1st iPod and not impressed due to connecting and disconnecting issues

sc_markt

I've finally got an iPod (30G video) and have been using it for about a week or so. (Technically, I did have a 1st gen nano but I returned it within a day or so).

The 30Gig Video iPod sounds great and it's easy to get songs into it. The case quality also looks good. For the most part, I'm satisfied with everything about it except in how it interacts with the computer when connecting or disconnecting it.



It seems like every other time I connect it, it doesn't show up in iTunes. Right now, I hit the eject button in iTunes and the iTunes cursor is just spinning away. This is also common and what has happend before in this situation is once I forcefully turn off the iPod (by toggleing the lock switch and then holding down the menu and center buttons), I remove the iPod. Regarding iTunes, I'll then have to force quit it about 4 times which usually turns off the menumeters in the menubar. At this point, I'll have to log out and then log back in and try this over.



This really sucks. A brand new Apple product and nothing but connecting issues with it? And I know its not me because I've been to the Apple forums and there are lots of threads with similar issues.



So what gives? Why the quality issues with connections? (I'm running 10.4.9).



- Mark

rich-myster

Quote:

Originally Posted by sc_markt


I've finally got an iPod (30G video) and have been using it for about a week or so. (Technically, I did have a 1st gen nano but I returned it within a day or so).

The 30Gig Video iPod sounds great and it's easy to get songs into it. The case quality also looks good. For the most part, I'm satisfied with everything about it except in how it interacts with the computer when connecting or disconnecting it.



It seems like every other time I connect it, it doesn't show up in iTunes. Right now, I hit the eject button in iTunes and the iTunes cursor is just spinning away. This is also common and what has happend before in this situation is once I forcefully turn off the iPod (by toggleing the lock switch and then holding down the menu and center buttons), I remove the iPod. Regarding iTunes, I'll then have to force quit it about 4 times which usually turns off the menumeters in the menubar. At this point, I'll have to log out and then log back in and try this over.



This really sucks. A brand new Apple product and nothing but connecting issues with it? And I know its not me because I've been to the Apple forums and there are lots of threads with similar issues.



So what gives? Why the quality issues with connections? (I'm running 10.4.9).



- Mark

when i had my ipod, whenever i'd disconnect it it'd also disconnect my wireless card. i also had a problem with connection as you say. all i did was plugged it and unplugged it till it showed up in itunes. funny thing is, is that i sold my ipod to my cousin for some extra cash and like 2 months after her having it it got put through the washer. at least the hard drive is clean.

sc_markt

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rich-Myster


when i had my ipod, whenever i'd disconnect it it'd also disconnect my wireless card. i also had a problem with connection as you say. all i did was plugged it and unplugged it till it showed up in itunes. funny thing is, is that i sold my ipod to my cousin for some extra cash and like 2 months after her having it it got put through the washer. at least the hard drive is clean.

I'm at a new point with this iPod. It's not even showing up in itunes anymore.

follow

I'm having similar problems, but I think the problem is my ipod's dying hard drive (it's making some pretty strange whirr-click noises).

It looks to me like the the system (SystemUIServer in activity monitor I believe) can't resolve the troubled HD and hangs all operations while it tries to figure out what's going on.

Maybe you got a lemon ipod that needs to be taken in.

maimezvous

Have you tried restoring it to factory settings? Sometimes that helps. Other than that I don't know what else to do.

sc_markt

Quote:

Originally Posted by maimezvous


Have you tried restoring it to factory settings? Sometimes that helps. Other than that I don't know what else to do.

I went through about 3 of the 5 r's listed on the Apple ipod support site and now it's working again (and when it works, it works great. The music quaility is excellent and I even playded a tv show from the iPod to my TV and it looked really good).

I'm not at the point yet that I think it's a lemon. I also think part of the problem may be in how I connect it. For example, I sort of noticed that when I'm in iTunes on the Apple store and connect my iPod, it won't show up in iTunes. However, when I'm in my music library and connect the iPod, it shows up.



If there was one feature I would like, it would be the ability to shuffle songs when I'm in a specified genere or album or artist folder. As it is now, when I hit shuffle and then play, I could go from J.S. Bach's 'Brandenburg Concerto #1 In F, BWV 1046 - 1. Allegro' to 'Everybody Wants Some!!' by Van Halen.



- Mark

sc_markt

For the record, I had to call Apple help and they were really helpful but didn't solve the problem. I ended up sending it in and Apple said no trouble found. When I got the unit back, it was worse than before as I couldn't even get the iPod to show up anymore. I called Apple again and they suggested I bring it to an Apple store Genius bar. I did and it worked fine. I then had the guy reformat the drive to a mac format (it was in dos and I have a PPC mac). After it was reformated, it worked again on about 6 different machines. When I got it home, it connected first time and has connected first time and every time since.



I have no idea what, if anything, was fixed but so far, so good.