. Just seemed simpler that way. Well, retail interest got the better of me and I made a music purchase through Lala.com's new direct-to-iPod venture. How that works is you download a piece of Lala branded software, a plug-in basically, that not only allows their website to see the contents of your iPod, but allows the customer to "sync" songs purchased from Lala directly onto the iPod, circumventing iTunes.
This did not work initially, because (as stated) iTunes would start when the iPod was connected and would immediately sync. The Lala track would be copied over, but the disconnect clean-up part of the iTunes sync would spot the interloping files and nix them. Annoying. Lala's support page says that one should switch from sync to manually manage in iTunes. So I did so. As advised, a second attempt to "sync" with Lala was a success. My purchased Lala music was on my iPod.
This morning, I plugged in my iPod to add another set of ripped mp3s from a new CD. Though I had set iPod to manual, it gave the standard "Syncing iPod, do not disconnect" message atop iTunes. iTunes then commenced to hanging, but not before my LastFM scrobbler told me that it had found over 2,000 songs dating back to 2005. Something was wrong. I killed iTunes through Task Manager (it was "Not Responding" and memory use was at 100%). My iPod was still giving the "Do Not Disconnect" screen, so I rebooted it to disconnect.
I'd no time to mess with it further this morning. I backed up my iTunes library folder to an external drive and went to work.
This evening, I uninstalled iTunes according to Apple's instructions, then re-installed with the latest download. iTunes found my existing music library. Connecting the iPod gave the same results as before. Sync commenced immediately, then hung.
Additionally, I uninstalled all of the little iTunes monitoring apps like LastFM, MOG and Audioscrobbler. As well as the Lala plug-in.
I reopened iTunes (after killing the process, rebooting the iPod, etc) and deleted all of the media in the library. It is backed up, after all. Connecting the iPod gave the same results as before. Sync commenced immediately, then hung.
So I went into my Application Data and deleted the preference files for iTunes. This time, when I started iTunes, I was prompted with the EULA, then the find my music dialogue. I told iTunes not to search, so now my library was truly empty and fresh. But yet ... Connecting the iPod gave the same results as before. Sync commenced immediately, then hung. (Why yes, I am copying/pasting this last bit.)
Next, I tried a new trick. If you hold down Shift-Ctrl while plugging in the iPod, sync will not commence immediately. This looked like a win, as I thought I'd be able to change my settings back to auto-sync, select Apply and go. But one more time ... hitting Apply gave the "Syncing iPod, do not disconnect" message, but it wasn't syncing. It was hung.
I tried the Shift-Click again. This time, I hit Restore. And .... iTunes hung.
So ... I have an empty iTunes. I have an almost full iPod. But I'm unable to put new songs on the iPod or take existing songs off. What to do now? Re-install again? Is there a way to Restore without iTunes? Might this be an effect of the most recent iTunes software update? If so, can I roll it back? Or wait out the next update?
I seem to have offended iTunes.
I have a 30GB iPod Video. At the moment, it has about 27GB of content, all music. Until the other day, I had my iTunes library (PC) sync'd with my iPod via iTunes. Just seemed simpler that way. Well, retail interest got the better of me and I made a music purchase through Lala.com's new direct-to-iPod venture. How that works is you download a piece of Lala branded software, a plug-in basically, that not only allows their website to see the contents of your iPod, but allows the customer to "sync" songs purchased from Lala directly onto the iPod, circumventing iTunes.
This did not work initially, because (as stated) iTunes would start when the iPod was connected and would immediately sync. The Lala track would be copied over, but the disconnect clean-up part of the iTunes sync would spot the interloping files and nix them. Annoying. Lala's support page says that one should switch from sync to manually manage in iTunes. So I did so. As advised, a second attempt to "sync" with Lala was a success. My purchased Lala music was on my iPod.
This morning, I plugged in my iPod to add another set of ripped mp3s from a new CD. Though I had set iPod to manual, it gave the standard "Syncing iPod, do not disconnect" message atop iTunes. iTunes then commenced to hanging, but not before my LastFM scrobbler told me that it had found over 2,000 songs dating back to 2005. Something was wrong. I killed iTunes through Task Manager (it was "Not Responding" and memory use was at 100%). My iPod was still giving the "Do Not Disconnect" screen, so I rebooted it to disconnect.
