iPod not showing up on iTunes

i am having this exact problem! i previously had itunes 5 on my mac, so i thought that may have been the problem so i downloaded itunes 6 and it still isn't showing up.
to be honest, i didn't even care about the ipod, i got it from work as a bonus and thought i'd see what it's like. now, i am completely obsessed with getting it to work!
is yours a nano too? also, it did work before?? that is so weird if it suddenly just stopped!
hope someone is able to help us with this, can't handle this dumb ipod obsession much longer!
thanks!!!!

Did you try closing and reopening iTunes? That's all I have to do when it happens to me.

i did, tons of times. this stinks. i even reset my ipod and reistalled the ipod software. hmmmm, i wonder what it could be.
thanks for the suggestion though!

I've always found it happened when I had iTunes open and connected my Nano through a hub. It'd mount on the desktop but not iTunes until I relaunched it. Sorry I couldn't help you beyond that. Seems to be a quirk in Nanos because I've never seen it on my 30GB iPod.

What kind of iPod is it? If it is a 5G or a nano you have to use USB2, firewire is no longer supported to transfer songs to the iPod.

[edit: I just realised that you stated that you have a 4th gen, I dont know what to tell you. Sorry.]

i have a nano - but am not too familiar with computer terminoligy....um, what is USB2??? and what is firewire? so, do i have to buy something else for it? sorry about being a technological moron, but i really have no clue!

wait... so confused. on my nano, if i go into the menu, then "settings", then "about" it says "format: windows". does that mean that i am not able to use it on my mac?? oh no - i hope not! i've never even used this thing -i am so confused! thanks in advance!

The cable that comes with the Nano is a Dock to USB 2 cable. It connects to the computer and the dock is the port in the bottom of the nano.


Nope. Mine is formatted in Windows too. It does however mean you can't update the iPods software from a mac though, which is annoying.

Not sure about everyone else, but I had this problem. Didn't go away until I closed and relaunched itunes. I actually WANT my ipod formatted for windows in FAT32, but I can't find a way to do it on my mac. Disk utility doesn't offer the option (anymore; I'm on OSX 10.4.8 ) . Guess I'll have to use a PC.

There was a question about firewire vs USB. The symbols next to the ports on your mac will tell you. USB symbol looks kind of like a pitch fork. Firewire looks like a "Y" with an open circle in the middle.

I am having the same problem with my 3G iPod. It has been working flawlessly for many years but I tried to mount it and update my songs and it will show up on the desktop but not in iTunes. It does show up in the system profiler. I reset the iPod via the updater and keypresses. I trashed the plist files for the iPod and iTunes. Still nothing.

What was strange was that Yami-pod does not see it as an iPod either so it is not just iTunes.

My iPod shuffle works just fine and mounts right away in iTunes.

your problem is easy to see in Itunes, do you use Itunes7? if so, it can be solved.i only use iTunes to transfer, no ripping, when i ripping ,i used Imtoo for my movie and music .

I actually fixed my problem by resetting the PRAM on the eMac. After I reset the PRAM the iPod showed up when mounted and launched iTunes and started to sync.

Problem solved!

hey,congratuation~lucy guy~ maybe resetting the PRAM can also hlep me to solve my iPod's problem! the movie which is ripping by imtoo and then i transfer it to my iPod by Itunes, but for every folder of movie, there has a files which name is auto.ini~ and i can not delete it~

well ,is that ture? never hear that before? what do you mean about Imtoo? is that a tool ?

If the .ini file is in there with your movie file I would not worry about it. These are usually information files that instruct or intialize a program. There is a way to remove them but you must be really carefull with the command as it will erase everything you tell it to without asking! Even your entire hard drive!

Since it is so dangerous I won't tell you want to do, you will have to read for yourself so you know what you are doing. Do a google search for the unix rm (remove) command. It will explain this command and how to use it.

Here is a good, quick primer on the command:

http://www.devdaily.com/unix/edu/examples/rm.shtml

it is a tool for ripping movie,i purchased it by accident,but for ripping movie ,a little powerful than free tool.

thanks for your advice~ i will think about carefully before i use this command. i think the auto.ini is a virus before,why the other folders do not have this file~only in the movie folder. according to
, i think maybe it is brought by my movie ripping tool~ But my iPod is good , no thing wrong~,i think it is not harmful to my iPod

not the problem of the converter(i do not know imtoo ) ,in window,there is a virus called auto.ini. But sometimes it only happen in flash memory~

well, i can not agree with you that iTunes is not a good tool~,include transfer, iTunes also can ripping music, easy use`

I have had this same problem with my video ipod classic. Despite following all the suggestions here and elsewhere I simply could not get my ipod to work properly; however, I finally succeeded in getting it to work and will describe the steps I took so that others may benefit. I can't guarantee what I did will work for everyone but it is definitely worth trying before buying a new one or sending it in for repair. First let me say that I tried getting it to work on two separate computers with two different operating systems (XP and Vista) and neither one worked properly. I started with Apple's suggeston of the five R's and that didn't work. I tried other steps as well posted on varous forums around the net but they didn't work either. When I say the suggestion did not work, I mean the way it is supposed to. I was able to manually add music after restoring however, after each file I loaded I got a message stating "unable to sync ipod, unknown error -48". This was in addition to itunes freezing and at times locking my computer. Keep in mind the music would be there even though the message said it wasn't. Regardless, sometimes the songs would cut off or be merged with each other. After dealing with this for a while I decided to restore to factory settings again with Vista. After doing this itunes would not recognize my ipod. I tried repeatedly to make it work to no avail. I was ready to send it in for repair but decided to try one last thing before dishing out money. I plugged my wife's video nano in while having itunes open and the video classic plugged in at the same time. Her ipod was immedietly recognized while the classic could not be seen (I always could see it in my computer but not itunes). I then decided to delete the music folder from the classic and copy and paste the music folder from the nano. I then ejected them both, waited a few minutes and plugged in the classic with itunes open. Immedietly itunes gave me a message that "the music on this ipod cannot be played because it is not compatible with this ipod" or something to that effect. The only option I was given was to restore the ipod to factory settings which I did yet again. I received a message saying that the ipod was restored and would appear momentarily in itunes. Yeah, right, heard that before! I was thinking it was going to be no different when lo and behold there appears my ipod in itunes! I knew it was going to work when I told it to sync because the animation for the sync was working both in itunes and on the ipod itself which previously was not showing in itunes. Additionally, I had been having problems with itunes freezing when trying to sync but now everything was butter smooth. After adding 5GB of music and over 20GB of video the sync was complete, I disconnected the ipod and everything worked like it was supposed to. That was several weeks ago now and everything continues to work as it should. I know this post is lengthy but I thought it might help someone as my Internet searches revealed that this is a very common problem. I should also note that I copied and pasted the artwork folder from my wife's ipod as well as the music. I'm not sure if pasting that one matters, but I am sharing since that step was included when getting mine to work. If you don't know how to access the music on your ipod you can do an Internet search to find out how. The files are hidden and oddly enough, are not in the 'Recordings' folder; they are in the 'iPod_Control' folder and are oddly named. Well, I hope this helps someone or better yet the many people out there who have had a similar problem and spent countless hours of frustration trying to correct this problem. Good Luck!