I'd no time to mess with it further this morning. I backed up my iTunes library folder to an external drive and went to work.
This evening, I uninstalled iTunes according to Apple's instructions, then re-installed with the latest download. iTunes found my existing music library. Connecting the iPod gave the same results as before. Sync commenced immediately, then hung.
Additionally, I uninstalled all of the little iTunes monitoring apps like LastFM, MOG and Audioscrobbler. As well as the Lala plug-in.
I reopened iTunes (after killing the process, rebooting the iPod, etc) and deleted all of the media in the library. It is backed up, after all. Connecting the iPod gave the same results as before. Sync commenced immediately, then hung.
So I went into my Application Data and deleted the preference files for iTunes. This time, when I started iTunes, I was prompted with the EULA, then the find my music dialogue. I told iTunes not to search, so now my library was truly empty and fresh. But yet ... Connecting the iPod gave the same results as before. Sync commenced immediately, then hung. (Why yes, I am copying/pasting this last bit.)
Next, I tried a new trick. If you hold down Shift-Ctrl while plugging in the iPod, sync will not commence immediately. This looked like a win, as I thought I'd be able to change my settings back to auto-sync, select Apply and go. But one more time ... hitting Apply gave the "Syncing iPod, do not disconnect" message, but it wasn't syncing. It was hung.
I tried the Shift-Click again. This time, I hit Restore. And .... iTunes hung.
So ... I have an empty iTunes. I have an almost full iPod. But I'm unable to put new songs on the iPod or take existing songs off. What to do now? Re-install again? Is there a way to Restore without iTunes? Might this be an effect of the most recent iTunes software update? If so, can I roll it back? Or wait out the next update?
Can you just blow the iPod away with a fresh system restore? I'm unclear on whether or not you tried that yet. If that results in a freeze too, there's another fix available.
iPods, at least older ones, also will look like disks to the OS if you don't have iTunes installed. You can remove iTunes and LaLa, and plug in the iPod, which shows up as a removable disk. Then you can go into Disk Management (right click the My Computer icon and choose Manage, and go to Disk Management)... and repartition and reformat it to wipe it out. This will result in an icon on the iPod indicating that it's mostly nonfunctional -- it can boot only into disk mode and can't play anything, because you removed its system software.
But, not to worry. You can now reinstall iTunes, rescan your music library, and then do a full System Restore on the player. Then sync up your music (which will take a long time for 27gb), and off you go.
Apple doesn't like other people selling you music for your iPod; they appear to be developing into anti-consumer assholes, and it would not surprise me if this was deliberate on their part to screw up Lala.
posted by Malor at 6:37 PM on October 17, 2007
iPods, at least older ones, also will look like disks to the OS if you don't have iTunes installed. You can remove iTunes and LaLa, and plug in the iPod, which shows up as a removable disk. Then you can go into Disk Management (right click the My Computer icon and choose Manage, and go to Disk Management)... and repartition and reformat it to wipe it out. This will result in an icon on the iPod indicating that it's mostly nonfunctional -- it can boot only into disk mode and can't play anything, because you removed its system software.
But, not to worry. You can now reinstall iTunes, rescan your music library, and then do a full System Restore on the player. Then sync up your music (which will take a long time for 27gb), and off you go.
Apple doesn't like other people selling you music for your iPod; they appear to be developing into anti-consumer assholes, and it would not surprise me if this was deliberate on their part to screw up Lala.
posted by Malor at 6:37 PM on October 17, 2007
Response by poster: I put it into Disk Mode after posting this question. Then, because I found at least one recommendation to do so, I determined that I could indeed go around iTunes and re-format the iPod like a hard drive into FAT32.
This process has taken most of an hour, as I didn't take the Quick Format route. But in the end, I should be able to do just as Malor recommended.
posted by grabbingsand at 6:59 PM on October 17, 2007
This process has taken most of an hour, as I didn't take the Quick Format route. But in the end, I should be able to do just as Malor recommended.
posted by grabbingsand at 6:59 PM on October 17, 2007
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Memo at 5:55 PM on October 17, 2007